Anthropology

pscot

(21,024 posts) Thu Jun 19, 2014, 07:46 PM Jun 2014

Missing Link found in Spain

Just kidding.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/19/neanderthal-faces-spanish-cave

Ancient skulls recovered from a deep cave in northern Spain are the oldest known remains to show clear signs of Neanderthal facial features, researchers claim.

Scientists reconstructed 17 skulls from pieces of bone found in the mud at Sima de los Huesos, or the "Pit of Bones", in the Atapuerca mountains. The skulls had some Neanderthal-like features, but their appearance was otherwise far more primitive.

Juan Luis Arsuaga, professor of palaeontology at the Complutense University of Madrid, said the remains belonged to a "missing link" population that fell somewhere between the Neanderthals and a more archaic group of human forerunners

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Missing Link found in Spain (Original Post) pscot Jun 2014 OP

Neanderthal facial features appearing for the first time 430,000 years ago Ichingcarpenter Jun 2014 #1

Ichingcarpenter

(36,988 posts)

1. Neanderthal facial features appearing for the first time 430,000 years ago

Reply to pscot (Original post)

Fri Jun 20, 2014, 04:33 AM

Jun 2014

In previous reports, the Spanish researchers had claimed the Sima de los Huesos remains were much older, around 600,000 years old, and that they belonged to an ancient group called Homo heidelbergensis. The latest study changes both of those interpretations.

"They now agree that the fossils belong to the Neanderthal lineage but not to the species Homo heidelbergensis. And they have revised the dating of the fossils to about 430,000 years, giving much more substantial agreement between our views," said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London.

"The rich Sima de los Huesos material, with every part of the skeleton beautifully preserved, will continue to inform us about human evolution 400,000 years ago as research continues on this astonishing, and even beautiful, collection of human fossils," Stringer said.

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