Rolf Quam notes PDF

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● Paleoanthropology is the study of the origins and predecessors of the present human species, using fossils and other remains. ● Branch of anthropology that centers it attention upon hominids. ● Rolf Quam discusses his discoveries from three sites in the Sierra de Atapuerca; a location in northern Spain, generally known for its numerous anthropological sites and excavation campaigns that are merely walking distance from each other. ● First fossil to ever be discovered in the Sierra de Atapuerca was the AT-1 mandible in the 1970s; primitive type of neanderthal. ● Quam also emphasizes a phylogenetic “tree-like”, branching perspective of evolution, rather than a “ladder-like perspective”. ● Species’ lineages customarily change over time, and are derived from common ancestral lineages; natural selection is the predominant, but not exclusive mechanism. ● First site -> “Sima del Elefante”, which is composed of 19 different geological layers. ● These geological levels range between 200,000 years ago and 1.4 million years ago; evidently, this is the location of the oldest sediments and fossils in the Sierra de Atapuerca. ● At this site, the paleoanthropology team discovered a tooth that demonstrated qualities quite common of the lower Pleistocene humans. ● Tooth = 1.2 and 1.4 million years old -> oldest fossil to be unearthed in all of Europe. ● Second site -> “Gran Dolina” -> sixty feet tall, worked on by over forty people, and contained 11 different geological layers. ● Paleomagnetism -> magnetic polarization acquired by the minerals in a rock at the time the rock was deposited or solidified, also proved critical to the excavation process.

Paleoanthropologists were able to distinguish the lower/middle Pleistocene periods in the seventh layer, and determine them to be 780,000 years old. ● Quam and the crew of paleoanthropologists concluded that humans were present in Europe over 780,000 years ago. ●

Fossils were extremely similar to modern humans; especially facially, despite the differences in cheekbone depression.

● Bones discovered at this site also had teeth marks bitten into them; this suggests the practice of cannibalism. ● Third site -> “Sima de los Huesos” ->over 6,000 bones from individuals who had died between 11 and 20 years old. ● Non-neanderthal, pre-neanderthal features; crania were rounded and had a comparable capacity to humans, mental foramen were posteriorly positioned, and mandibles lacked chins. ● Stature of the Homo antecessor was very much like the stature of modern humans; tall, rather than short like neanderthals....