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<< Other Photo Pages >> Sima de los Huesos - Cave or Rock Shelter in Spain in Castilla y León

Submitted by coldrum on Friday, 08 January 2021  Page Views: 11410

Mesolithic, Palaeolithic and EarlierSite Name: Sima de los Huesos
Country: Spain Region: Castilla y León Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
Nearest Town: Burgos
Latitude: 42.347400N  Longitude: 3.5178W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
5 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Sima de los Huesos
Sima de los Huesos submitted by Andy B : Archaeologists unearth 430,000-year-old murder case Site in Castilla y León Spain London, May 28 : Lethal wounds identified on a 430,000-year-old human skull in Sima de los Huesos, Spain, may indicate one of the first cases of murder in human history, say researchers. A nearly complete skull, Cranium 17 from Sima de los Huesos, is comprised of 52 cranial fragments recovered... tamil... (Vote or comment on this photo)
The Sima de los Huesos Cave in Castilla y León is a specific site within the famous Atapuerca complex. The very peculiar geological structure of this site is the only explanation so far conceived for the phenomenon observed at Sima de los Huesos: the site has been a tomb for different kinds of hominids and humans (including especially Neanderthals) for thousand of years.

The Sima de los Huesos is particularly important to Spanish prehistory specialists and enthusasts alike, as it provides so much information on our first ancestors.

Past news: Remains of First Known Murdered Human Found. See comment.

Note: Evidence from this cave suggests that early humans may have survived the harsh winters by hibernating, more details in the comments on our page.
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Sima de los Huesos
Sima de los Huesos submitted by Flickr : Huesos de la Sima de los Huesos Cráneo de Homo Heidelbergensis. Image copyright: JoseAngelGarciaLanda (Jose Angel García Landa), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Sima de los Huesos
Sima de los Huesos submitted by Flickr : L-Evolución - Sima de los huesos Exhibition made by ALE! at the "Museo de la Evolución Humana" (Museum of Human Evolution) in Burgos, Spain. Image copyright: | MolochBaal , hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

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Nearby Images from Flickr
Cuevas de Altapuerca - El neanderthal -
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Restaurante Los Claveles, Ibeas de Juarros, Spain
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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 318m NNW 336° Atapuerca Caves Cave or Rock Shelter
 4.0km NNE 25° Atapuerca* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 9.8km NNE 14° La Brujula tumulus* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 15.3km W 267° Castrillo de la Reina Castro or Chafurdão
 21.5km NW 321° La Polera Necropolis* Round Barrow(s)
 23.4km S 176° Cubillejo Dolmen Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 24.8km S 179° Mazariegos Dolmen* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 29.3km SSE 165° Hortigüela Ancient Village or Settlement
 31.2km SSE 160° Jaramillo Quemado Round Barrow(s)
 31.4km WNW 291° Piedra Alta* Standing Stone (Menhir)
 34.2km NW 310° Ruyales del Páramo 1 Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 35.6km SSE 160° Morcales Round Barrow(s)
 39.1km NE 50° Barranco Del Valle Tumulua Round Barrow(s)
 39.6km NNW 336° Fuente Pecina Dolmen 2* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 39.6km NNW 336° Fuente Pecina Dolmen 4 Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 39.6km NNW 335° Fuente Pecina Dolmen 3* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 39.7km NNW 336° Fuente Pecina Dolmen 1 Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 43.1km NNW 342° Las Arnillas Dolmen* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 43.1km NNW 335° La Mina Dolmen (Páramos)* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 43.6km NNW 343° La Nava Negra* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 44.7km NNW 328° San Quirce Dolmen Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 44.8km NNW 336° Necrópolis medieval e Iglesia de Santa María Barrow Cemetery
 45.7km NNW 337° Ciella Dolmen Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 46.2km NNW 332° Valdemuriel Dolmen 1* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 46.9km NNW 345° Dolmen de Cista Nava Alta Cist
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"Sima de los Huesos" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Early humans may have survived the harsh winters by hibernating by davidmorgan on Sunday, 20 December 2020
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Evidence from bones found at one of the world’s most important fossil sites suggests that our hominid predecessors may have dealt with extreme cold hundreds of thousands of years ago by sleeping through the winter.

The scientists argue that lesions and other signs of damage in fossilised bones of early humans are the same as those left in the bones of other animals that hibernate. These suggest that our predecessors coped with the ferocious winters at that time by slowing down their metabolisms and sleeping for months.

From The Guardian.
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Remains of First Known Murdered Human Found by bat400 on Friday, 05 June 2015
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The first known murder in human history took place 430,000 years ago in Spain, suggests a new study that describes the mutilated remains of the victim.

While the study, published in the latest issue of the journal PLOS ONE, does not specify the species of human, the site and the time of the likely crime indicate that the first known murder victim was a proto-Neanderthal, meaning an early member of the Neanderthal lineage.

The victim’s skull appears to have been bashed twice, leading to his or her demise.
“The type of injuries, their location, the strong similarity of the fractures in shape and size, and the different orientations and implied trajectories of the two fractures suggest they were produced with the same object in face-to-face interpersonal conflict,” lead author Nohemi Sala and colleagues write.
“Given that either of the two traumatic events was likely lethal, the presence of multiple blows implies an intention to kill,” they added.

Sala, a researcher at Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos in Madrid, and an international team came to this conclusion after studying the skull in detail. It was unearthed at a well-known Spanish site called Sima de los Huesos (SH) where at least 28 Neanderthals and proto-Neanderthals have been found.

During the time that bones began to accumulate at the site, the only possible access route to the place was “through a deep vertical chimney,” the authors said.

The origin of the accumulation has been hotly debated, with four different theories proposed: 1- non-human carnivores dragged their prey there, 2- geological activity somehow led to the accumulation, 3- accidental falls, and 4- intentional accumulation of bodies by early humans.

Could the victim described in the study have tripped and fallen down the shaft, hitting his or her head a couple of times on the way down?

The scientists reject that remote possibility.
They explained that “any scenario related to the free-fall would require the highly improbable occurrence of the same object striking the skull twice.”

The orientation of the hits, based on damage to the skull, further suggest that someone wielding an object bashed the head with near equal force, resulting in two fractures that would have penetrated the bone-brain barrier. Sala and colleagues therefore believe that the victim “did not survive these cranial traumatic events.”

Then there’s the question of how the murdered remains wound up going down the shaft. The researchers propose that the site was reserved for disposal of dead individuals.

“The only possible manner by which a deceased individual could have arrived at the SH site is if its cadaver were dropped down the shaft by other hominins (early humans),” they wrote.

“Thus, the interpretation of the SH site as a place where hominins deposited deceased members of their social groups seems to be the most likely scenario to explain the presence of human bodies at the site,” they continued.

This means, they conclude, that it may “represent the earliest funerary behavior in the human fossil record.”

For more, see Discovery News
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Earliest Traces of a Disabled, Aged Human Found by bat400 on Sunday, 17 October 2010
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Early humans must have taken care of this elderly member of their group, providing some of the first evidence of compassion.

Submitted by coldrum --

A prehistoric pelvis and other fossilized bones are what's left of the world's first known elderly human with clear signs of aging and impairment, according to a paper in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The remains, which date back to 500,000 years ago, also represent the earliest post-cranial evidence for an aged individual in the human fossil record.

Alejandro Bonmati, a researcher at Complutense University of Madrid and the Carlos III Institute of Health, and his colleagues unearthed the lower back and pelvis for the aged individual at a site called Sima de los Huesos in Spain.

Analysis of the fossils indicates the male Homo heidelbergensis was over age 45 and suffered from a spinal deformity that would have caused him a lot of pain and forced him to stoop over. It's not clear how much older than 45 he was. The researcher, however, are certain that he was elderly based on his remains.

"He possibly used a cane, just as a modern elderly person does," Bonmati said. "This individual may not have been an active hunter and was impaired to carry heavy loads, thus an important source of his food would depend on other members of the group, which would mean sharing."

As a senior, the individual would have had expertise in finding food and more, the researchers suspected, so he must have been a valuable contributor to his group. As a result, the male may also provide some of the world's first evidence for compassion and cooperation among early humans.

"We wouldn't say that he was a burden to his group, but rather that this was a greatly socialized group with solidarity bonds between individuals," Bonmati said.
The elderly fellow was a member of the species Homo heidelbergensis, a type of ancient human believed by some to be exclusive to Europe and ancestral only to Neanderthals. Modern humans are thought to descend from the Middle Pleistocene African species Homo rhodesiensis. Since that species and Homo heidelbergensis shared a common "grandfather species" around one million years ago, "this (elderly male) individual would belong to our 'uncle' species, meaning he is not ancestral but closely related," Bonmati told Discovery News.

Homo heidelbergensis had a large brain and certain anatomy, such as a highly developed inner ear, he explained. These features suggest this species had some form of spoken language that would have helped to bond individuals together.

The findings come on the heels of yet another new study, published in the journal Time and Mind, which describes the discovered remains of a Neanderthal child with a congenital brain abnormality who was not abandoned, but instead lived until the about age five or six.

Lead author Penny Spikins, a University of York archaeologist, said all provide evidence for compassion among early humans. "Compassion is perhaps the most fundamental human emotion. It binds us together and can inspire us, but it is also fragile and elusive," she said.

"This apparent fragility makes addressing the evidence for the development of compassion in our most ancient ancestors a unique challenge," Spikins added, "yet the archaeological record has an important story to tell about the prehistory of compassion."



For more, see news.discovery.com.
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