Search USGS⌕ Search
Home/Archive/USGS

USGS · 70025902

The Sima de los Huesos hominids date to beyond U/Th equilibrium (>350 kyr) and perhaps to 400-500 kyr: New radiometric dates

J. L. Bischoff·D.D. Shamp·Arantza Aramburu·J.L. Arsuaga·E. Carbonell·Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The Sima de los Huesos site of the Atapuerca complex near Burgos, Spain contains the skeletal remains of at least 28 individuals in a mud breccia underlying an accumulation of the Middle Pleistocene cave bear (U. deningeri). Earlier dating estimates of 200 to 320 kyr were based on U-series and ESR methods applied to bones, made inaccurate by unquantifiable uranium cycling. We report here on a new discovery within the Sima de los Huesos of human bones stratigraphically underlying an in situ speleothem. U-series analyses of the speleothem shows the lower part to be at isotopic U/Th equilibrium, translating to a firm lower limit of 350 kyr for the SH hominids. Finite dates on the upper part suggest a speleothem growth rate of c. 1 cm/32 kyr. This rate, along with paleontological constraints, place the likely age of the hominids in the interval of 400 to 600 kyr. ?? 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Explore related subjects

Journal of Archaeological ScienceArticle

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

J. L. Bischoff, D.D. Shamp, Arantza Aramburu, J.L. Arsuaga, E. Carbonell, Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro. 2003. The Sima de los Huesos hominids date to beyond U/Th equilibrium (>350 kyr) and perhaps to 400-500 kyr: New radiometric dates. https://doi.org/10.1006/jasc.2002.0834

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related USGS reports

USGS2021

The enigma of the Předmostí protodogs. A comment on Prassack et al. 2020

Prassack et al. (2020) analyzed dental microwear in a sample of canids from the Gravettian site of Předmostí that had been identified as either Paleolithic dogs or Pleistocene wolves ( n = 10 in each group), accepting that the morphological differences between the groups validly distinguished the (self-domesticating) protodogs from wolves. The authors then concluded that differences in one m2 microwear pattern separated those groups and indicated enhanced anthropogenic based durophagy in the putative protodogs. The study also inferred protodog diets from another isotope study.

Journal of Archaeological Science↗
USGS2014

Mummy Lake: An unroofed ceremonial structure within a large-scale ritual landscape

The structure at Mesa Verde National Park known historically as Mummy Lake and more recently as Far View Reservoir is not part of a water collection, impoundment, or redistribution system. We offer an alternative explanation for the function of Mummy Lake. We suggest that it is an unroofed ceremonial structure, and that it serves as an essential component of a Chacoan ritual landscape. A wide constructed avenue articulates Mummy Lake with Far View House and Pipe Shrine House. The avenue continues southward for approximately 6 km where it apparently divides connecting with Spruce Tree House and Sun Temple/Cliff Palace. The avenue has previously been interpreted as an irrigation ditch fed by water impounded at Mummy Lake; however, it conforms in every respect to alignments described as Chacoan roads. Tree-ring dates indicate that the construction of Spruce Tree House and Cliff Palace began about A.D. 1225, roughly coincident with the abandonment of the Far View community. This pattern of periodically relocating the focus of an Anasazi community by retiring existing ritual structures and linking them to newly constructed facilities by means of broad avenues was first documented by Fowler and Stein (1992) in Manuelito Canyon, New Mexico. Periods of intense drought appear to have contributed to the relocation of prehistoric Native Americans from the Far View group to Cliff Palace/Spruce Tree House in the mid-13th century and eventually to the abandonment of all Anasazi communities in southwestern Colorado in the late-13th century.

Journal of Archaeological Science↗
USGS2013

Some thoughts on the factors that controlled prehistoric maize production in the American Southwest with application to southwestern Colorado

In this paper, we present a model of prehistoric southwestern Colorado maize productivity. The model is based on a tree-ring reconstruction of water-year precipitation for Mesa Verde for the period A.D. 480 to 2011. Correlation of historic Mesa Verde precipitation with historic precipitation at 11 other weather stations enabled the construction of an elevation-dependent precipitation function. Prehistoric water-year precipitation values for Mesa Verde together with the elevation-dependent precipitation function allowed construction of the elevation of southwest Colorado precipitation contours for each year since A.D. 480, including the 30-cm contour, which represents the minimum amount of precipitation necessary for the production of maize and the 50-cm contour, which represents the optimum amount of precipitation necessary for the production of maize. In this paper, calculations of prehistoric maize productivity and field life for any specific elevation are also demonstrated. These calculations were performed using organic nitrogen measurements made on seven southwestern Colorado soil groups together with values of reconstructed water-year precipitation and estimations of the organic nitrogen mineralization rate.

Colorado↗