Galería de las Estatuas in Atapuerca could be one of Spain’s most ancient Neanderthal sites
The CENIEH researcher Davinia Moreno publishes a study with the Electron Spin Resonance and Uranium Series dates obtained for this Upper Pleistocene site, which confirm an age of between 70,000 and 115,000 years.
Moreno et al (2022). ESR/U-series chronology of the Neanderthal occupation layers at Galería de las Estatuas (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain), Quaternary Geochronology 72, 101342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2022.101342
Davinia Moreno, a geochronologist at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), is the lead author of a paper which combines the Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) and Uranium Series (U-series) dating methods to better constrain the age of the Galería de las Estatuas (GE) site, and it thus shows that GE could be one of the Iberian Peninsula’s most ancient Neanderthal sites.
Galería de las Estatuas, within the Cueva Mayor-Cueva del Silo Complex in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain), has been excavated without interruption since 2008 at two test pits, GE-I (9 m2) and GE-II (6 m2), that have revealed an Upper Pleistocene detrital stratigraphic sequence sealed by a speleothem. This paper, published in the journal Quaternary Geochronology, has provided new numerical ages from 92,000-104,000 years for GE-I, while 115,000 years was obtained for GE-II.
First Neanderthal fossil
Galería de las Estatuas yielded the first Neanderthal fossil (a foot phalanx) of the Sierra de Atapuerca karstic system, along with lithic artefacts of clear affinity to the Mousterian industry associated with the Neanderthals, as well as other paleontological remains. The sediments have also furnished Neanderthal mitochondrial and nuclear DNA.