New Dating Places the First European Hominids in Southern Iberia
One of the most significant controversies in the study of human evolution and migration is determining when and by what route the first hominids arrived in Europe from Africa. Recent geological dating techniques applied to the Orce sites in the Baza basin, Granada, Spain, have discovered human remains that are approximately 1.3 million years old. This finding supports the hypothesis that humans may have entered Europe through the southern Iberian Peninsula via the Strait of Gibraltar, rather than returning to the Mediterranean through Asia.
New Dating Techniques Reveal Ancient Hominids
According to a report by the University of Barcelona, the study, led by Luís Gibert of the University of Barcelona’s Faculty of Earth Sciences, in collaboration with researchers from the Berkeley Geochronology Centre and Murray State University in the United States, utilized paleomagnetism to date the Orce region. Paleomagnetism studies the inversion of the Earth's magnetic poles, recorded in minerals, to establish time periods. The new dating involved an area of Orce that had never been sampled before and was protected from erosion.
“The uniqueness of these sites is that they are stratified and within a very long sedimentary sequence, more than eighty meters (262 feet) long,” explained Gibert.
This extensive sequence allowed the identification of a magnetic polarity sequence with five magnetic events, placing the Orce sites between the Olduvai and Jaramillo subchron, approximately between 1.77 and 1.07 million years ago. Through a statistical age model, the researchers refined the chronology to a margin of error of only 70,000 years.
The oldest site, Venta Micena, dates back to 1.32 million years ago, followed by Barranco León at 1.28 million years, and Fuente Nueva 3 at 1.23 million years.
Photo of the last excavations carried out at the site of Venta Micena 3, in Orca in 1992, when the first human remains were found there. (Luís Gibert/University of Barcelona)
Faunal Analysis Supports Ancient Dating
To support their findings, the researchers also analyzed the fauna at the Orce sites, comparing it with other Early Pleistocene sites in Europe. Robert Martin, an expert in paleontology, conducted a detailed analysis of micromammals and large mammals from Orce. The results indicated that the fauna from Orce was more primitive than that from the Sima del Elefante site, where more evolved species were found.
The absence of certain animals, such as the ancestors of pigs considered to be Asian immigrants, further supported the antiquity of the Orce sites. These animals are found in other European sites between 1 and 1.5 million years ago but are absent in Orce, underscoring its older age.
Evidence for the Gibraltar Passage
This new dating aligns with other evidence suggesting that early hominids may have crossed into Europe via the Strait of Gibraltar. The presence of a lithic industry similar to that found in North Africa and the discovery of African fauna such as Hippopotamus and Theropithecus oswaldi in southern Spain support this theory.
Gibert states:
“the existence of a lithic industry with similarities to that found in the north of the African continent and also the presence of remains of African fauna in the south of the peninsula, such as those of Hippopotamus, found in the sites of Orce, and those of Theropithecus oswaldi, an African primate similar to a baboon, found in the Victoria cave, a site near Cartagena (Murcia), non-existent anywhere else in Europe”.
And further:
“We also defend the hypothesis that they arrived from Gibraltar because no older evidence has been found at any other site along the alternative route”.
Key dated sites showing the world distribution of hominins before 1 Ma (orange color) and potential dispersion routes (more European sites in Fig. 11). The figure shows sites with Oldowan technology (black dots) older than 2 Ma in Africa and older than 1 Ma in Eurasia. White dots show the oldest Acheulian sites in Africa (>1.5 Ma) and in Eurasia (between 1 and 0.8 Ma). The oldest Oldowan and Acheulian tools occur in East Africa at >2.5 Ma (26, 22,31) and > 1.7 Ma (23,27,32) respectively. In Asia, the oldest Oldowan and Acheulian occur in the Caucasus at 1.8 Ma (7) and in the Levant corridor at 1.2 Ma (9) respectively. In Europe the oldest Oldowan and associated hominins occur in Spain (1,2) with a debated age 1.6–0.9 Ma. (Gilbet,L et al. /Earth Science Reviews)
The research indicates a significant time gap between the oldest human occupations in Asia (1.8 million years ago) and Europe (1.3 million years ago), suggesting that hominids took longer to reach Europe due to biogeographical barriers.
“Humanity arrived in Europe when it had the necessary technology to cross maritime barriers, as happened before a million years ago on the island of Flores in Indonesia,” noted Gibert.
The Gibraltar route, which currently requires crossing up to fourteen kilometers (8.7 miles) of sea, may have been shorter in the past due to tectonic activity and sea level fluctuations.
Discoveries in Orce: Human Remains and Lithic Tools
Since excavations began in 1982 by paleoanthropologist Josep Gibert, five human remains have been found at the Orce sites, including two humerus fragments and a cranial fragment. Despite initial controversy over the human provenance of these remains, independent studies confirmed their human origin.
Further discoveries at Barranco León and Fuente Nueva 3, including two human molar teeth and thousands of Olduvayan lithic tools, have solidified evidence of early hominid presence in Orce. Cut marks on bones at these sites further corroborate human activity in the Early Pleistocene.
Top image: The sedimentary outcrops at Orca, where the evidence of the earliest hominids in Europe were discovered. Source: Luís Gibert/University of Barcelona
By Gary Manners
References
Gibert, Luis; Scott, Gary; Deino, Alan; Martin, Robert. ‘Magnetostratigraphic dating of earliest hominin sites in Europe’. Earth-Science Reviews, July 2024. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104855.
‘New geological datings place the first European hominids in the south of the Iberian Peninsula 1.3 million years ago’. University of Barcelona. Available at: https://web.ub.edu/en/web/actualitat/w/primers-hominids-europeus-peninsula-iberica
Comments
Dating can be difficult, but Dmanisi in Georgia has been accepted at 1.8mya, and Atapuerca in Spain at 1.4mya. It is especially interesting that the first known example of a chin – a feature found only in H. sapiens and H. antecessor– is found in Atapuerca 1.4mya, which suggests that H. sapiens are inheritors of H. antecessor’s chin. Since genetic evidence has shown in both Posth (2017) and Petr (2020) that Sapiens and NEA (Neanderthals) serially hybridized it is possible that Sapiens arose as a result of NEA hybridization with Antecessor. We have no evidence the human chin arose any other way.
The difference between hominids and hominins is that hominids include all apes while hominins only include humans, gorillas, and Chimps (including Bonobo). All hominins are hominids, but not all hominids are hominins. The earliest described hominins are 7.2mya Graecopithecus freybergi from the Balkans, and 8.7mya Anadoluvius turkae from Anatolia, and this indicates that the human family originated in Europe and radiated into Asia and Africa. These specimens predate African hominins.
Because of the continuous ranging and hybridization of species, the paucity of discovered remains leaves parsing the origin of species extremely tenuous and subject to revision with every discovery. Hominidae are found infrequently in colder climes where preservation is more likely, so while we have aDNA (ancient DNA) from Hominins as old as 800kya in N. Eurasia, where they were infrequent, we have no aDNA older than 18kya in Africa, where they were more populous. These challenges make definite assertions difficult to support which is why words like ‘suggest’ and ‘may’ frequently are used instead of words that impute certainty such as ‘prove’ or ‘did’. The present catalogue of remains suggests that hominins arose outside Africa and Asia and thereafter dispersed and radiated, but since recent finds of Graecopithecus and Anadoluvius have been made after centuries of speculation, the older, more widely discussed theories that are now disproven by these recent discoveries remain better known than the facts at hand.
Thanks!