The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years

We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians, of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high-resolution time transect of the Iberian Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers before the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE and, by ~2000 BCE, the replacement of 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. We show that, in the Iron Age, Steppe ancestry had spread not only into Indo-European-speaking regions but also into non-Indo-European-speaking ones, and we reveal that pre…

Possible further evidence of low denetic diversity in the El Sidrón (Asturias, Spain) Neandertal Group: congenital clefts of the atlas

Received: June 12, 2015; Accepted: August 5, 2015; Published: September 29, 2015

The seed of 'La evolución' : the development of human paleontology in Spain in recent decades

Human palaeontology in Spain has experienced extraordinary growth in recent decades. In this work we investigate the influence that the book La evolución (1966) and its editors, Miquel Crusafont, Bermudo Meléndez, and Emiliano Aguirre, exerted on this explosion. Two areas have developed significantly: the study of the Miocene hominoids, originally linked to Crusafont and the Vallès-Penedès basin sites (Barcelona), and the study of the first human occupations in Europe, closely related to Aguirre and the Atapuerca excavations (Burgos). Different factors have contributed to this progress, but the research inertia of La evolución and its conceptual foundations have been key to the development …

Dating of the hominid (Homo neanderthalensis) remains accumulation from El Sidrón cave (Piloña, Asturias, North Spain): an example of multi-methodological approach to the dating of Upper Pleistocene sites

The age of Neanderthal remains and associated sediments from El Sidrón cave has been obtained through different dating methods (14CAMS, U/TH, OSL, ESR and AAR) and samples (charcoal debris, bone, tooth dentine, stalagmitic flowstone, carbonate-rich sediments, sedimentary quartz grains, tooth enamel and land snail shells). Detrital Th contamination rendered Th/U dating analyses of flowstone unreliable. Recent 14C contamination produced spurious age-values from charcoal samples as well as from inadequately pretreated tooth samples. Most consistent 14C dates are grouped into two series: one between 35 and 40 ka and the other between 48 and 49 ka. Most ESR and AAR samples yielded concordant age…

Neanderthal behaviour, diet, and disease inferred from ancient DNA in dental calculus

Weyrich, Laura S. et al.

We expose the preliminary results of the archaeological excavations developed between 2000-2002 in Sidron's Cave, according to the three main objectives that concern the human fossil record: the anthropological characteristics, how and when they arrived there and the relation between fossils and culture. We conclude preliminarily that the record belongs to Horno Neanderthalensis, archeological remains to the Middle Paleolithic techno-complex, and they are in a secondary position.