Portal de Caravaca de la Cruz
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"The Black Cave Quípar Strait River is a site of reference in the Pleistocene Old Europe," announced today the professor of physical anthropology at the University of Murcia Michael J.
Walker in the press conference with the mayor of Caravaca, Domingo Aranda, to take stock of the XXXIII excavation campaign in that field.
Sunday Aranda has attacked the work of archaeologists, anthropologists and biologists, led by Michael J.
Walker, Mariano Lopez and Mary Habel.
"During the excavation, carried out from 3 to 27 August, has been visited by archaeologists and researchers of recognized prestige, which has consolidated the place of the Incarnation in an international benchmark for the study of human evolution."
The objective of this summer's excavation, according to Professor Walker, has been successful.
The work has been focused primarily on expanding the excavation area where are the remains of this fire, so it has limited the exposed surface of the early home and has expanded the collection of both lithic industry, as faunal remains.
Last year the multidisciplinary team traveled to The Incarnation discovered remains affected by fire, dug in deep sediments dated to 780,000 to 990,000.
Also, this coat has Spanish Southeast provided a bifacial hand ax, a set of tools retouched Paleolithic juvenile human teeth and a recent Old Pleistocene fauna.
"The high temperature means the incidence of man indeed. Residues affected both bone and flint, were excavated in a position too deep in the cave to have been subject to temperature by invasion of a random forest fire," remarked Walker .
It is important to highlight the exceptional length of this evidence of fire in European Paleolithic cave.
The entire sedimentary fill of the cave belongs to the recent period of 990,000 to 780,000 years of the Pleistocene Old (or Lower).
Paleomagnetic determinations issued by the professor and geophysicist Gary Scott, the Berkeley Geochronology Center (U.S.) with Dr. Lluis Gibert Beotas, Faculty of Geology, University of Barcelona, ​​demonstrate that the 5 m sediment accumulation have a older than 780,000.
Care by man, fire provides warmth, much needed during the night (Black Cave is 740 m above sea level and severely cold winter), plus beasts frighten animals.
According to anthropologist Richard Wrangham, a professor at Harvard University, this has been instrumental in our evolution, through the interference of food heated to speed the absorption of nutrients and increase energy extractable from the raw material collected and available to our metabolism, thus reducing the waste of that: this effect has undoubtedly contributed to facilitate both the human dispersal out of Africa in the Pleistocene Old, such as increased cerebral cortical development and the corresponding human ingenuity.
The excavated fossil mammals, especially rodents, involve a period after the interval in the Matuyama Jaramillo called (1090000-990000).
The study in progress by Antonio López Jiménez indicates a range of fossil species similar to that characterized the Gran Dolina of Atapuerca.
Last week the goarqueólogo Diego Angelucci, along with his PhD student Daniela Anesin, worked in the Black Cave to review the stratigraphy of the cave and take new samples.
Moreover, on Friday 20 July saw the visit of the famous British anthropologist Bernard Wood, who works at the Department of Anthropology, George Washington University in America.
The Team:
The archaeological excavation at Cueva Negra is co-directed by:
Dr. Michael J.
Walker
Mariano Lopez Martinez (archaeologist)
Haber Dr. Maria Uriarte (archaeologist)
The team also includes:
Antonio Lopez Jimenez (biologist)
Aviles Azucena Fernandez (biologist)
Juan Ortega Rodrigáñez (biologist)
Buitrago Angel Lopez (biologist)
Jesus Garcia Torres (communications)
Volunteers:
This campaign also 4 students of archeology at the University of Murcia, has had an archaeologist at the University of Nottingham (England), a German anthropologist from Georgia State University (USA), a biological anthropology student at the Pennsylvania State University (USA) and a Cypriot student at University College London (England).
Source: Ayuntamiento de Caravaca de la Cruz
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