A workforce made up of researchers from Spain and the United States, together with the scientific director of the Museum of Human Evolution, Juan Luis Arsuaga, has simply revealed within the Journal of Human Evolution a research on an enigmatic fossil: the Human jaw from the Banyoles web site in Girona. The fossil was found in a quarry in 1887, and has been studied by totally different researchers ever since. It has been dated between 45,000 and 65,000 years in the past, a lot older than the mandible present in Vimbodí i Poblet.
The authors of the work are Brian A. Keeling and Rolf Quam from the University of Binghampton, Ignacio Martínez from the University of Alcalá, Julià Maroto from the University of Girona and Juan Luis Arsuaga, from the Complutense University of Madrid and scientific director of the Museum of the Human Evolution of Burgos.
As Europe was regarded as completely occupied by Neanderthals in that time frame, the Banyoles mandible was assigned to that fossil species, even supposing its morphology was not that of a typical Neanderthal.
In the brand new research, which makes use of CT photographs, the lacking components of the fossil have been reconstructed on the pc. In this manner, it has been attainable to acquire a three-dimensional digital mannequin that has been in contrast with different fossils utilizing a way referred to as Geometric Morphometry.
“He’s not a Neanderthal, he is a contemporary human”
Juan Luis Arsuaga is categorical relating to the species to which the Banyoles mandible belonged: “It just isn’t a Neanderthal. It is in virtually all its morphology a contemporary human. However, the existence of a chin (chin) just isn’t appreciated, due to this fact that it can’t be dominated out that it has some Neanderthal ancestor. The Homo sapiens fossil thought of up to now the oldest in Europe was Pestera cu Oase 1 in Romania, however we affirm that Banyoles is older”.
The authors of this research add that “the taxonomic reassignment (species change) that they suggest for Banyoles could possibly be verified by the use of historical DNA evaluation or proteomics.”
The authors plan to make the CT and the 3D mannequin of Banyoles obtainable to different researchers in order that they will embrace them in future comparative research, selling open entry to fossil specimens and the replicability of scientific research.