RT Journal Article
T1 Revisión de la mandíbula humana de Bañolas, Gerona, España
T2 The Bañolas human mandible revisited (Gerona, Spain)
A1 Alcázar de Velasco, Almudena
A1 Arsuaga, Juan Luis
A1 Martínez Mendizábal, Ignacio
A1 Bonmatí, Alejandro
AB La mandíbula de Bañolas, descubierta en 1887 en Bañolas (Gerona, España), es un fósil humano sobre cuyaasignación taxonómica no hay aún consenso. En diferentes estudios ha sido incluida dentro de Homo neanderthalensis{King, 1864} (Hernández-Pacheco & Obermaier, 1915; Sánchez, 1993), dentro de los ante-neandertales (de Lumley,1971-72) y dentro de los ante-würmienses (Roth & Simon, 1993). Recientemente, Daura y colaboradores (Daura etal., 2005), en su artículo sobre la mandíbula fósil de la Cova del Gegant, sugieren que la mandíbula de Bañolas nopresenta caracteres neandertales y que, dada su cronología, podría haber pertenecido a un Homo sapiens {Linneo,1758}. Este estudio trata de arrojar luz sobre la cuestión de la asignación taxonómica de la mandíbula de Bañolas. Paraello se han utilizado caracteres morfológicos discretos que permiten discriminar entre las especies H. heidelbergensis{Schoetensack, 1908}, H. neanderthalensis y H. sapiens. La conclusión del trabajo es que los estados de los caracteresque presenta la mandíbula de Bañolas son, en su mayor parte, más frecuentes en H. sapiens que en las otras dosespecies tenidas en cuenta.
AB Since the discovery of a fossil human mandible in 1887 near the city of Bañolas (Gerona, Spain), there has beenconsiderable disagreement among scholars as to its taxonomic allocation. In different studies the specimen has beenincluded within Homo neanderthalensis {King, 1864} (Hernández-Pacheco & Obermaier, 1915; Sánchez, 1993),ante-Neandertals (de Lumley, 1971-72) or an ante-würmian (Roth & Simon, 1993) species. More recently, the Bañolasmandible has been argued to lack derived Neandertal traits (Daura et al., 2005). Although the mandible was foundin a quarry of travertine, its exact location is unknown. Some patches of travertine adhered to the specimen haveprovided a geochronological age range between 17,6 to 110 kyr (Berger & Libby, 1966¸ Yokoyama et al., 1987; Julià& Bischoff, 1991; Grün et al., 2006). The only direct dating of the mandible yielded an age of 66 ± 7 kyr B.P. (Grünet al., 2006).After a recent examination of the original specimen, a number of morphological traits of this mandible has beendescribed and compared with information from the literature regarding H. heidelbergensis {Schoetensack, 1908},H. neanderthalensis and both fossil and extant H. sapiens {Linneo, 1758} mandibles. These characters have beenconsidered to be of taxonomical significance to discriminate between these three species (see below for references).Despite the fragmentary condition of the Bañolas mandible, a considerable number of morphological traits canbe evaluated: presence/absence of the mental trigone (Schwartz & Tattersall , 2000), shape of the anterior basalcorpus (Quam & Smith, 1998), position of the digastric fossa (de Lumley, 1973), number, size and location of themental foramen (Trinkaus, 1993), presence/absence of the retromolar space and inclination of the retromolar triangle(Franciscus & Trinkaus, 1995; Rosas, 2001), shape of the mandibular foramen (Smith, 1978), size and shape ofthe medial pterygoid tubercle (Antón, 1996), relative position between the condyle and the ascending ramus plane(Rosas, 2001; Nicholson & Harvati, 2006; Trinkaus, 2006), dimensions of the submental incisure (Mounier et al.,2009), location and trajectory of the mylohyoid line (Mounier et al., 2009), size of the alveolar plane (Mounier et al.,2009), shape of the gonion (Creed-Miles et al., 1996) and relative position of the lateral prominence to the dentition (Rosas, 2001; Mounier et al., 2009).The state of these characters in the Bañolas mandible is as follow: absence of mental trigone (but slight evidencesof a possible mental fossa and a possible central keel) (Fig. 1), triangular anterior basal corpus shape (Figs. 1 and 3),disgastric fossa located in the posterior face of the symphysis (Figs. 1 and 3 ), a single small mental foramen placed inthe upper half of the corpus and below the P4 (Fig. 2), absence of retromolar space and an oblique retromolar trianglerelative to the alveolar margin (Figs. 2 and 6), small and not lib-shaped medial pteriogoid tubercle (Fig. 5), mediallyplaced condyle relative to the ascending ramus plane (Fig. 4), large dimensions of the submental incisure (Fig. 2),mylohyoid line that starts near the M3 and follows obliquely to the alveolar margin (Fig. 4), not large (wide) alveolarplane (Fig. 6), rounded (not truncated) gonion (Figs. 2 and 4) and anteriorly placed lateral prominence (M2 and M2/M3 septum) (Fig. 2). Regarding the mandibular foramen, it seems to present a lingula, it could confirm the presenceof a normal mandibular foramen type and it would discard the possibility of an H-O mandibular foramen type (Smith,1978) (Fig. 5).Except for the large submental incisure and the absence of mental trigone, the state of all these characters is morefrequent in Homo sapiens specimens (de Lumley, 1973; Smith, 1978; Trinkaus, 1993; Franciscus & Trinkaus, 1995;Antón, 1996; Creed-Miles et al., 1996; Quam & Smith, 1998; Rosas, 2001; Nicholson & Harvati, 2006; Trinkaus,2006; Mounier et al., 2009). The large submental incisure is a characteristic trait of Homo heidelbergensis and theabsence of mental trigone is a plesiomophic character shared by Homo neanderthalensis, Homo heidelbergensis andsome upper Pleistocene Homo sapiens individuals (Schwartz & Tattersall , 2000). On the view of this work ourconclusion is that the Bañolas mandible shows neither derived Neandertal traits nor clear affinities to H. heidelbergensis.On the contrary, this specimen bears a greater resemblance to the H. sapiens mandibles.
PB Real Sociedad Española de Historia Natural
SN 0583-7510
YR 2011
FD 2011
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/44427
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/44427
LA spa
DS Docta Complutense
RD 29 abr 2024