%0 Journal Article
%A Quam, R.
%A Arsuaga Ferreras, Juan Luis
%A Bermúdez de Castro, José María
%A Díez Fernández-Lomana, Juan Carlos
%A Lorenzo Merino, Carlos
%A Carretero, José Miguel
%A García García, Nuria
%A Ortega Martínez, Ana Isabel
%T Human remains from Valdegoba Cave(Huérmeces, Burgos, Spain)
%D 2001
%@ 0047-2484
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/59256
%X Systematic excavations, begun in 1987, at the Valdegoba cave site innorthern Spain have yielded the remains of five individuals associatedwith a Middle Paleolithic stone tool technology and Pleistocenefauna. A fragmentary mandible of an adolescent (VB1), preservingnearly a full set of teeth, exhibits a symphyseal tubercle and slightincurvatio mandibulae anterior on the external symphysis. Both thesuperior and inferior transverse tori are present on the internal aspect.A second individual (VB2) is represented by a set of ten deciduousteeth consistent with an age at death of 6–9 months. A proximalmanual phalanx (VB3) displays a relatively broad head, a characteristicwhich is found in both Neandertals, as well as European MiddlePleistocene hominids. VB4 is a fourth metatarsal that lacks the distalepiphysis, indicating it comes from an adolescent individual, and hasa relatively high robusticity index. Finally, VB5 is a fifth metatarsal ofan adult. The VB1 mandible shows a combination of archaic characteristicsas well as more specific Neandertal morphological traits. TheVB2 deciduous teeth are very small, and both the metrics andmorphology seem more consistent with a modern human classification.The postcranial elements are undiagnostic, U-Th dating hasprovided an age of >350 ka for the base of the sequence and a date of<73·2 ± �5 ka for level 7, near the top. Faunal analysis and radiometricdates from other nearby Mousterian sites suggests that the Valdegobasite is correlative with oxygen isotope stages 3–6 on the Iberianpeninsula, and an Upper Pleistocene age for the Valdegoba hominidsseems most reasonable.
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