Burgos (EFE) milestones that have changed the history of human evolution.
‘Pink’, the name given to the last great discovery in Burgos, is “the most interesting antiquity find in the forty-five years of Atapuerca”, explained Eudald Carbonell, co-director of the deposits together with José María Bermúdez de Castro and Eudald Carbonell. .
It is an “incredible piece”, between 1.3 and 1.4 million years old, which was located last summer at the Sima del Elefante site, and from which new remains are expected to be found this year.
José María Bermúdez de Castro explained that the bones of the face are very fine, so “it has been a miracle that they have been preserved.”
For this reason, what they hope to find in these weeks of excavations are remains of the skull, more consistent, and perhaps teeth or the jaw.
And, when the 2023 campaign is complete, they will start working on the scientific article with the aim of being able to publish it in Nature by next spring.
“We are going to see what happens this year”, Bermúdez de Castro has indicated, and if more remains appear they will be added to the publication, which they want to have ready by the end of the year.
Then the peer review process will come, but if everything goes as planned, the scientific article could be published in the spring and the goal is to be on the cover of the prestigious magazine.
cascade of findings
The discovery of the face of the first European has been the “cherry” for the co-directors Carbonell and Bermúdez de Castro, who are experiencing what will be the last excavation campaigns in Atapuerca before giving way to the new generations.
The life of the Atapuerca deposits is guaranteed for many years, they have asserted, since fossils will continue to appear, and of great historical value, since a new research cycle is beginning.
This year’s excavation campaign, which began in mid-June, will have a “fundamental historical aspect”, explained Carbonell.
The co-director has pointed out that “a cycle of expertise is coming to an end” in the Atapuerca karstic and landfill system, as it will be difficult to find records older than a million or a million and a half years.
And at the same time, a main sequence is entered, which will generate “a cascade of extremely important finds”, with the possibility of finding hominids in practically all the sites of the project.
Atapuerca has reached a degree of maturity that, from now on, “there may be an important discovery every year”, pointed out Bermúdez de Castro.
These are findings that “are truly changing the history of human evolution in Europe and Asia,” Carbonell insisted before giving the remains of that face of the first European as an example.
An extraordinary team
José María Bermúdez de Castro and Eudald Carbonell close their cycle in Atapuerca between the 2023 and 2024 campaigns, “very happy” and with a lot of “tranquility”.
They leave the investigation of the Burgos deposits in the hands of an “extraordinary team”, which “is going to continue to work in an incredible way”, stressed Bermúdez de Castro.
It is a team of professionals, very well trained and with extensive experience, which guarantees the continuity of the Atapuerca project for at least the next two generations, they added. EFE