A new study reveals that fossil skull found in the Sima de los Huesos at Atapuerca (Burgos) and Maba (China) have a number of similarities point to a common evolutionary process between Europe and Asia.
“it seems logical that the first hominids, who came from a warm climate, could settle in southeast Asia , where the climate was benign continuously and, from there, move in waves in a transverse axis “, said the co-director of the excavations at Atapuerca, Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro.
the settlement in southeast Asia hominid from Africa explain the similarities between the brain of a fossil skull of Homo heidelbergensis found China – a remaining ago between 130,000 and 300,000 years – and the remains Homo heidelbergensis found in Sima de los Huesos, about the same age.
the study of Chinese fossil, conducted by the National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH) in collaboration with the Institute of Paleontology Beijing and published in the journal American journal of Physical Anthropology , has concluded that it was an individual whose face was Neanderthal traits, while the brain was more primitive features. The same combination is found in Atapuerca.
In the same journal has been published, also this month, another study of a fossil skull of Homo erectus Buia (Eritrea) a million years ago. This African fossil has confirmed that had a big difference between individuals of the same period of the continent and Asia , since their features were different from other individuals who so far are associated with the same species, explained Emiliano Brune, paleoneurólogo CENIEH.
Homo antecessor of Atapuerca not come directly from Africa
Although it is a coincidence, because studies have been developed separately this month it was published in the French journal Comptes Rendus Palevol other cranial study, in this case remains of a parietal about 800,000 years ago found in the Gran Dolina (Atapuerca), corresponding to the species Homo antecessor only described so far in this field.
the study coordinator, Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, considered that the findings of the studies confirm that was not some kind of source directly African , as the Atapuerca team itself said in 1997, but a “European or Eurasian” species. In this regard, he explained that the history of Eurasia is “much more complex than previously thought”.
“It seems that Asian and European populations shared a common ancestor from Africa and that explains they have similar, though not identical, “he pointed Bermudez de Castro.
After five years in which has intensified the relationship of scientists CENIEH with their Chinese colleagues, Bermudez de Castro says he is” surprised “by China’s wealth in fossils, studies have been developed with little communication with the rest of the world and deposits yet to be investigated.
Bermudez de Castro hopes that within five or six years to know more Homo antecessor, because the remains are being studied correspond to what was found in a tasting that took place between 1993 and 1994 at a level site of Gran Dolina who will come to dig in its entirety in the next five years.
https://www.insidetheworld.org/2016/04/28/the-similarity-between-atapuerca-fossils-and-china-modifies-the-map-of-human-evolution/