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Neanderthals in the Garraf

The Neanderthal jaw that University of Barcelona (UB) archaeologists Montserrat Sanz and Joan Daura found in Sitges in 2005, popularly known as the “Jaws of Sitges,” have been dated as much older than originally thought, a full 53,200 years old, thanks to a new uranium-thorium system developed at the University of Bristol, where Daura is currently carrying out research.

11 june 2010

The full study on the dating of this artifact, which is considered one of the oldest so far discovered in Catalonia and can be visited at the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia, appeared this week in the prestigious Journal of Human Evolution. The study was made possible by a large interdisciplinary project of Catalan archaeologists, geologists and anthropologists (M. Sanz, J.J. Fornós, R. Julià, J.M. Fullola, E. Subirà) and from British universities (J. Dora, J. Zilhão, A. Pike) with the aim of studying Neanderthal populations in Catalonia.

The researchers have determined the age of the Neanderthal found in the “cueva del Gegant” (“the Giant’s cave”) in Sitges is 53,200 years old, thanks to a pioneering dating technique developed by Dr. Alistair Pike in collaboration with Dr. Zilhão at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Bristol in the U.K. This method, based on the absorption of uranium by the bone once it is buried, marks an improvement over the current technique of carbon-14 dating due to the new technique’s ability to date older fossils. Previously, from the faunal remains and flint artifacts found in the cave, it was only known that the jaw was between 40,000 and 100,000 years old, since carbon-14 dating cannot be used on fossils this old.

The two archaeologists from the UB found the jaw by chance in the Historical Archives of Sitges in the midst of a set of remains from an excavation the paleontologist Santiago Casanova carried out in the 1950s and that had remained unidentified all these years. The famous Neanderthal of Banyoles jaw, found in 1887, is even older – about 60,000 years old. Therefore, the fossil found in Sitges would make it the most modern Neanderthal found so far in Catalonia. It belongs to an adult since the individual probably had its wisdom teeth, which in Neanderthals appeared around 15 years of age, but so far its sex can not be determined. However, the researchers believe it is a female.

Currently the Giant’s cave is at sea level, but at the time Neanderthals occupied it the sea was 100 meters below the current level during the Ice Age. This means that in front of the cave lay a wooded plain that stretched 20 miles to the sea. The researchers speculate that this plain was the primary hunting area for its inhabitants. According to investigations carried out, archaeologists concluded that the site was occupied at two different times, and during the interim it served as a den for hyenas. Now researchers are working to determine if the jaw that was found belongs to a time Neanderthals lived in the cave or whether it was carrion left by animals.

Montserrat Sanz and Joan Daura are directors of the Quaternary Research Group and of the Research Project “Humans, carnivores and the natural environment during the Pleistocene Era in the massif of Garraf,” dedicated to determining when the Neanderthals lived on the coast south of Barcelona. Both are also working on other sites such as Rhino Cave (Castelldefels), Canyars (Gava), the Verdaguer Coll Cave (Cervelló) or the sinkholes of the Oaks (Begues) where they have found abundant remains of fauna from the last Ice Age: mammoths, grizzly bears, rhinos, horses, bobcats, panthers, turtles, large cattle, and flint tool remains to show that Neanderthals inhabited the entire area. So far the absence of Cro-Magnon remains in the Garraf have suggested to archaeologists that it was an exclusively Neanderthal enclave. The coexistence of the two species occurred between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago (the last Neanderthals in the Iberian Peninsula became extinct 28,000 years ago in Gibraltar), and during this period Neanderthals were marginalized and isolated. The other sites found along the Spanish Mediterranean coast (Valencia, Alcoy, Murcia, Granada and Gibraltar), which are located in areas of difficult access, seem to confirm this hypothesis.

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