Increasing evidence suggests that the European human settlement is older than 1.2 Ma. However, there is a fierce debate about the continuity or discontinuity of the early human settlement of Europe. In particular, evidence of human presence in the interval 0.7−0.5 Ma is scarce in comparison with evidence for the previous and later periods. Here, we present a case study in which the environmental conditions at Sierra de Atapuerca in the early Middle Pleistocene, a period without evidence of human presence, are compared with the conditions in the previous period, for which a relatively intense human occupation is documented. With this objective in mind, the available resources for a human population and the intensity of competition between secondary consumers during the two periods are compared using a mathematical model. The Gran Dolina site TD8 level, dated to 0.7−0.6 Ma, is taken as representative of the period during which Atapuerca was apparently not occupied by humans. Conditions at TD8 are compared with those of the previous period, represented by the TD6-2 level, which has yielded abundant evidence of intense human occupation. The results show that survival opportunities for a hypothetical human population were lower at TD8 than they were at TD6-2. Increased resource competition between secondary consumers arises as a possible explanation for the absence of human occupation at Atapuerca in the early Middle Pleistocene.
Paleofisiología y Ecología Social de homínidos, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Burgos, Spain;Paleofisiología y Ecología Social de homínidos, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Burgos, Spain;Departamento de Matemáticas y Computación, Universidad de Burgos, Burgos, Spain, and temporarily assigned to CENIEH, Burgos, Spain;The Gibraltar Museum, Gibraltar, Gibraltar;Àrea de Prehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Spain;Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), Tarragona, Spain;Paleofisiología y Ecología Social de homínidos, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Burgos, Spain
Recommended Citation:
Guillermo Rodríguez-Gómez,Ana Mateos,Jesús Angel Martín-González,et al. Discontinuity of Human Presence at Atapuerca during the Early Middle Pleistocene: A Matter of Ecological Competition?[J]. PLOS ONE,2014-01-01,9(7)