Human remains from Valdegoba Cave (Huermeces, Burgos, Spain)

Systematic excavations, begun in 1987, at the Valdegoba cave site in northern Spain have yielded the remains of five individuals associated with a Middle Paleolithic stone tool technology and Pleistocene fauna), preserving fauna. A fragmentary mandible of an adolescent (V nearly a full set of teeth, exhibits a symphyseal tubercle and slight incurvatio mandibulae anterior on the external symphysis. Both the superior and inferior transverse tori are present on the internal aspect. A second individual (VB2) is represented by a set of ten deciduous teeth consistent with an age at death of 6-9 months. A proximal h character-manual phalanx (VB3) displays a relatively broad head, a c istic which is found in both Neandertals, as well as European Middle, Pleistocene hominids. VB4 is a fourth metatarsal that lacks the distal epiphysis, indicating it comes from an adolescent individual, and has a relatively high robusticity index. Finally, VB5 is a fifth metatarsal of an adult. The VB1 mandible shows a combination of archaic characteristics as well as more specific Neandertal morphological traits. The VB2 deciduous teeth are very small, and both the metrics and morphology seem more consistent with a modem human classification. The postcranial elements are undiagnostic, U-Th dating has provided 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 radiometric dates from other nearby Mousterian sites suggests that the Valdegoba site is correlative with oxygen isotope stages 3-6 on the Iberian peninsula, and an Upper Pleistocene age for the Valdegoba hominids seems most reasonable. (C) 2001 Academic Press.