Comparative description and taxonomic affinity of 3.7-million-year-old hominin mandibles from Woranso-Mille (Ethiopia).

Fossil discoveries of early Australopithecus species from Woranso-Mille have played a significant role in improving our understanding of mid-Pliocene hominin evolution and diversity. Here, we describe two mandibles with dentitions, recovered from sediments immediately above a tuff radiometrically dated to 3.76 ± 0.

Correction: Torres et al. Twentieth-Century Paleoproteomics: Lessons from Venta Micena Fossils. 2022, , 1184.

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Twentieth-Century Paleoproteomics: Lessons from Venta Micena Fossils.

Proteomics methods can identify amino acid sequences in fossil proteins, thus making it possible to determine the ascription or proximity of a fossil to other species. Before mass spectrometry was used to study fossil proteins, earlier studies used antibodies to recognize their sequences. Lowenstein and colleagues, at the University of San Francisco, pioneered the identification of fossil proteins with immunological methods.

Mapping Early Pleistocene environments and the availability of plant food as a potential driver of early Homo presence in the Guadix-Baza Basin (Spain).

The Guadix-Baza Basin, in SE Spain, harbors hominin fossils and lithic artifacts dated to ca. 1.4-1.

New Pliocene hominin remains from the Leado Dido'a area of Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia.

Fossiliferous deposits at Woranso-Mille span the period when Australopithecus anamensis gave rise to Australopithecus afarensis (3.8-3.6 Ma) and encompass the core of the A.

Age and context of mid-Pliocene hominin cranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia.

A fossil hominin cranium was discovered in mid-Pliocene deltaic strata in the Godaya Valley of the northwestern Woranso-Mille study area in Ethiopia. Here we show that analyses of chemically correlated volcanic layers and the palaeomagnetic stratigraphy, combined with Bayesian modelling of dated tuffs, yield an age range of 3.804 ± 0.

Potential Fossilized Sulfide-Oxidizing Bacteria in the Upper Miocene Sulfur-Bearing Limestones From the Lorca Basin (SE Spain): Paleoenvironmental Implications.

The sulfur-bearing limestones interbedded in the upper Miocene diatomaceous sediments (Tripoli Formation) of the Lorca Basin (SE Spain) are typified, as other Mediterranean coeval carbonate and gypsum deposits, by filamentous, circular and rod-shaped microstructures of controversial origin. These features have been interpreted both as fecal pellets of brine shrimps and/or of copepods, remains of algae or cyanobacteria and fossilized sulfide-oxidizing bacteria. To shed light on their origin, a multidisciplinary study including optical, UV and scanning electron microscopy, Raman microspectroscopy, and geochemical (carbon and oxygen stable isotopes) analyses has been carried out on three carbonate beds exposed along the La Serrata ridge.

Dentognathic remains of Australopithecus afarensis from Nefuraytu (Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia): Comparative description, geology, and paleoecological context.

Australopithecus afarensis is the best-known and most dimorphic species in the early hominin fossil record. Here, we present a comparative description of new fossil specimens of Au. afarensis from Nefuraytu, a 3.

Chronology for the Cueva Victoria fossil site (SE Spain): Evidence for Early Pleistocene Afro-Iberian dispersals.

Cueva Victoria has provided remains of more than 90 species of fossil vertebrates, including a hominin phalanx, and the only specimens of the African cercopithecid Theropithecus oswaldi in Europe. To constrain the age of the vertebrate remains we used paleomagnetism, vertebrate biostratigraphy and (230)Th/U dating. Normal polarity was identified in the non-fossiliferous lowest and highest stratigraphic units (red clay and capping flowstones) while reverse polarity was found in the intermediate stratigraphic unit (fossiliferous breccia).

New species from Ethiopia further expands Middle Pliocene hominin diversity.

Middle Pliocene hominin species diversity has been a subject of debate over the past two decades, particularly after the naming of Australopithecus bahrelghazali and Kenyanthropus platyops in addition to the well-known species Australopithecus afarensis. Further analyses continue to support the proposal that several hominin species co-existed during this time period. Here we recognize a new hominin species (Australopithecus deyiremeda sp.

An early Australopithecus afarensis postcranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia.

Only one partial skeleton that includes both forelimb and hindlimb elements has been reported for Australopithecus afarensis. The diminutive size of this specimen (A.L.

The oldest hand-axes in Europe.

Stone tools are durable reminders of the activities, skills and customs of early humans, and have distinctive morphologies that reflect the development of technological skills during the Pleistocene epoch. In Africa, large cutting tools (hand-axes and bifacial chopping tools) became part of Palaeolithic technology during the Early Pleistocene ( approximately 1.5 Myr ago).