Altamura Man
Encyclopedia
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species of the genus Homo which may be the direct ancestor of both Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and Homo sapiens. The best evidence found for these hominins date between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago. H...
. Altamura Man was discovered in a limestone cave, called grotta di Lamalunga, near the city of Altamura
Altamura
Altamura is a town and comune of Apulia, southern Italy. It is located on the Murge plateau in the province of Bari, 45 km South-West of Bari, close to the border with Basilicata. As of 2011 its population was of 69,728.-Overview:...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
Discovery
The discovery happened in a karst borehole, composed of a complex system of caves of Lamalunga, next to an elongated valley secluded by numerous hills, typical of the AltamuraAltamura
Altamura is a town and comune of Apulia, southern Italy. It is located on the Murge plateau in the province of Bari, 45 km South-West of Bari, close to the border with Basilicata. As of 2011 its population was of 69,728.-Overview:...
Murgia
Murgia
Murgia is a sub-region of Apulia in southern Italy, corresponding to a karst topographic plateau of rectangular shape, occupying the central area of the region. The name stems from the Latin murex, meaning "sharp stone"....
in Apulia
Apulia
Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...
. During the exploring phase some components of the CARS Centro Altamurano Ricerche Speleologiche (Altamuran Centre for Speleologic Research) found the deposit of which the find was the main feature.
On the side facing the valley of one of these hills there is the access that leads to the cave about 8 meters in depth. Through vertical shafts towards the surface that can be open or sealed for long or short periods, all this type caves have the ability to collect inside materials transported by the surface runoff of rainwater. This explains the presence of numerous remains, some of which quite voluminous, of ancient fauna
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
too.
The fossil skeleton
The team - led by Prof. Vittorio Pesce Delfino of the University of BariUniversity of Bari
The University of Bari is a university located in Bari, Italy. It was founded in 1925 and is organized in 12 Faculties.-Organization:These are the 13 faculties in which the university is divided into:* Faculty of Agricultural Science...
- proposed soon after the discovery the first philatelic collocation and the first estimate of the find, based only on morphologic basis. This would have matched a type of pre-Neanderthalian (according to a Linnaean species definition) preceding the most ancient types of classic Neanderthal and subsequently to the phases of Homo erectus
Homo erectus
Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, about . The species originated in Africa and spread as far as India, China and Java. There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...
, subsequently the estimation of the dating involved an interval between 400.000 and 100.000 years ago, with most likely values around 150-250.000 years ago.
Morphology
The reference to an archaic version of Homo neanderthalensis also implies the find must show antedating morphological features and so directly recalling typical features of Homo neanderthalensis. Following studies, carried out keeping the find on the discovery site, have verified this aspect of typical Neanderthalians features (morphology of eye-sockets and upper orbit osseous thickening, lack of canine fossa and presence of a clear edge on the maxillaMaxilla
The maxilla is a fusion of two bones along the palatal fissure that form the upper jaw. This is similar to the mandible , which is also a fusion of two halves at the mental symphysis. Sometimes The maxilla (plural: maxillae) is a fusion of two bones along the palatal fissure that form the upper...
, thickening of the occipital bone
Occipital bone
The occipital bone, a saucer-shaped membrane bone situated at the back and lower part of the cranium, is trapezoidal in shape and curved on itself...
, feature of the mastoid process, existence of a retromolar space and profile of the upper margin of the ascending mandible ramus). Some characteristics match features typical of Homo sapiens, among which in particular the convexity of the occipital bone scale. The interest in the paleoantropologic find "Man of Altamura" lies in numerous factors like the naturalistic majesty of the whole complex shown by the bones in the karst
KARST
Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which FAST is a forerunner. KARST is a set of large spherical reflectors on karst landforms, which are bowlshaped limestone sinkholes named after the Kras region in Slovenia and Northern Italy. It will consist of...
ic setting that encased them, setting them together and making them absolutely fix, the completeness of the skeleton and the morphological features quoted.
Importance
The entire pre-existent knowledge of European NeanderthalNeanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
came from numerous but fragmented finds; as an example a skullcap in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, skull fragments more or less voluminous but never complete in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, forcing anthropologists
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
in a not easy effort to identify characteristics and compatibilities of missing pieces.
This doesn’t happen in Altamura
Altamura
Altamura is a town and comune of Apulia, southern Italy. It is located on the Murge plateau in the province of Bari, 45 km South-West of Bari, close to the border with Basilicata. As of 2011 its population was of 69,728.-Overview:...
where all the various bone segments, all perfectly preserved, allow to shift the morphological compatibility exam from a problem of limited consistency of other finds to a more challenging problem of evolutionistic
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
and morph-functional interpretation. In spite this ideal situation the Lamalunga find presents exceptional methodology study problems and fruitions due to removal impossibility with procedures that can guarantee the recovery without damage. For this has been carried out the “Sarastro” project, setting the access to the discovery cave with the “field museum” approach according to which a technological infrastructure allows either the fruition and the scientific study in remote mode, leaving the find totally undisturbed and protected in his site.
Recent studies
Recently researchers of University of BariUniversity of Bari
The University of Bari is a university located in Bari, Italy. It was founded in 1925 and is organized in 12 Faculties.-Organization:These are the 13 faculties in which the university is divided into:* Faculty of Agricultural Science...
have carried out laser scans
Laser scanning
In modern engineering, the term `laser scanning' is used to described two related, but separate meanings. The first, more general, meaning is the controlled deflection of laser beams, visible or invisible...
of the find, still preserved in Lamalunga cave, obtaining numerical maps that allow to carry out dimensional and morphological
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
evaluations using mathematical models and procedures capable of obtaining the reproduction of physical copies of the find.
At the same time three-dimensional videos
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
have been taken. Results have been showed at Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
symposium "150 years of Neanderthal discoveries – Early Europeans Continuity and Discontinuity" where has sparked lot of interest with specific requests of further development on the topic from UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
, the Wenner Gren Foundation of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, from the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
of New York and from The Abdus Salam – International Centre for Theoretical Physics of Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
.
External links
- Three-Dimensional Topographic Survey of the Human Remains in Lamalunga Cave (Altamura, Bari, Southern Italy)
- Show of the find in one animation of the American Museum of Natural HistoryAmerican Museum of Natural HistoryThe American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...