2026-04-18T02:28:57Zhttps://riubu.ubu.es/oai/request

oai:riubu.ubu.es:10259/104472025-05-10T00:05:09Zcom_10259_9737com_10259_5086com_10259_2604col_10259_10448

Discontinuity of Human Presence at Atapuerca during the Early Middle Pleistocene: A Matter of Ecological Competition? Rodríguez Gómez, Guillermo Mateos, Ana Martín González, Jesús Ángel Blasco, Ruth Rosell, Jordi Rodríguez, Jesús Arqueología-Burgos Prehistoria-Burgos Paleontología Archaeology-Burgos Prehistoric peoples Paleontology 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. This research was funded by the MINECO project, CGL2012-38434-C03-02, CGL2012-38434-C03-03, CGL2012-38358 and CGL-BOS-2012-34717. G. Rodrı´guez-Go´mez is the beneficiary of a predoctoral FPI Grant from the Spanish MICINN. The fieldwork at the Atapuerca sites was funded by the Junta de Castilla y Leo´n. R. Blasco is a Beatriu de Pino´s postdoctoral scholarship recipient from Generalitat de Catalunya and was co-financed by the European Union through Marie Curie Actions, FP7. 2025-05-09T07:02:49Z 2025-05-09T07:02:49Z 2014-07 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion http://hdl.handle.net/10259/10447 10.1371/journal.pone.0101938 1932-6203 eng Plos One. 2014, V. 9, n. 7, p. e101938 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0101938 Atribución 4.0 Internacional http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess application/pdf Public Library of Science