Atapuerca, the world 'mecca' of the evolution of man - The Mundo.es

Atapuerca spent 20 years as an undisputed world leader in the study of human evolution. The discoveries and contributions of this corner of the Burgos mountains have been many. But perhaps it was the discovery in 1992 of the now famous skull No. 5 Homo heidelbergensis 300,000 years old Miquelon -christened in honor of Miguel Indurain- which placed the site among the most important in the world. However, the discovery of human DNA from 400,000 years ago in good conditions in the Sima de los Huesos has placed even more, if possible, at the top of the international paleoanthropology.

Nature

that advanced to the main news reporters this week researchers phones have not stopped ringing. Deciphering human DNA from fossils that are around half a million years old is no trivial matter. The research shows only a small portion of human DNA contained in a small organelles inside the cell and responsible for respiration of cells called mitochondria. But it opens the door to the study of complete genomes (nuclear DNA) hominid fossils up to half a million years, and therefore, can start thinking about the study of the evolution of armed with the strength of genetics man.

Results have broken down the barriers of time and genetic studies of both the scientific community and the international media has turned to the discovery. “It’s an exciting finding which makes changing the tide in this field,” said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School U.S. The New York Times . The Sima de los Huesos houses one of the collections of human fossils from that time in human evolution, an era called the Middle Pleistocene, which reaches about 100,000 years ago.

team led by co-directors of the Atapuerca Juan Luis Arsuaga, Eudald Carbonell and José María Bermúdez de Castro has found 28 complete skeletons of this hominid from the Sima de los Huesos, yet unclassified into any kind until the reveal genetic details about his past. “Atapuerca has always been a world leader and continues to prove,” says Antonio Rosas, research professor at the National Museum of Natural Sciences-CSIC, who had nothing to do with this latest research. “ Is a unique site in the world to the Middle Pleistocene , but it is many years in the 90s and had removed more than 20 of these skeletons from the Sima de los Huesos” explains Rosas.

“It is fantastic, I have no qualms about saying it. There are very few places in the world where you can keep as ancient DNA, other than under the ice, “says Carles Lalueza-Fox, a researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University Pompeu Fabra and the CSIC. “Of course is the crown jewel , there is no other place where there are many individuals that can be extracted mitochondrial DNA,” says Lalueza-Fox.

Other international experts such as Professor Chis Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London and that has nothing to do with the excavations, point in the same direction. “We need all the information we can get to build the entire history of human evolution. And we can not do only with stone tools, we can not do only fossil . Having the DNA of these hominids Gap Bones gives us a new way to peek at her, “said Stringer to BBC .