Christian Sánchez Bandera- PhD student
- PhD Student at Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social
Christian Sánchez Bandera
- PhD student
- PhD Student at Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social
About
44
Publications
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Introduction
Reconstruction of the Quaternary paleoenvironments and paleoclimates based on fossil herpetological assemblages; Climatic and ecological context of human evolution; Reconstruction of the habitats that occupied the first hominins of Western Europe.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
October 2018 - March 2019
Position
- Technician
Description
- Organization and management of the Sedimentology and Micropaleontology laboratory at IPHES; water-screening and pickering of sediment derived from various excavations and field campaigns; and preparation of micropaleontological samples.
Education
October 2016 - September 2018
Field of study
- Quaternary Archaeology and Human Evolution
September 2012 - June 2016
Publications
Publications (44)
The Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park (located in the provinces of Cádiz and Málaga, southwestern Spain) is one of the regions in Spain with a high amount of annual rainfall, due to its physical characteristics and location, which make it the first barrier for wet winds coming westwards from the Atlantic Ocean into southern Iberia. This causes excep...
The Pliocene-Pleistocene transition in the Almenara region (eastern Spain) is investigated through the analysis of herpetofaunal assemblages from ACB-4 (latest Pliocene, MN16) and ACB-1 (earliest Pleistocene, MN17), serving as proxies for palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. Our study revealed the presence of new taxa not identifi...
The earliest archaeological evidence from northern Africa dates to ca. 2.44 Ma. Nevertheless, the palaeoenvironmental setting of hominins living in this part of the continent at the Plio-Pleistocene transition remains poorly documented, particularly in comparison to eastern and southern Africa. The Guefaït-4 fossil site in eastern Morocco sheds lig...
El yacimiento de Fuente Nueva-3 (FN3) forma parte del conjunto arqueo-paleontológico del Pleistoceno Inferior de la cuenca de Guadix-Baza (Granada), localizado en el municipio de Orce. Las asociaciones de roedores permiten situar el yacimiento en la biozona de Allophaiomys aff. lavocati (ca. 1,4-1,07 Ma), lo que es consistente con el resultado de s...
El yacimiento de Fuente Nueva-3 (FN3) forma parte del conjunto arqueo-paleontológico del Pleistoceno Inferior de la cuenca de Guadix-Baza (Granada), localizado en el municipio de Orce.
Las asociaciones de roedores permiten situar el yacimiento en la biozona de Allophaiomys aff. lavocati (ca. 1,4-1,07 Ma), lo que es consistente con el resultado de s...
The Early Pleistocene site of Dmanisi (Georgia, Lesser Caucasus), dated to 1.8 Ma, is a relevant locality not only for documenting one of the earliest human evidences in Western Europe, but also for its geographical placement, at the end of a natural corridor that allowed fauna communication between Africa and Eurasia.
The amphibian and reptile rem...
Meat consumption by early hominins is a hotly debated issue. A key question concerns their access to large mammal carcasses, including megafauna. Currently, the evidence of anthropic cut marks on proboscidean bones older than -or close to- 1.0 Ma are restricted to the archaeological sites of Dmanisi (Georgia), Olduvai (Tanzania), Gona (Ethiopia), O...
The Late Pliocene fossil locality of Las Higueruelas (central Spain) has been known for many decades; however, in this paper, we describe the fauna of small-sized vertebrates (fish, amphibians, squamate reptiles, and rodents) for the first time based on pre-existing collections in the Museo Provincial de Ciudad Real. In addition to updating the tax...
Northern Armenia and southern Georgia, divided in the Haghtanak-Bagratashen area by the Debed River, witnessed considerable volcanic activity between ~2.1 and 1.6 Ma, towards the end of which the earliest evidence of Homo outside Africa is found at Dmanisi, Georgia (~1.77 ma). The rich assemblages of lithic, faunal, and human fossil materials found...
El Juyo is a Cantabrian Lower Magdalenian cave site located approximately 8 km west of the city of Santander. The excavations covered an area over 40 m², and the stratified deposits reach 3.5 m thick, with an estimated duration of Magdalenian occupation of around 1,000 years. Here, we present the first study of the herpetofaunal assemblages from El...
The Orce Archaeological area (province of Granada, southeastern Spain) includes
several fossiliferous sites of late Pliocene and early Pleistocene age (Fig. 1). Two of
them, Barranco León (at 1.4 Ma) and Fuente Nueva 3 (at 1.2 Ma) provided the oldest
hominin evidences from southwestern Europe and this fact put the area to center of a
scientific...
Neanderthals have been claimed to have had a selective adaptation to rugged, wooded landscapes that would have partially compensate their high basal metabolic rate and locomotor energetic costs through reducing search time and increasing diet breadth. The archaeological site of the Navalmaíllo rockshelter (Pinilla del Valle, Madrid), located in a m...
The Early Pleistocene archeopaleontological sites of Barranco León and Fuente Nueva 3 (Granada, Spain), dated respectively to 1.4 and 1.2 Ma, have yielded rich micro- and macro-vertebrate assemblages. The faunal list of amphibians and reptiles in both sites is composed by a total of 14 species: seven anurans (Discoglossus sp., Pelobates cultripes,...
During the Late Pleistocene, the Balkans came to be an important region with many isolated areas, enabling fauna, alongside Neanderthals, to thrive in the area. This work is focused on paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic changes that occurred in the northern Balkan Peninsula with a special focus on fossil record from Smolućka cave aging from MIS 5...
The Guadix-Baza Basin (GBB, Granada, Spain) extends over a surface area of some 4.500 km2 and constitutes one of the richest Pleistocene vertebrate fossil records in Western Europe. Within this basin, Orce area stands out for having yielded evidence on of the oldest hominin presence in western Eurasia. Exceptionally rich collections of stone tools...
The environmental and climatic evolution of the late Middle Pleistocene to Late Pleistocene of the Garraf Massif (northeastern Iberia) is determined for Marine Isotope Stage 7 (MIS 7) to MIS 3 on the basis of a study of the small-vertebrate (amphibian, squamate reptile, insectivore, bat and rodent) assemblages. This paper provides a synthesis of th...
Palynological investigations in the Orce Archaeological Zone (OAZ) (Guadix-Baza Basin, Granada, Spain), Venta Micena 1 (VM1), Barranco León (BL) and Fuente Nueva 3 (FN3) are presented. This archaeological region is connected with the first Homo populations in Western Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. The VM1 pollen record is characterized by Ep...
Little is known about the subsistence practices of the first European settlers, mainly due to the shortage of archaeological sites in Europe older than a million years. This article contributes to the knowledge of the subsistence of the first Europeans with new zooarchaeology and taphonomic data from the Palaeolithic site of Barranco León (Orce, Gr...
Dmanisi (Georgia) is one of the oldest Early Paleolithic sites discovered out of Africa. In addition, it is the best site to understand the first Homo deme out of Africa and the first hominin occupation of Central to Western Eurasia. It has produced more than 40 hominin remains, including several very informative skulls, found in direct association...
Over the last few decades, several types of evidence such as presence of hominin remains, lithic assemblages, and bones with anthropogenic surface modifications have demonstrated that early human communities inhabited the European subcontinent prior to the Jaramillo Subchron (1.07–0.98 Ma). While most studies have focused primarily on early Europea...
The paleontological site of Quibas (Abanilla, Murcia) is an exceptional site in Europe, representing the first continuous pre-Jaramillo to Jaramillo terrestrial vertebrate succession from this continent. This unique site offers an excellent opportunity to increase our knowledge about the faunal and paleoenvironmental context of the time span compri...
Amphibians are considered excellent indicators of ecological and climatic changes with a remarkable phenotypic plasticity. The study of such adaptative capacities is central to understanding the climate and environmental changes that occurred during the Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition, at around 1.2 Ma, when the persistence of subtropical ecosy...
The Guadix-Baza Basin (GBB) in Andalucía, Spain, comprises palaeontological and archaeological sites dating from the Early Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene, including some of the earliest sites with evidence for the presence of early humans (Homo sp.) in Europe. Thus, the history of climate and environments in this basin contributes significantly...
Barranco León (Orce, Andalusia, Spain) provides the oldest case of knapping and percussive activities on an ancient raw material reservoir deposit. This site has already proven to be one of the oldest and most significant Oldowan open-air sites in Europe (1.4 Ma), with an exceptionally rich flint and limestone lithic assemblage, in association with...
Marine Isotope Stage 6 (MIS 6; ca. 185–135 ka) is the penultimate glacial stage and constitutes the end of the Middle Pleistocene. This glacial period is typified by generally cold and dry conditions in the western Mediterranean region. Despite the relatively large number of pollen and speleothem studies of MIS 6 in this region, the number of MIS 6...
A key question in human evolution concerns the circumstances that led to the first dispersal of Homo across Eurasia. The so-called Savannahstan or savanna hypothesis argues that early Homo adaptation was relatively inflexible and that these hominins were closely tied to savanna and grassland environments. Consequently, hominins would have taken adv...
The Early Pleistocene sites of Barranco León and Fuente Nueva 3 (Guadix-Baza Basin, SE Spain) have yielded abundant Oldowan lithic artifacts and one hominin tooth (Homo sp. in level D1 or D2 of Barranco León), today considered to be among the earliest evidence for a hominin presence in Western Europe, at ca. 1.4–1.2 Ma. Here, for the first time, th...
In this work, we present new paleoenvironmental reconstructions for Barranco León (Guadix-Baza Basin, SE Spain), an Early Pleistocene archaeo-palaeontological site nowadays considered one of the earliest sites with hominin evidences in western Europe (ca. 1.4 Ma). Paleoenvironmental reconstructions have been done within a more detailed stratigraphi...
En este trabajo se resumen los estudios llevados a cabo en los distintos yacimientos arqueopa-leontológicos de Orce durante las últimas décadas, haciendo especial hincapié en los resultados obtenidos a raíz de las últimas campañas de excavación (2017-2020), enmarcadas en el Proyecto General de Investigación «Primeras ocupaciones humanas y contexto...
The Early Pleistocene sites of Barranco León and Fuente Nueva 3 (Guadix-Baza Basin, SW Spain) have yielded abundant Oldowan lithic artifacts and one hominin tooth (Homo sp. in layer D of Barranco León), today considered to be among the earliest evidence for hominin presence in Western Europe, at ca. 1.4-1.2 Ma. Here, for the first time, the stratig...
Anurans are represented by four species (Discoglossus cf. jeanneae, Pelobates cultripes, Bufo bufo s.l. and Pelophylax cf. perezi), while squamates include four lizards (Chalcides cf. bedriagai, Timon cf. lepidus, indeterminate small lacertids and cf. Dopasia) and five snakes (Coronella girondica, Natrix maura, Natrix natrix s.l., Rhinechis scalari...
RESUM L'explotació de recursos animals de talla petita presenta una importància significativa en contexts de les darreres societats caçadores i recol·lectores a l'àrea del NE peninsular i, particularment, la cacera especialitzada de conill salvatge (Oryctolagus cunniculus). A la majoria de jaciments caracteritzats per aquest tipus d'estratègia, Ory...
