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31
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Introduction
Elena Santos currently works at the Department of Paleontology, Complutense University of Madrid. Elena does research in Paleontology, Civil Engineering and Industrial Engineering. Their current project is 'Atapuerca Sites.'
Additional affiliations
July 2000 - present
Publications
Publications (31)
Since their discovery in 1978, the hominin fossil footprints from Laetoli have been the focus, of extensive research on the locomotion, speed, body size, and behavior of the responsible track-makers (nominally Australopithecus afarensis). In this work, we show that careful examination of walking speed and displacement yields valuable information re...
The frontal sinuses are cavities inside the frontal bone located at the junction between the face and the cranial vault and close to the brain. Despite a long history of study, understanding of their origin and variation through evolution is limited. This work compares most hominin species’ holotypes and other key individuals with extant hominids....
Santiago de Compostela is, together with Rome and Jerusalem, one of the three main pilgrimage and religious centres for Catholicism. The belief that the remains of St James the Great, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, is buried there has stimulated, since their reported discovery in the 9th century AD, a significant flow of people from ac...
The origin and evolution of hominin mortuary practices are topics of intense interest and debate1–3. Human burials dated to the Middle Stone Age (MSA) are exceedingly rare in Africa and unknown in East Africa1–6. Here we describe the partial skeleton of a roughly 2.5- to 3.0-year-old child dating to 78.3 ± 4.1 thousand years ago, which was recovere...
Carnivores show a great variability as taphonomic agents, because of their own behaviour
and physical characteristics. The identifi cation and characterisation of the accumulator
agents is required to understand the relationships and diff erences between human and carnivore activities in archaeological sites. Thus, studies based on actualistic and...
Like human groups, carnivores are able to act on the same faunal accumulation and generate important bone assemblages with their prey remains. In addition, both predators can share the same habitable areas and alternate their occupations, producing the well-known palimpsest at archaeological sites. As a discipline, taphonomy helps us understand the...
Objectives
The aim of this work is to describe the taphonomic signatures of the Aroeira 3 cranium, with a specific focus on cranial breakage, comparing the cranium with other Middle and Upper Pleistocene hominin fossils in order to approximate the cause of death and the biological agencies and geologic processes involved in the taphonomic record of...
Deninger’s bears (Ursus deningeri) have been studied less frequently than Ursus spelaeus s.l. Our objective is to present, for the first time, an analysis of the skull shape of U. deningeri.
Bear crania and mandibles were digitised with a Microscribe or CT-scanned and the surface models subsequently landmarked. The landmarks were chosen based on a...
The Eurasian beaver, Castor fiber is known from the Pleistocene in Europe, although there are references to the presence of the genus Castor since the Miocene, ca. 10 Ma. Beavers are present in the Iberian Peninsula since the Pliocene, though the first appearance of Castor fiber took place in the Early Pleistocene levels of the localities of the Si...
Significance
We describe a recently discovered cranium from the Aroeira cave in Portugal dated to around 400 ka. This specimen is the westernmost Middle Pleistocene cranium of Europe and is one of the earliest fossils from this region associated with Acheulean tools. Unlike most other Middle Pleistocene finds, which are of uncertain chronology, the...
Two complete skulls of Ursus deningeri, one recovered from the Middle Pleistocene site of the Sima de los Huesos in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain), and the other one from Petralona (Chalkidiki, Greece), were reconstructed through computed tomography. The cranial morphology of U. deningeri was analysed using dual “traditional” and geometric morphom...
Significance
The knee ankylosis and the hole through it ties perfectly with the penetrating wound and lameness suffered by Philip II and conclusively identifies him as the occupant of Tomb I in Vergina, Greece. The age estimates of the three occupants are consistent with those derived from the historical sources. Cleopatra's (Philip’s wife) child w...
This work presents the results from the excavation of a multiple burial in a pseudo-tumular structure constructed in the Cueva Mayor cave in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos), specifically focusing on the entrance of this cave in an area known as El Portalón archaeological site. We recovered the skeletal remains of a minimum of eight individuals fro...
The extant beaver, genus Castor is present in Eurasia since the Miocene. It is at the present time, the unique representative of a previously more diverse rodent family, the Castoridae, that appeared during the lower Oligocene, being restricted to the Northerm Hemisphere. The oldest record of Castor in Spain, Castor sp., is from the Ruscinian of th...
The main goal of this work is to introduce the archaeological
characteristics of a collective burial excavated in
the level 7/8 from “El Portalón de Cueva Mayor” site (Sierra
de Atapuerca, Burgos). The radiocarbon dating for this
funerary level, obtained from seed, faunal and human
remains, indicates dates of4350 ± 30 BP. This, together
with the ty...
Un crâne complet d’Ursus deningeri de Petralona (Chalkidiki, Grèce) recouvert d’une croûte épaisse de carbonate, a été libéré « virtuellement » au moyen de la tomographie et de la reconstruction d’image en 3D. Il a été comparé avec un autre spécimen du Pléistocène Moyen provenant du gisement de la Sima de los Huesos (Sierra de Atapuerca, Espagne)....
Two complete skulls of Ursus deningeri, from the Middle Pleistocene site of Sima de los Huesos in Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain) and Petralona (Chalkidiki, Greece), were reconstructed with computed tomography. The cranial morphology of U. deningeri was analysed using geometric morphometrics and compared to exnct and extant Ursidae (Ursus spelaeus and...
La Cueva de Askondo desarrollada en calizas arrecifales cretácicas del valle del río Mañaria es parte del sistema kárstico de la unidad hidrogeológica Aramotz. El trazado rectilíneo y los rasgos kársticos de la cavidad denotan un fuerte control estructural en su desarrollo tanto en la etapa freática como en la etapa vadosa. Los sedimentos endokárst...
The various manufacturers of digitization systems speak of the effectiveness and accuracy of their tools under optimal conditions, but actual experimentation with simple or complex objects and different materials yields results that on occasions refute the effectiveness of those systems. In order to help choose a digitization system on the basis of...
This paper presents part of the bone industry collection recovered from the site of Portalón at Cueva Mayor, located in the Sierra de Atapuerca.
Pointed bones type objects have been specifically analyzed. These objects have divided into several types, placing them in chronological
and cultural context. This set has been classified as Final Chalcoli...
A complete skull of Ursus deningeri recovered from the Middle Pleistocene site of the Sima de los Huesos in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain) was studied with computed tomography. This technique makes it possible to study new and relevant information in the endocranial structures and avoids any damage to the specimen. The previously undescribed endoc...
The site of Portalón at Cueva Mayor, located in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain), is an important Holocene archaeological site that was excavated in the 70's but from which little has been published. New excavations starting in 2000 have highlighted a deep stratigraphical sequence with human occupations starting in the beginning of the Upper...
The site of Portalón at Cueva Mayor, located in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain), is an important Holocene archaeological site that was excavated in the 70’s but from which little has been published. New excavations starting in 2000 have highlighted a deep stratigraphical sequence with human occupations starting in the beginning of the Upper...
A complete skull of Ursus deningeri recovered from the Middle Pleistocene site of the Sima de los Huesos in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain) was studied with computed tomography. This technique makes it possible to study new and relevant information in the endocranial structures and avoids any damage to the specimen. The previously unde-scribed endo...
A complete skull of Ursus deningeri recovered from Sima de los Huesos (Middle Pleistocene)
of Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain) (Torres, 1988; Arsuaga et al., 1997; García et al., 1997; García, 2003)
was studied by using X-ray Computed Tomography (CT). This technique allowed the extraction of new
relevant information from the endocranial structures, whil...
Projects
Projects (2)
Early Pleistocene to Holocene cave studies from the Sierra de Atapuerca. Small mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes (microfauna) and the Homo species geological and archaeological context. Biostratigraphy, paleoclimatology, paleobiogeography, evolution, taphonomy, techniques, morphometrics, biodiversity. Homo species: first discovery of Homo in the Early Pleistocene of Europe, Homo sp. and Homo antecessor; the middle Pleistocene Homo aff. heidelbergensis; the Holocene Homo sapiens.
Archaeological surveys and excavations have been undertaken from 1979 until now, leading to the discovery of five sites in the promontory named Calvero de la Higuera (Pinilla del Valle, Madrid, Spain). These sites are Camino Cave, Navalmaíllo Shelter, Buena Pinta Cave, Ocelado Shelter, and Des-cubierta Cave. Fossil remains of Homo neanderthalensis have been found in three of five sites (Camino Cave, Buena Pinta Cave and Des-cubierta Cave).
The interdisciplinary project underway has the aim of reconstructing the past from the information provided by the above sites. The idea is to understand how the landscape changed, what the climate was at the transition between the Middle and Upper Pleistocene, how the animals, plants and humans of the area evolved, how hyaenas and Neanderthals interacted, and to comprehend the activity of the latter animals at the Cuevas del Camino and Buena Pinta sites. Learning more about the behaviour of Neanderthals and understanding the occupation levels they left behind at the Navalmaillo Rock Shelter and Cueva Des-Cubierta sites, are further grand goals.
This project is directed by palaeontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga (UCM-ISCIII), archaeologist Enrique Baquedano (MAR), and geologist Alfredo Pérez-González (CENIEH).
