Rebeca García-González

• PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Burgos

Presentamos los resultados obtenidos, hasta el momento, en el contexto neolítico del yacimiento de El Portalón de Cueva Mayor (sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos). La mayor parte del depósito arqueológico deriva del uso de la cueva como un espacio de hábitat. La serie de dataciones radiocarbónicas obtenidas (desde el 7270-7030 cal BP 2σ al 5464-5372 cal B...

This study proposes new developmental stages for age classification of the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), based on tooth development observed through X-rays, with a focus on juveniles. The classification defines a set of developmental markers expected as a cub grows, identifying five age categories: neonate, two juvenile stages, subadult, and adult....

Objective This paper explores the various protocols for deriving endosteal and periosteal contours of the femoral midneck cross‐section in non‐adult individuals using EPmacroJ. Materials and Methods We analyzed femoral midneck cross‐sectional contours in a total sample of 55 femora belonging to medieval individuals ranging in age between 2 and 20...

Objectives The European expansion of the Early Modern period led to unparalleled intercontinental plant and animal translocations. This study explores the dietary changes resulting from the movement of plants and animals, such as maize, into local diets beyond the Americas. The analysis focuses on the Canary Islands (Spain), which play a key role i...

Cattle ( Bos taurus ) play an important role in the life of humans in the Iberian Peninsula not just as a food source but also in cultural events. When domestic cattle were first introduced to Iberia, wild aurochs ( Bos primigenius ) were still present, leaving ample opportunity for mating (whether intended by farmers or not). Using a temporal bioa...

The Cueva Des-Cubierta site (Pinilla del Valle, Madrid, Spain) contains a peculiar association of crania from large horned herbivores, which were deposited over generations by Neanderthals. To understand the anthropogenic modification of the crania, an experimental program has been carried out from multiple perspectives, with functionality being on...

This study investigates the morphological changes of the coracoid process and its metaphyseal surface at the glenoid-coracoid interface, aiming to characterize these transformations across different maturity stages. A total of 26 coracoid epiphyses and 48 coracoid metaphyses from a skeletal sample excavated at the medieval Dominican Convent of San...

Studies of modeling processes have provided important insights in human evolutionary discipline. Most of these studies are based on facial bones and in much lesser extent on other bones such as those from the cranial vault. Thus, this study fills a gap in research by examining occipital bone modeling in subadults, adding individuals under 2 years o...

onmetric dental traits and odontometrics have demonstrated that pre-European populations of the Canarian archipelago are closely related to Northwest Africans, revealing varying degrees of interisland diversity. However, a comprehensive study of differences across various islands has not yet been conducted. This study aims to analyze the difference...

Objectives The current research delves into the use of 3D geometric morphometric for assessing shifts in maturity within both the proximal and distal humeral metaphyses. It mainly focuses on establishing correlations between these shifts and the shape changes observed in the corresponding epiphyses established through radiographic imaging. Materia...

Cattle have been a valuable economic resource and cultural icon since prehistory. From the initial expansion of domestic cattle into Europe during the Neolithic period, taurine cattle ( Bos taurus ) and their wild ancestor, the aurochs ( B. primigenius ), had overlapping ranges, leading to ample opportunities for mating (whether intended by farmers...

This research delves deeper into previous works on femoral cross‐sectional properties during ontogeny by focusing for the first time on the human femoral midneck. The ontogenetic pattern of cross‐sectional properties at femoral midneck is established and compared with those at three different femoral locations: the proximal femur, the midshaft, and...

Introduction Locomotion activities are part of most human daily tasks and are the basis for subsistence activities, particularly for hunter–gatherers. Therefore, differences in speed walking‐related variables may have an effect, not only on the mobility of the group, but also on its composition. Some anthropometric parameters related to body length...

Caregiving for disabled individuals among Neanderthals has been known for a long time, and there is a debate about the implications of this behavior. Some authors believe that caregiving took place between individuals able to reciprocate the favor, while others argue that caregiving was produced by a feeling of compassion related to other highly ad...

High physical activity (PA) levels may compromise the energy available for vital functions (growth, maintenance) in children/adolescents. A new hypothesis suggests that physiological and behavioral compensatory mechanisms act to buffer daily energy expenditure due to high PA levels. One mechanism could be a reduction of the resting metabolic rate (...

Cattle have been a valuable economic resource and cultural icon since prehistory. From the initial expansion of domestic cattle into Europe during the Neolithic period, taurine cattle (Bos taurus) and their wild ancestor, the aurochs (B. primigenius), had overlapping ranges leading to ample opportunities for intentional and unintentional hybridizat...

Cattle have been a valuable economic resource and cultural icon since prehistory. From the initial expansion of domestic cattle into Europe during the Neolithic period, taurine cattle (Bos taurus) and their wild ancestor, the aurochs (B. primigenius), had overlapping ranges leading to ample opportunities for intentional and unintentional hybridizat...

The European colonization of the Canary Islands was accompanied by new farming and food processing techniques as well as new dietary patterns. The current study sheds light on the impact of these new techniques and foodstuffs by delving into the oral conditions of members of this society in this timeframe. The analyses of the oral conditions of 85...

En este trabajo, presentamos por primera vez el yacimiento de Salmedina 2 (Vallecas, Madrid) y el estudio de un pequeño équido, de los materiales óseos, cerámicos y líticos identificados en el Hoyo 17. Las dataciones radiométricas realizadas indican diferentes ocupaciones desde el Calcolítico (2632-2469 cal aC) hasta momentos altomedievales (774-66...

The analysis of the locomotor anatomy of Late Pleistocene Homo has largely focused on changes in proximal femur and pelvic morphologies, with much attention centered on the emergence of modern humans. Although much of the focus has been on changes in the proximal femur, some research has also been conducted on tibiae and, to a lesser extent, fibula...

The excellent fossil record from Sima de los Huesos (SH) includes three well‐known complete adult femora and several partial specimens that have not yet been published in detail. This fossil record provides an opportunity to analyze the morphology of European pre‐Neandertal adult femur and its variation with different evolution patterns. Currently,...

The analysis of the locomotor anatomy of Late Pleistocene Homo has largely focused on changes in proximal femur and pelvic morphologies, with much attention centered on the emergence of modern humans. Although much of the focus has been on changes in the proximal femur, some research has also been conducted on tibiae and, to a lesser extent, fibula...

Objective: This article analyses new prehistoric evidence of trepanation from a collective burial site in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula. Materials: The trepanned individual was documented in the Chalcolithic burial site of Camino del Molino, where 1348 individuals (30.7 % non-adults and 69.3 % adults) were deposited in two contiguous funerary...

La Beleña (Cabra, Cordova) is a necropolis made up of collective funerary structures, hypogeum and pits, excavated in the limestone marl and located in the central area of Andalusia. The structures are composed of a west-facing access pit and a spherical funerary chamber. In some cases, the upper part of the hypogeum has been lost due to agricultur...

We present new datings and a new anthropological study of Early Neolithic human remains found in Galería del Sílex in 1979. This gallery is part of the Cueva Mayor system in the Sierra de Atapuerca. The human fossils attributed to the Neolithic period correspond to a minimum number of three individuals that have been radiocarbon dated to the last t...

Cattle have been a valuable economic resource and cultural icon since prehistory. From the initial expansion of domestic cattle into Europe during the Neolithic period, taurine cattle (Bos taurus) and their wild ancestor, the aurochs (B. primigenius), had overlapping ranges leading to ample opportunities for intentional and unintentional hybridizat...

En este trabajo se presenta una aproximación a la población depositada en el depósito funerario del Dolmen de El Pendón (Reinoso, Burgos) a lo largo del IV milenio a.C., tras el desarrollo del análisis antropológico, aún en curso. La muestra analizada hasta el momento está compuesta por 90 individuos, de ambos sexos y todas las categorías de edad,...

Ya está lista la segunda edición de "Novedades del Megalitismo peninsular" que se celebrará los días 14-16 de julio en el Conjunto arqueológico de Los Dólmenes de Antequera (Málaga). Tras el éxito de la reunión "Las tumbas y los muertos, los muertos entre las tumbas" celebrada en el municipio de Reinoso (Burgos) el pasado mes de julio, anunciamos...

The forearm skeleton is composed of two bones: the radius and the ulna. This is closely related to manipulative movements. The ulna is part of the elbow joint, whereas the radius and ulna together with the scaphoid and lunate bones, form the wrist joints. Thus, morphofunctional analysis of the adult Sima de los Huesos (SH) forearm bones, provides c...

Some of the Sima de los Huesos (SH) humeri have been previously studied and described elsewhere. Here we present an updated inventory and a review of the specimens recovered to the present day. The morphological key traits of the adult and subadult specimens are described, discussed, and illustrated. The SH humeri share with Neandertals many traits...

The postcranial skeleton of fossil hominins is crucial for reconstructing the processes that occurred between the time of death and the recovery of the bones. Thousands of postcranial skeletal fragments from at least 29 hominin individuals have been recovered from the Sima de los Huesos Middle Pleistocene site in Spain. This study's primary objecti...

This work examines the possible behaviour of Neanderthal groups at the Cueva Des-Cubierta (central Spain) via the analysis of the latter’s archaeological assemblage. Alongside evidence of Mousterian lithic industry, Level 3 of the cave infill was found to contain an assemblage of mammalian bone remains dominated by the crania of large ungulates, so...

Here we present an updated inventory and study of pectoral girdle remains recovered from the Sima de los Huesos (SH) site. Here, we describe the key morphological traits of adults and, for the first time, subadult specimens. Because morphological traits can change with age, we also discuss some shortcomings related to age estimation in postcranial...

The study of non-alimentary tooth wear is an excellent tool to identify the development of specific activities and thus, to delve deeper into the social organisation and complexity of past populations. This paper analyses extra-masticatory wear in the dentition of a sample of 102 articulated skeletons from Camino del Molino, a unique collective tom...

El Portalón de Cueva Mayor cave (Atapuerca, Spain) is a settlement site at the entrance of a natural cave. This Holocene archaeological site shows a record of a long archaeological sequence that includes a Chalcolithic occupation starting from 3090 to 2240 cal. BC 2σ. During this phase, different human activities have been identified: habitational...

El Portalón de Cueva Mayor cave (Atapuerca, Spain) is a settlement site at the entrance of a natural cave. This Holocene archaeological site shows a record of a long archaeological sequence that includes a Chalcolithic occupation starting from 3090 to 2240 cal. BC 20. During this phase, different human activities have been identified: habitational...

Archaeological research in the Dolmen of El Pendón (Reinoso, Burgos, Spain) has brought to light the complex biography of a megalithic monument used throughout the 4th millennium cal. BC. The ossuary of this burial holds the bones of nearly a hundred individuals who suffered from diverse pathologies and injuries. This study presents the discovery o...

The Bayesian statistical approach considers teeth as forming a developmental module, as opposed to a tooth‐by‐tooth analysis. This approach has been employed to analyze Upper Pleistocene hominins, including Neandertals and some anatomically modern humans, but never earlier populations. Here, we show its application on five hominins from the TD6.2 l...

Traceological method is based on the identification and analysis of the stone tools surface modifications as a result of the use, hafting or manufacturing procedures, among others. Traditionally, use-wear analyses have been conducted using Optical Light Microscopy (OLM) or even, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), normally basing the interpretation...

This study presents two new methodological approaches for estimating skeletal age from maturational changes in the femoral distal epiphysis. In the first approach, five maturity stages were coded based on morphological changes in the epiphysis that encompass the overall developmental process. Data were presented as age ranges for the different matu...

Body mass estimation in fossil human species is a crucial topic in paleoanthropology as it yields information about ecologically relevant characteristics. Nevertheless, variables crucial to body mass estimation such as bone volume and skeletal weight have never before been calculated in a fossil human species. The exceptional state of preservation...

Dietary habits are inferred through dental microwear analysis in humans from two Chalcolithic sites located on the Iberian Northern Plateau: El Portalón de Cueva Mayor and El Alto de la Huesera. The pattern of dental microwear was established on the buccal surfaces of permanent and deciduous molars, on the bottom of facet 9 on the occlusal surface...

Here we present a detailed study of the aetiologic factors causing hypercementosis in the mandibular teeth of the Magdalenian human skeleton recovered from the site of El Mirón cave in northern Spain. This skeleton belongs to an adult female and is referred as the “Red Lady” because the bones were stained with red ochre. The analysis of the cementu...

The recovery to date of three complete and five partial femora, seven complete tibiae, and four complete fibulae from the Atapuerca Sima de los Huesos site provides an opportunity to analyze the biomechanical cross-sectional properties in this Middle Pleistocene population and to compare them with those of other fossil hominins and recent modern hu...

Earliest modern humans out of Africa Recent paleoanthropological studies have suggested that modern humans migrated from Africa as early as the beginning of the Late Pleistocene, 120,000 years ago. Hershkovitz et al. now suggest that early modern humans were already present outside of Africa more than 55,000 years earlier (see the Perspective by St...

Skeletal maturity refers to the process that implies the achievement of specialized and highly organized adult status. One of the methods to assess the skeletal maturity is based on changes in the shape of the metaphysis and epiphysis. Nonetheless, changes on the proximal metaphyseal surface of the humerus during growth have not been widely studied...

Estimating enamel formation times and enamel extension rates requires the preservation of an unworn crown. Only in unworn teeth can the total perikymata number be counted along the whole crown height and the total thickness of cuspal enamel be measured. However, the methods described in the literature for accurately reconstructing the cuspal outlin...

Objectives: In the last years different methodologies have been developed to reconstruct worn teeth. In this article, we propose a new 2-D methodology to reconstruct the worn enamel of lower molars. Our main goals are to reconstruct molars with a high level of accuracy when measuring relevant histological variables and to validate the methodology...

Cut marks provide direct evidence of faunal exploitation by humans. Several variables regulate the cut mark’s micromorphology. One of them is the material of the blade edge. 3D microscopy is used to discern which material was used to make each cut mark. This method has advantages over traditional methodologies (Scanning Electronic Microscope or len...

Here we present the prevalence of vertebral pathologies in a medieval archaeological collection (XII-XIV) from the Dominican monastery of San Pablo (Burgos, Spain). This sample is compound by 39 adults and 62 subadults. Our studied is only based in adult individuals. Sex estimation was done based on morphological traits in pelves, resulting in 24 m...

In the last years different methodologies have been developed to reconstruct worn teeth [1,2]. In this study we propose a new 2D methodology to reconstruct the worn enamel of lower molars in modern humans. Our main goal is to reconstruct molars with a high level of accuracy when measuring relevant histological variables and to validate the methodol...

The study of dental remains is a wealthy and stable source of information about taxonomical relations between extinct hominin species. Both morphological and metric dental features can be a reliable indicator of the underlying genotype of the individual/species under study. First lower molars (M1s) are the most stable teeth within the lower molar s...

La toma de decisiones mediante análisis multivariante de datos.

Significance The middle Pleistocene Sima de los Huesos (SH) fossil collection provides the rare opportunity to thoroughly characterize the postcranial skeleton in a fossil population, comparable only to that obtained in the study of the Neandertal hypodigm and recent (and fossil) modern humans. The SH paleodeme can be characterized as relatively ta...

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 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...

Seventeen Middle Pleistocene crania from the Sima de los Huesos site (Atapuerca, Spain) are analyzed, including seven new specimens. This sample makes it possible to thoroughly characterize a Middle Pleistocene hominin paleodeme and to address hypotheses about the origin and evolution of the Neandertals. Using a variety of techniques, the hominin-b...

Seventeen Middle Pleistocene crania from the Sima de los Huesos site (Atapuerca, Spain) are analyzed, including seven new specimens. This sample makes it possible to thoroughly characterize a Middle Pleistocene hominin paleodeme and to address hypotheses about the origin and evolution of the Neandertals. Using a variety of techniques, the hominin-b...

The present paper reports the recently recovered human bone remains from the Cueva de la Zarzamora in the southernmost limits of the Castilian Plateau of the Iberian Peninsula (Segovia, Spain). A total of two teeth and nine human bones from the trunk, pelvis and foot regions have been recovered. A complete inventory, metrical and morphological stud...

The Cueva del Camino site (Pinilla del Valle, Madrid) represents the most complete MIS 5 record from the Iberian Peninsula (away from the Mediterranean margin), including a large accumulation of fossilized remains of small and large vertebrates and two human teeth. The presence of carnivores (mainly hyenas) and humans suggests that the site should...

In this report, we present a morphometric comparative study of two Early Pleistocene humeri recovered from the TD6 level of the Gran Dolina cave site in Sierra de Atapuerca, northern Spain. ATD6-121 belongs to a child between 4 and 6 years old, whereas ATD6-148 corresponds to an adult. ATD6-148 exhibits the typical pattern of the genus Homo, but it...

Systematic excavations at the site of the Sima de los Huesos (SH) in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) have allowed us to reconstruct 27 complete long bones of the human species Homo heidelbergensis. The SH sample is used here, together with a sample of 39 complete Homo neanderthalensis long bones and 17 complete early Homo sapiens (Skhul/Qaf...

Cova del Gegant is located near the city of Sitges (Barcelona, Spain). The cave is a small karst system which contains Upper Pleistocene archaeological and paleontological material (Daura et al., 2005). The site was first excavated in 1954 and then in 1972 and 1974- (Viñas, 1972; Viñas & Villalta, 1975) and in 1985 and 1989 (Martínez et al., 1985;...

This study presents a description and comparative analysis of Middle Pleistocene permanent and deciduous teeth from the site of Qesem Cave (Israel). All of the human fossils are assigned to the Acheulo-Yabrudian Cultural Complex (AYCC) of the late Lower Paleolithic. The Middle Pleistocene age of the Qesem teeth (400-200 ka) places them chronologica...

This study reports on the skeletal remains of an infant clavicle - specimen ATD6-37 - belonging to the Homo antecessor species, unearthed at Lower Pleistocene level TD6 of the Gran Dolina site (Sierra Lie Atapuerca). Studied alongside a further adult specimen - ATD6-50 -, they provide LIS with significant information on two key paleobiological aspe...

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...

In this article, the upper cervical spine remains recovered from the Sima de los Huesos (SH) middle Pleistocene site in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) are described and analyzed. To date, this site has yielded more than 5000 human fossils belonging to a minimum of 28 individuals of the species Homo heidelbergensis. At least eleven individu...