An international team has identified the first Neanderthal remains in Navarre. They are six bone fragments recovered during previous campaigns in the Abauntz cave which, according to the analyses, belonged to a man who lived around 46,000 years ago.
The discovery was presented on Monday (19 October) at an event led by the president of the Government of Navarre, María Chivite.
The assemblage includes three metacarpal bones and a middle phalanx from the right hand of an adult individual. These are joined by two other fragments that have been identified as human through protein analysis. Genetic studies confirm that the remains come from a male Neanderthal.
Some of the bones preserve carnivore bite marks; those traces offer clues about what happened to the body after the individual’s death and how the bones ended up inside the cave.
The fossils were found in an archaeological context with stone tools and animal remains, some showing signs of having been processed and eaten by the human groups that occupied the cavity. That context helps to situate Neanderthal presence at Abauntz and to understand what activities were carried out there.
A Neanderthal in Navarre that fills a gap in the western Pyrenees
Until now, there were no fossils that could directly confirm that Neanderthals passed through this area.
"For the first time we have human remains that allow us to directly identify the presence of Neanderthals in Navarre," explains Andion Arteaga, who co-directs the project, in a press release issued by the team.
The date matters.Forty-six thousand years ago Neanderthals were still living in different parts of Europe. A few millennia later, around 40,000 years ago, the species disappeared from the continent, in a period also marked by the expansion of Homo sapiens.
The location of Abauntz adds further interest, as the cave lies in a natural corridor connecting the Iberian Peninsula with the rest of Europe, making it a good place to study mobility and possible contacts between human groups on both sides of the Pyrenees.
Ancient DNA and direct dating
Recovering ancient DNA from remains tens of thousands of years old is not common. Genetic material degrades over time and its preservation depends on the conditions in which the fossils have remained.
The team has combined palaeoproteomics, genetic analyses and radiocarbon dating to identify the bones, determine the individual’s sex and establish their chronology precisely. This work is being carried out together with the University of Vienna and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. The clearest precedent is El Sidrón, in Asturias, where genetics has shed light on kinship, social organisation and the evolutionary history of Neanderthals.
"Being able to recover ancient DNA and obtain direct dates for the fossils is particularly significant," stresses Mikel Arlegi, also co-director of the project.
Genetic analyses are ongoing and could provide more information about the evolutionary history and demographic dynamics of these populations.
The research originated at the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (Iphes-Cerca), based in Tarragona, which remains involved through Lucía López-Polín, Andreu Ollé and Aitor Burguet. The project is co-directed by Arteaga, from the Centre for New Technologies at the University of Warsaw and associated with Iphes-Cerca, and Arlegi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris.
The team brings together more than 25 specialists from different disciplines and institutions, including the National Centre for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) and the Institute of Archaeology of Mérida (IAM, CSIC–Government of Extremadura).
The project is supported by the Government of Navarre, through the Directorate-General for Culture–Príncipe de Viana Institution, by the Council of the Ultzama Valley, the Arraitz-Orkin local council and the Palarq Foundation. Members of the team taking part in the new excavation campaign, which is still under way in the cave, also attended the presentation event.