After a meticulous study of the abundant stone tools and the remains of fauna found inVallparadís, the members of the IPHES (Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution) and the Prehistory Area of the Rovira i Virgili University of Tarragona have shown thata million years ago human beings already lived in the Mediterranean area of the Iberian Peninsula. Our ancestors subsisted thanks to the great capacity to adapt to the environment, with a large presence of carnivorous animals such as hyenas and jaguars, with whom they competed in their fight for survival. The find fills a chronological gap to knowwhat happened between the first inhabitants of Orce 1.3 million years ago and the Homo antecessor of Atapuerca 800,000 years ago, as published today by the magazineProceedings of the Nacional Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The archaeological remains studied were obtained in the excavations carried out between 2005 and 2007 in the city of Terrassa, where as a result of the construction work of a station of the Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat a new site was uncovered in the area of the ancient stream known as Vallparadís.
The site has provided the largest archaeological and paleontological record of theEuropean Lower Pleistocene, about a million years ago, a key stage in the first human occupation of Europe. The large lithic industry that Vallparadís has contributed belongs to theOlduvayense technology, characterized by presenting a scarce elaboration, mainly carried out on small river pebbles, mainly of indigenous materials such as quartz, flint or lidite, which were used to make a lithic instrument from simple carving techniques.
Great predator
As far as fauna is concerned, abundant remains ofmacromamíferos, among which herbivores such as equidae, cervids or bovids stand out, as well as other large species such as hippos, elephants and rhinos, and various carnivores such as hyenas and jaguars.
“The most determining factor in the expansion and adaptation of the hominids was probably the fact of having a carnivorous diet that allowed them to survive in a diverse ecological environment, such as that of Vallparadís”, affirm the authors of the study, who propose that? early European populations would have known very well how to take advantage of the carcasses of animals found in the areas bordering the river, becomingbig predators?.
