“I would have liked to be a Cro-Magnon”
Twenty years ago, Professor Arsuaga began to work in the excavations of the Sierra de Atapuerca, an activity that he has shared with his teaching work in the Department of Paleontology of the Faculty of Geological Sciences of the UCM.
On San Fermin’s Day 1992, Professor Arsuaga’s scientific career took a new course. On July 7, his colleague Ignacio Martínez found the almost complete skull of a man who lived 300,000 years ago in the Sima de los Huesos , one of the paleontological sites in the Sierra de Atapuerca, in Burgos.
Overnight, the Sima de los Huesos became the most important site in Europe. The largest accumulation of human fossils in history has been found in this natural cavity. Indeed, to date scientists have rescued a whopping 2,500 remains of between 33 and 45 individuals, belonging to the species Homo heidelbergensis, ancestor of Neanderthal man. At the same time, in the neighboring Gran Dolina site, Arsuaga’s team has recovered a set of 80 human fossils 800,000 years old. They belong to a new species of our lineage that has been baptized with the scientific name of Homo antecessor. This, in addition to establishing himself as the first European citizen, constitutes the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern man. Professor Arsuaga has been, at times, the protagonist and, at other times, an exceptional witness of these fascinating discoveries.
?What does the Atapuerca deposit mean to you?
-From a personal point of view, I owe almost everything to Atapuerca. An important part of my life is linked to this site. Now, it is necessary to qualify. Normally, a scientific discovery propels the researcher who carries it out to work. This has not been my case, because Atapuerca has not promoted me academically or economically. Above all, it has brought me personal and spiritual satisfaction, as well as the opportunity to go down in history. All of them have been intangible benefits. My relationship with Atapuerca is pure romanticism.
–As you say, you and your team are already part of the story. His discoveries have attracted the attention of the international scientific community …
-No wonder. The Burgos site is a divine gift, a time capsule that holds the answers to many questions about the evolution and way of life of humanity, from a million years ago, or perhaps more, to the present day. The Atapuerca deposit is unique. Note that in the same excavation campaign we may be working in some strata of the Sima del Elefante that caress 1.2 million years, excavating in the Gran Dolina site at levels of 800,000 to 600,000 years old and, at the same time time, dive into the 300,000 years of the Sima de los Huesos. If we moved to the world of art, Atapuerca would be something like finding an Egyptian pyramid, a Roman circus and a Gothic cathedral in the same location. But not just any of these monuments, but the most spectacular: Cheops, the Colosseum, Notre Dame …
–You have just mentioned that the Sima del Elefante is close to 1.2 million years old. Have you found any human evidence at this site?
“No, but I’d give anything to stumble over a carved stone there.” It would be a global news item, since it would undoubtedly change many concepts about the evolution of man and his departure from Africa.
–Who would have carved that lithic tool? A Homo erectus or maybe a Homo habilis?
– Probably neither of them. It would be the work of a type of Homo antecessor similar to the one we have found in the Gran Dolina, but half a million years older. Unfortunately, the fossil record from this time is quite precarious. Still, it could be checked against contemporary fossil evidence found in Java, but they are so far apart in the distance that they would be of little use.
–The gossips say that their success has come from them, that is, that it is the result of chance.
-It is undoubted that chance plays a very important role in paleontology, but also in other branches of science. For example, an astronomer can focus his telescope on any given day at a point in the sky and discover a new galaxy. In the case of Atapuerca, luck has played a secondary role, since the work at the Burgos site resembles conventional research, such as the discovery of antibiotics or oncogenes. In the eighties, we trusted that Atapuerca hid great possibilities in its sediments and we began a series of excavations. Until 1992, the year in which the first spectacular human fossils emerged, we had only collected bone fragments and lithic industry that for us were sufficient evidence to continue betting on Atapuerca. Thus, the findings have not been the result so much of chance as of pulling the thread: picking up a line and starting to follow it.
–It has been 20 years since the witness of the Atapuerca excavations was collected. Do you still feel the same passion as at the beginning every time a new fossil appears?
-Yes of course! What happens is that some of the Atapuerca deposits are already too predictable. Our colleagues are fascinated when I tell them that in an excavation campaign we can extract more than 300 human fossils in the Sima de los Huesos alone. I have been excavating in Ethiopia and when a member of the team found a human tooth we were ecstatic and it was cause for celebration. I modestly thought: But if I have thousands of them in Spain!
–But doesn’t this predictability you refer to detract from the excitement of your work?
-Not one iota. You see, there is still a lot of information in the fossils that we have found and there are many sites to be excavated in the Burgos mountains that will surely bring us more than one joy. Also, we are constantly looking for new things.
–Could you be more explicit?
-As you know, we have recently presented in society a complete male pelvis of about 300,000 years old that we found in the Sima de los Huesos in 1994. In this same site, female coxal fragments have been found that, when compared with the male equivalents, allow us know that the differences in shape between the male and female pelvises of Homo heidelbergensis are similar to those found in current populations. However, I would like to locate an entire female hip to, among other things, study the birth canal.
–What information can this anatomical region provide?
-The pelvic or birth canal of the individual from La Sima de los Huesos, which we have baptized with the name of Elvis, is so large that the head of a current fetus could pass through it without difficulty. Taking into account that women in the Middle Pleistocene would have a larger canal than men, it is to be assumed that delivery would be less difficult and painful than at present.
–What other things would you like to find in the Sierra Burgos?
-We lack, for example, fossil remains that provide data related to language and height. To date, we have not found any signs of fire either, and it would be great to find them. Finally and on a personal basis, the appearance of remains of a home and even signs of a symbolic or ritual type would produce a great illusion.
–But many experts believe that the symbolic mind is unique to modern man.
-I disagree. I think that those Burgos from 300,000 years ago already possessed this faculty. For example, we believe that the accumulation of corpses in the Sima de los Huesos is not accidental, but is due to a funeral practice. I am on the side of those who believe that the symbolic mind is not exclusive to our species, although it is evident that it has developed enormously in Homo sapiens. Humans have surrounded ourselves with symbols and have done something that is unique in nature: we assign emotional values to these symbols.
–Is it known how and when this capacity for abstraction arises?
-There is no doubt that it is a product of evolution. As I maintain in my book The Neanderthal’s Necklace, until reaching the population of the Sima de los Huesos, evolution had produced a spectacular increase in the size of the brain. As a result, there was a considerable advance in higher mental capacities and an expansion of consciousness. This was not limited to the present, but extended to the future, to the future. It was then that the hominins realized that they, all of them, were destined to die. No animal, except the human being, knows the existence of death. But this, in return, also allowed us to discover that we are alive.
–And the awareness of life and death led man to practice funeral rites. It is not like this?
-The philosopher Fernando Savater believes that the reaction of the prehistoric humans who discovered death was to embellish themselves, adorn themselves, affirm themselves in the face of the tragic end, manifest through symbols an immense jubilee in the face of being still alive. We do not know at what point in our evolution the knowledge of the impossibility of avoiding death was reached, nor who were the first living beings who became aware of it, but, without a doubt, it was already present in Atapuerca and in a species other than ours. And here the controversy arises.
–Presumably, they find it extremely difficult to follow the evolution of human behavior through the internal markings on the skull and other petrified evidence.
-Indeed, the words are blown away by the wind. Behavior does not fossilize in the same way as bones. Now, when artistic manifestations appear, such as cave paintings, it is clear that those who made them had a symbolic mind. But until then it is difficult to specify its existence. Therefore, it is not surprising that, today, the central debate facing anthropologists, beyond the discrepancies on taxonomic and phylogenetic aspects, lies in the development and evolution of the human brain.
–Could it be said that our intelligence comes from Africa?
-Africa is the cradle of humanity, and in fact it has created several different humanities. Some bipedal hominids, the first ones, lived in the forest, and later others, in the savannah, although some and others always lived there. The decision to colonize Europe and Asia was probably taken by an evolved group of hominids possessing an organized brain to carry out the colossal adventure to a successful conclusion, 1.5 million years ago. And also in Africa another form of humanity emerged, which we could define as anatomically modern, which left the neighboring continent again to colonize Eurasia, about 50,000 years ago. In reality, our true home is in Africa, with the other primates. Europe and much of Asia are unsuitable for primates.
–Are you totally serious?
-How many species of primate live in European oak, pine and holm oak forests? How many in the arctic tundra, in the boreal taiga and in the steppes and deserts? None, for the simple reason that they are not the ideal habitats for primates.
–Of the nearly 5 million years of human evolution, which moment do you find most interesting?
-Undoubtedly, the golden age of our evolutionary journey coincides with the appearance of the Cro-Magnon man, which is us, but in a state of wild and free hunters. At the end of the Pleistocene, about 35,000 years ago, Cro-Magnons lived in total harmony with nature, like any other animal species. But the most fascinating thing about them is that they were not animals, but human beings with a prodigious mind. I am convinced that they were capable of making wonderful poetry, telling beautiful stories and composing music and songs full of rhythm and feelings. The Cromagnon man starred in an explosion of art and creativity that has been captured, for example, in the Altamira cave. On one occasion, Picasso said that Altamira’s artistic work has never been surpassed. I share your opinion. In short, the Cro-Magnons fascinate me because they inhabited the place that biologically corresponds to us and, at the same time, they were capable of producing fictional worlds.
–Come on, he would have liked to be a Cro-Magnon
-Yeah right!
–Weren’t the Cro-Magnons a civilized people?
-They lived another type of civilization. The hunter man in the pure wild state, not yet civilized, was, little by little, replaced by a very different one: the domesticated and sedentary man, who moves to the tired rhythm of his cattle or who bends his back on the land that he digs, looking up at the sky only to beg for the rain or to ask for it to stop. With the change in the economy, as I underline in my book, there was also a change in mentality: the gods of the hunters were not the same as those of the farmers and ranchers.
–From the title of his latest book, The Neanderthal’s Necklace , it can be deduced that he also denotes a special weakness for this species. Can you tell us why?
-Because they weren’t our ancestors. The Neanderthals constituted a humanity parallel to ours, a species of extraterrestrial creatures that landed in Europa and that, in their ephemeral existence, came face to face with the Cro-Magnons. It had to be a poignant moment: Can a more exciting plot be conceived for a novel?
–Did they get to mix?
-On a large scale, I think not, although we lack data in this regard … (Arsuaga pauses the interview, which we keep in a laboratory, to focus on a book that a student is carrying under his arm. Then he continues) Have you read the bookStar Wars? This is pure mythology … Almost everything in our species is mythology.
–By the way, in the last George Lucas movie, Star Wars. The Phantom menace , man, and other humanoid species display chilling destructive technology. How do you see the future of humanity?
-There was a time when man’s destiny was determined by nature. Now, the future of humanity is in our own hands. We live in a society determined to transform the natural world into an artificial world.
–Do you mean that nature is no longer a threat to us?
-Not at all. I don’t want to imagine what would happen if another meteorite like the one that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago fell on Earth. And I shudder when I think of a possible future ice age. We must not forget that we left one about 13,000 years ago and that the ice reached a thickness of a kilometer and a half in some places in Europe.
–Is it possible that humanity will disappear under the glacial ice?
-We’d have a terrible time, but I think the species would survive.
–Could science do something about it?
-Imagine that in a future ice age scientists had the technology to control and manipulate the climate. It would be the greatest of wars, then, how would the countries share the rains, the ice and the deserts?
Enrique M. Coperías
This interview was published in October 1999, in number 221 of VERY Interesting.
