Sima del Elefante (Atapuerca, Spain): New late Middle Pleistocene dates for the uppermost stratigraphic unit of a key site in European human evolution

Abstract

Sima del Elefante site, located in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain), represents one of the oldest, if not the oldest one, known archaeo-paleontological locality in Western Europe. Its 25 m-thick stratigraphic sequence spans part of the Lower to the latest Middle Pleistocene, making it one of the longest and best-documented sedimentary cave infill records in Europe. At the base of the sequence, hominin remains associated with lithic artifacts and faunal assemblages have been constrained to between ∼1.1 and ∼1.4 Ma, providing one of the earliest evidence of human presence in Europe. The upper part of the sequence, including level TE19, is dated to between 266 and 237 ka by Luminescence (TT-OSL and pIR-IR225). This study presents new dating results (127 ± 28 et 153 ± 15 ka) for level TE19, through the application of combined U-series/ESR and laser-ablation U-series methods on two teeth of Equus sp. These results are compared with previously published luminescence ages, as well as faunal data, to offer a critical assessment of the chronology of the upper part of the sequence. Together, these data contribute to refine the chronostratigraphic framework of Sima del Elefante, with implications for the timing of human occupations and the environmental context of early European populations.