Axial and appendicular skeleton of Homo antecessor

The human trunk and limb bones recovered from the Gran Dolina site, in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) are studied. All these fossils were exc avated at the level called TD6 between 1994 and 1995 and have been dated in excess of 780,000 years ago. These remains have been recently attributed t o a new Homo species named Homo antecessor. Axial (vertebrae and ribs) and part of the appendicular (clavicles, radii, femur and patellae) skeleton ar e studied here. Hand and foot bones have been studied elsewhere (Lorenzo et al., 1999). Four is the minimum number of individuals represented by the p ostcranial remains recovered up to now. All elements are briefly described anatomically, measured and compared with other fossil hominids and modem hu mans in order to establish, as far as possible, what postcranial morphology characterized this new species of our genus. The H. antecessor postcrania, generally, display a set of morphological tra its that are more similar to modern humans than to the Middle and Upper Ple istocene European hominids. Our results do not contradict the previous phyl ogenetic analysis, i.e., that H. antecessor represents the last common ance stor for H. sapiens (modern humans) and H. neanderthalensis (Neandertals). (C) 1999 Academic Press.