IMMUNOSPECIFICITY OF ALBUMIN DETECTED IN 1.6 MILLION-YEAR-OLD FOSSILSFROM VENTA-MICENA IN ORCE, GRANADA, SPAIN

The Orce skull fragment from southern Spain, dated at 1.6 Myr, has bee n a subject of heated controversy since it was first discovered in 198 2. If it is hominid, as its discoverers contend, it is by far the olde st fossil hominid yet found in western Europe and implies that human p opulations settled this region much earlier than was previously realiz ed. Numerous stone artifacts found at the Orce sites provide evidence that hominids were indeed present there in the Lower Pleistocene. Some paleontologists maintain that the 8 cm diameter occipital fragment is from a horse, not a hominid. Two independent investigations of the re sidual proteins in the skull were undertaken, one at the University of Granada in Spain, the other at the University of California, San Fran cisco. Two immunological methods of comparable sensitivity were employ ed for detection and species attribution of protein extracted from fos sil bone: the Granada team used an enzyme-linked-immunosorbent assay ( ELISA), and the UCSF team used a radioimmunoassay (RIA). Both teams ob tained reactions characteristic of human albumin in the Orce skull and horse albumin in some of the horse fossils. These results support the lithic evidence that hominids were living in Andalusia 1.6 million ye ars ago. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.