They reconstruct the face of Pau, a great ape that lived in Catalonia 12 million years ago

2023-10-17 10:11:47

The fossils were fragmented

Updated Tuesday, October 17, 2023 – 10:11

Using scanners, they have reconstructed in 3D the face of ‘Pierolapithecus catalaunicus’, a great ape found in 2002 considered one of the first members of the great ape family and humans.

Pau’s skull when it was found (left), after being prepared and on the right, the 3DD reconstruction. Alba, S. Moy-Sol, K. Pugh

They found it by chance in 2002 during construction work on a landfill in the town of Els Hostalets de Pierola, in Barcelona, ​​and it turned out to be a valuable fossil in the history of human evolution. Formally named Pierolapithecus catalaunicus and popularly known as Pau, this extinct great ape that lived in Catalonia about 12 million years ago rose to fame on November 18, 2004, when this species was described in the prestigious journal Science.

Slo fossils of an individual were found, remains of a partial skeleton with which they have been able to assemble a good part of the skull of a great ape that lived in the current Valls-Peneds Basin, at that time a dense and humid tropical jungle. According to the analysis of the team led by Salvador Moy-Sol, of the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont (ICP), could be the common ancestor of humans and today’s great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans). From that crucial time to understand where we come from, the middle Miocene, few fossils have been found, hence the great importance that Pierolapithecus catalaunicus acquired.

Two decades after their discovery at the Can Mata site, Pau’s remains, which were in relatively good condition for their age but fragmented and deteriorated, have been subjected to a technological facelift to reveal in detail what his true face was like. . For itthe fossils have passed through modern scanners which have made it possible to reconstruct its appearance in three dimensions, within the framework of research carried out jointly by scientists from the Miquel Crusafont Institute, the American Museum of Natural History and Brooklyn College. The results are published this Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Pau belongs to a group of individuals known as hominoid primates, It weighed about 35 kilograms, was between one and 1.2 meters tall and was probably a male, according to the estimates of paleontologists, who believe that it comes from Africa. His canines are prominent and large and the wear of his teeth reveals that he died young. Although the cause is unknown, they have been able to find out that carnivorous scavengers from its surroundings either killed it or took advantage of its remains when he had died, because his long bones were crumbled.

Its discoverers considered it the oldest known representative of the family Hominidae (the group that includes humans, chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas and bonobos), with modern body characteristics: a wide and narrow thorax between shoulder and chest, shoulder blades located on the back, a long clavicle, vertebrae in the lumbar area shorter and a characteristic arrangement of the joint between the forearm and the wrist, as detailed by the ICP scientists on their website.

scientific debate

Previous studies also indicated that it had relatively long thumb in relation to the length of the hand, as also happens in humans. That is, it brings together the basic features of modern body design that identify the members of our family and considering that it lived about 11.9 million years ago, it was described as the oldest evidence of that body design that gave rise to our group.

But despite what has been found out, There is no scientific consensus on where to place this great ape, whether as one of the most primitive hominids (which includes all the great apes), or as one of the first hominins (a subfamily that includes humans).

With the new reconstruction published this Monday, which they have compared with the skulls of other species, they have seen that Pau shares similarities in the shape and general size of the face with both extinct and living great apes, but also has distinct facial features not found in other Middle Miocene apesresults that support the idea that this species represents one of the first members of the family of great apes and humans.

“An interesting result of the study’s evolutionary modeling is that the skull of Pierolapithecus is closer in shape and size to the ancestor from which great apes and humans evolved,” explained Sergio Almcija, co-author of the study. The desire of palentologists is to find remains of other individuals of this same species that can clarify their place in the evolutionary tree.