A look at the Neanderthal from Altamura

Near the small city of Altamura in southern Italy is a cave system known as the Lamalunga karst. In 1993 speleologists exploring the karst removed a column that obstructed entry into a part of the cave system, leading them to discover a skeleton that was soon identified as a Neanderthal. This is perhaps the most complete Neanderthal skeleton ever identified, entrapped by thousands of polyps of coralloid calcite. Thirty years later the skeleton still rests there within the cave.

Over the last few years, a series of studies have applied new technology to report new details on the anatomy and context of the skeleton. Researchers have been trying to do as much science as possible without disrupting the skeleton's unique context. As the data grow, it is becoming clear that much more information may await if the skeleton could be removed and studied. But whether further—more disruptive—study should occur is not only a matter of scientific interest but also of cultural heritage. As the authors of a new study relate:

“It is not uniquely a matter of logistics, but also of the many contrasting ways the public and institutions perceive the theme, leading to long delays in the start of systematic studies on the specimen.”—Costantino Buzi and coworkers

Two pulses of recent work on the Altamura skeleton have added substantially to the scientific record. The first, from 2009 to 2015, included further exploration of the curtain of calcite surrounding the skeleton, into a small chamber behind the skeleton that cannot be accessed by cave explorers, but that can be probed with photographic instruments. There, the team identified pieces of bone that appear to have become dislodged from the remainder of the skeleton, including parts of the scapula which they recovered for dating and paleogenetic analysis.

The results of this work, reported by Martina Lari and coworkers in 2015, showed that the calcite formations covering the skeleton formed in several phases starting as early as 130,000 years ago. The age of calcite encrusting the skeleton can provide only a minimum constraint on the skeleton's age, since the bones might have lain on the floor of the cave for a very long time before calcite began to form. However the researchers found evidence for formation of speleothems in the chamber around 172,000 and 180,000 years ago, times that were absent in the calcite directly encrusting the bones. They suggested this may provide a maximum age constraint for the skeleton, thus placing the remains between 172,000 and 130,000 years ago.

If the Altamura skeleton is near the latter end of this range, it would be near in age to the large sample of early Neanderthals from Krapina, Croatia. At the earlier end of this range, closer to 170,000 years ago, the skeleton would be in a period of time that is more sparsely represented by fossil material. In the years preceding this date lie fossil samples from Biache-Saint-Vaast in northern France, and Apidima in Greece. The Apidima fossils and two slightly later hominin fossils from Israel—from Misliya Cave and Nesher Ramla—all speak to the possible mixture of populations in the period leading up to the Altamura individual's lifetime.

While DNA was not well preserved in the scapula, Lari and collaborators were able to obtain a small part of the mitochondrial DNA, which is similar in sequence to other Neanderthals. The morphology of this part of the scapula, including the glenoid fossa of the shoulder, is generally like other known Neanderthal scapulae. One exception, pointed out by Fabio Di Vincenzo and collaborators, is the axillary scapular border which has a sulcus positioned more toward the front (ventral) side, a position rare for Neanderthals but common in both modern humans and in other hominins.

From 2016 to 2020, a second pulse of work in the cave focused on virtual analysis of the skeleton in place and better data collection throughout the cave system. Costantino Buzi and coworkers reported on this work earlier this year. In this article they provided an updated map of the cave system, with survey data focusing on the areas near the chamber with the hominin skeleton, Abside dell'uomo. In the parts of the cave system near the skeleton the cave is shallow, around 6 meters below the surface; the skeleton today is around 80 meters through the cave from the current entrance.

The survey work included laser surface scanning of the skeleton from the more accessible side. In the back chamber behind the skeleton, which researchers can visualize by inserting camera equipment that can be operated remotely, they carried out photogrammetry to obtain accurate three-dimensional models of the few bones visible from that direction.

These data have enabled some new studies of the skeletal remains. Buzi completed his PhD thesis in 2020 reporting on the visualization of the skeleton and virtual reconstruction of the cranium, and these results were published in studies led by Buzi in 2024, and by Antonio Profico in 2023. The skull was situated in a way that the partially encrusted face and frontal bone were visible from the Abside dell'uomo, while the back of the skull could be seen from behind, within the inaccessible back chamber. Using some virtual anatomy techniques, Buzi, Profico, and their coworkers put the front and back of the skull together, enabling comparisons with some other fossil crania.

The preserved shape of the Altamura skull does not closely resemble the “classic” Neanderthals of the last 100,000 years. Instead the skull's outline appears more similar to earlier European fossil crania, such as those from Sima de los Huesos.

In 2020 Alessandro Riga and coworkers examined the teeth and associated maxillary and mandibular evidence. The teeth are subject to calcite formation just as is the rest of the skeleton, so there is a limit to what can be observed. But there are some fascinating tidbits of information, such as the loss before death of one of the upper molars and an upper premolar. The palate has a very strong outgrowth of bone along the midline, known as a median palatine torus, which is not generally characteristic of other Neanderthals.

As for many other Neanderthals, the teeth of the Altamura individual have substantial deposition of calculus on them. To me this is very exciting because of what it suggests about the likely preservation of evidence of the diet and oral microbiome. For this individual, some of the calculus will be encased within calcite, so that the evidence held within may be especially valuable. The teeth may also be the most likely place for DNA evidence to be preserved, both from the individual itself and for possible microbes and pathogens that the individual may have carried.

Looking forward into the next decade and beyond, the Altamura skeleton has enormous scientific potential. It represents a population of southern Europe during a time when some Neanderthal populations were evolving the traits that made later members of their populations so distinctive. This individual may have been part of a branch not yet represented from other sites. Whatever its closest connections turn out to be, its genome will tell a story that genetic evidence from other sites might miss.

Just as exciting, nearby chambers within the cave preserve abundant fossil evidence of other animals that may have coexisted on the landscape of the early Neanderthals. Enabling more study of the contents of the entire system will shed light on their diversity and ecology, and how these individuals came together in this system. Sediment DNA from the system may also be present.

Further study of the skeleton and site will be a formidable challenge. In their review of recent work, Buzi and coworkers emphasize that collaboration between scientists, heritage organizations, and people dedicated to the protection and stewardship of the site will be needed to develop approaches to investigate and protect the site. It's a remarkable site that will have a stellar future in paleoanthropology.

References

Buzi, C., Boggioni, M., Borsato, A., Boschian, G., Marchi, D., Moggi-Cecchi, J., Profico, A., Riga, A., Samadelli, M., & Manzi, G. (2024). Virtual paleoanthropology in karstic environments. The challenging case of the Neanderthal skeleton from Altamura (southern Italy). Quaternary Science Reviews, 338, 108833. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108833

Di Vincenzo, F., Churchill, S. E., Buzi, C., Profico, A., Tafuri, M. A., Micheli, M., Caramelli, D., & Manzi, G. (2019). Distinct among Neanderthals: The scapula of the skeleton from Altamura, Italy. Quaternary Science Reviews, 217, 76–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.11.023

Lari, M., Di Vincenzo, F., Borsato, A., Ghirotto, S., Micheli, M., Balsamo, C., Collina, C., De Bellis, G., Frisia, S., Giacobini, G., Gigli, E., Hellstrom, J. C., Lannino, A., Modi, A., Pietrelli, A., Pilli, E., Profico, A., Ramirez, O., Rizzi, E., … Manzi, G. (2015). The Neanderthal in the karst: First dating, morphometric, and paleogenetic data on the fossil skeleton from Altamura (Italy). Journal of Human Evolution, 82, 88–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.02.007

Pesce Delfino, V., & Vacca, E. (1994). Report of an archaic human skeleton discovered at altamura (Bari), in the “Lamalunga” district. Human Evolution, 9(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02438135

Profico, A., Buzi, C., Di Vincenzo, F., Boggioni, M., Borsato, A., Boschian, G., Marchi, D., Micheli, M., Cecchi, J. M., Samadelli, M., Tafuri, M. A., Arsuaga, J. L., & Manzi, G. (2023). Virtual excavation and analysis of the early Neanderthal cranium from Altamura (Italy). Communications Biology, 6(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04644-1

Riga, A., Boggioni, M., Papini, A., Buzi, C., Profico, A., Vincenzo, F. D., Marchi, D., Moggi-Cecchi, J., & Manzi, G. (2020). In situ observations on the dentition and oral cavity of the Neanderthal skeleton from Altamura (Italy). PLOS ONE, 15(12), e0241713. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241713