{"id":1926,"date":"2021-04-29T10:55:41","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T08:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/?p=1926"},"modified":"2021-05-12T17:48:56","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T15:48:56","slug":"the-altamura-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/the-altamura-man\/","title":{"rendered":"The Altamura Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The\u00a0Altamura Man\u00a0is a\u00a0fossil\u00a0of the\u00a0genus\u00a0Homo\u00a0<strong>discovered in 1993 in a\u00a0karst\u00a0sinkhole\u00a0in the Lamalunga Cave near the city of\u00a0Altamura<\/strong>, Italy.<\/p>\n<p>Remarkably well preserved but embedded in\u00a0stalactites\u00a0and covered in a thick layer of\u00a0calcite\u00a0the find was left\u00a0in situ\u00a0in order to avoid damage. Research during the following twenty years was based mainly on the documented on-site observations. Consequently, experts remained reluctant to agree on a conclusive age nor was there consensus on the species it belonged to.<\/p>\n<p>Only after a fragment of the right\u00a0scapula\u00a0(shoulder blade) was retrieved was it possible to produce an accurate dating of the individual, an analysis and diagnostic of its morphological features, and a preliminary\u00a0paleogenetic\u00a0characterization. In a 2015 paper published in the\u00a0Journal of Human Evolution,\u00a0it was announced that the fossil was a\u00a0Neanderthal, and dating of the calcite has revealed that the bones are between 128,000 and 187,000 years old.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Altamura Man is one of the most complete\u00a0Paleolithic\u00a0skeletons ever to be discovered in Europe<\/strong>\u00a0as \u201ceven the bones inside the nose are still there\u201d and as of 2016 it represents the oldest sample of Neanderthal DNA to have been sequenced successfully.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017 was presented to the public and exhibited in the National Museum of Altamura, a perfect\u00a0<strong>reconstruction of the Altamura man<\/strong>, started by performing a digital reproduction of the skull with morphological data collected through the use of laser scanner and photogrammetry, to then arrive at a scale model of impressive impact, the work of the Kennis brothers, already known for having given new life to \u00d6etzi, the man of the Similaun, kept in the Archaeological Museum of Bolzano.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;30px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/2&#8243;][vc_single_image image=&#8221;1927&#8243; img_size=&#8221;full&#8221; alignment=&#8221;center&#8221; style=&#8221;vc_box_outline&#8221;][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;30px&#8221;][\/vc_column][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/2&#8243;][vc_single_image image=&#8221;1928&#8243; img_size=&#8221;full&#8221; alignment=&#8221;center&#8221; style=&#8221;vc_box_outline&#8221;][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;30px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Altamura Man is one of the most extraordinary paleontological discoveries made in Italy, whose remains were found in 1993, set in the karst formations of the cave of Lamalunga, in the territory of Altamura, in Puglia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilcampanilepremium.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}