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The discovery of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus

els Hostalets de Pierola, Anoia, Barcelona

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The discovery of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus

Historical milestone · els Hostalets de Pierola, Anoia, Barcelona

Image of els Hostalets de Pierola, not of the place itself.

In December 2002, in the Can Mata deposits, within the municipality of els Hostalets de Pierola (Anoia), workers on a landfill site and a team of Spanish palaeoanthropologists led by Salvador Moyà-Solà brought to light the skeleton of a hominid about thirteen million years old, nicknamed “Pau”; it is the only known individual of the species. Its discovery was described in the journal Science on 19 November 2004 under the name Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, taken from the municipality where it was discovered. The specimen corresponds to a scarcely studied period of the Miocene, and its importance lies in the fact that it could be the common ancestor of humans and the great apes: gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans. The set of fossils was catalogued as IPS 21350.

2004

Photo: Viquipèdia (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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