TIGHENIF (Ternifine)
Lo CATION
Quarry near the village of Palikao, 20 km E of Mas-
cara, Algeria.DISCOVERY
Excavations of C. Arambourg and R. Hoffstetter,
June 1954 (Tighenif 1 and 2); 1955 (Tighenif 3 and
4, isolated teeth).
MATERIAL
Two mandibles (Tighenif 1 and 3); one hemimandible
(Tighenif 2); parietal fragment (Tighenif 4; may be
associated with Tighenif 2); isolated teeth.DATING AND STRATIGRAPHIC CONTEXT
The quarry is in a sand hill overlying a Pleistocene
lake bed containing bones and stone tools (e.g., Aram-
bourg, 1963). The original excavations were hindered
by the upwelling of artesian water into the fossiliferous
deposits, but these levels dried out during the 1980s,
permitting closer study (Geraads et al., 1986). Sandy
and/or clayey beds of varying thickness have been di-
vided into ll levels that reflect lake-level fluctuations
over an uncertain but probably quite compact period of
time. Most of the fauna collected, including the ho-
minids, comes from low in the section, notably level 2.
The fauna suggests an age in the earliest Middle Pleis-
tocene, which fits well with the normal polarity of the
lower deposits. The best estimate by Geraads et al.
(1986) for the age of the hominids is ca. 700 Ka.ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
Lithics are thinly scattered through the faunal levels,
but no living floors have been identified (Geraads
et al., 1986). Typical implements include pebble tools,
scrapers, handaxes, and cleavers in a variety of materi-
als (Balout et al., 1957); the industry has been charac-
terized as “primitive” Acheulean (Balout and Tixier,
1958).PREVIOUS DESCRIPTIONS AND ANALYSES
From the earliest descriptions (Arambourg, 1954;
Arambourg and Hoffstetter, 1954, 1955), resem-
blances have been noted between the Tighenif
mandibles and the more fragmentary Homo erectus
lower jaws from Zhoukoudian. This did not, however,
prevent Arambourg (1954) from creating the new
genus and species Atlanthropus mauritanicus for them.
Most subsequent commentators have preferred to al-
locate the Tighenif materials to Homo erectus (e.g.,
Howell, 1960; Geraads et al., 1986; Rightmire, 1990),
although this is more a matter of convenience than
anything else. Schwartz and Tattersall (2000) have
noted the existence in the Tighenif mandibles of a
chin-like structure similar to that present in Homo
sapiens, although there are no other detailed resem-
blances to this species.MORPHOLOGY
Three mandibles. Tighenif 1 (1954-7-825): Dam-
aged mandible lacking most of R and L rami, and