Excavations in northern Spain have unearthed a human jaw fragment around 1.4 million years old, making it the oldest evidence of our lineage ever found in Europe .
A 1.4 million year old human jaw fragment
Classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Palaeolithic deposits of Atapuerca contain some of the most important evidence of prehistoric human activity in Europe. Since the early 1990s, some 1,600 human fossils have been unearthed thereincluding bones over 900,000 years old that have been revealed to belong to a new species, dubbed Homo ancestor.
So far, the oldest known human fossil in Europe was another jawbone discovered at the Sima de los Huesos site in 2007 and around 1.2 million years old. Unearthed nearby on June 30, this new testimony would be about 200,000 years older (it was discovered at a greater depth of two meters).
Of course, this is a preliminary estimate. The team intends soon to establish more precisely the age of the fossil using various scientific techniques. This analysis will be carried out at the National Center for Research on Human Evolution in Burgos, a town about 10 kilometers from Atapuerca, and is expected to take between six and eight months.
A probable new fossil evidence of Homo antecessor
The examination should also make it possible to determine the species of hominid to which the jaw belonged. ” Such information will shed light on human evolution on the European continent by offering us a new piece of the puzzle. “, they explained.
If the team suspects it isHomo ancestor, an in-depth analysis will prove essential to confirm this. The Atapuerca Foundation also shares this belief, writing in a statement that it is ” very probable “than the jaw fragment” belongs to one of the first populations to have colonized Europe “.
Earlier this month, the reanalysis of the fossils of our oldest ancestors, unearthed in South Africa, revealed that they were a million years older than previously thought. .
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