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Found in Atapuerca the face of the oldest hominid in Europe

2022-07-08T12:00:04.649Z


Excavations in the Burgos mountains uncover a fossil face of a human who lived between 1.2 and 1.4 million years ago


The excavation team at the Atapuerca sites (Burgos) has found the fossil of the face of a hominid that lived between 1.2 and 1.4 million years ago and is the oldest in Europe.

It is part of the cheekbone and upper jaw of a human who lived in this Burgos mountain range at a time when it was thought that there were no hominids on the continent.

The finding is of exceptional importance for understanding the first steps in the evolution of the human race outside of Africa.

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Until now, the oldest human fossils in Atapuerca were those from level 9 of the Sima del Elefante: a jaw and a few other bone fragments from two individuals who lived in this place 1.2 million years ago.

The remains are so scarce that paleoanthropologists have not yet attributed them to any species, only to the Homo group, to which modern humans,

Homo sapiens

, also belong .

The new remains have appeared in a lower level of the chasm, level 7, whose maximum age may be 1.4 million years.

The mandible found in level 9 had a feature on the chin that was modern, that is, those first Europeans could be the first to have a modern face, far from the more ape-like face of human ancestors from Africa such as

Homo ergaster

or the

Homo habilis

.

Detailed analysis of the new face found at level 7 can now clarify who the earliest European humans were, how they were related to later groups, and whether they all belonged to the same species.

The fossils have been presented today by the three co-directors of Atapuerca (Juan Luis Arsuaga, José María Bermúdez de Castro and Eudald Carbonell), by Rosa Huguet, coordinator of the Sima del Elefante site, and by Gonzalo Santonja, Minister of Culture of Castilla and Leon.

The Atapuerca deposits began to be systematically excavated in 1978. They are located in the trench of a mining railway that crossed this Burgos mountain range and uncovered ancient cavities with fossil remains.

On July 8, 1994, 28 years ago today, archaeologist Aurora Martín was petrified when she found a tooth sticking out of the ground that looked like a human.

The excavation team found more teeth and other human fossils and, three years later, announced the findings to the world in a landmark study published in the journal

Science,

where they named a new human species: the

Homo ancestor

.

The researchers think that

antecessor

is a descendant of the first hominids that left Africa 1.8 million years ago,

Homo erectus

, who already walked upright and made stone tools with which to cut animal flesh.

The name of the species from Burgos,

antecessor

, refers to the fact that they would be the ancestors of both the Neanderthals that evolved in Europe about 400,000 years ago and our species,

Homo sapiens,

who appeared in Africa about 250,000 years ago.

Presentation of the discovery of the face of the first European, at the Atapuerca site.

From left to right, Rosa Huguet, Jose María Bermúdez de Castro, Gonzalo Santonja, Eudald Carbonell and Juan Luis Arsuaga.

Samuel Sanchez (THE COUNTRY)

The humans of Atapuerca were nomads and established their camps where the best game and the best fruits were at that time.

The Gran Dolina site is the oldest temporary camp in Europe.

More than 170 fossils of at least nine

ancestors

that lived more than 860,000 years ago have appeared in this rocky shelter, along with the remains of their many animal prey.

Human remains show that

Antecessor

had such a modern face that if he were groomed and combed in a subway car, he would not attract attention.

His body still had archaic features, like a trunk more robust than those of the sapiens.

He was between 1.65 and 1.85 meters tall.

The size of males and females was very similar, which suggests that they were a sociable species in which there were no violent encounters associated with mating, as is the case in other primates, such as chimpanzees.

Most of the individuals of the Gran Dolina were children of a few years and young people.

The most chilling detail is that many of their bones bear unmistakable marks that they were eaten by other humans in an act of cultural cannibalism.

At that time there was no shortage of game or fruit in the Sierra de Atapuerca, so the researchers think that the cannibalism happened after a confrontation over these resources in which rival groups would have participated;

a kind of germ of war.

It is something similar to what happens in chimpanzees.

Although it is an abhorrent practice, cannibalism is a common mark among most human species of the past and the practice is much more prevalent among members of our own species,

Homo sapiens

.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-07-08

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