Paleontologists have found a human fossil in northern Spain whose age has provisionally been estimated at 1.4 million years.
If confirmed, it would be the oldest human fossil ever found in Europe.
The fossil, about ten centimeters long, is a fragment of a human face. It was found on 30 June during excavations in the Sima del Elefante (Elephant Gorge) in the Atapuerca Mountains.
Researchers have been working on this archaeological site since 1978. In 2007, they found a 1.2-million-year-old jawbone, then considered to be the oldest human fossil in Europe. Confirming the age of the newly found fossil requires additional analyses that will take six to eight months, said one of the directors of the archaeological site, José Maria Bermudez de Castro.
Since it was “two meters below the layer where the lower jaw emerged,” it is “logical and reasonable to assume it is older,” he said.
In addition to age, further research should show which human species the fossil came from. The 2007 fossil is said to be a remnant of Homo antecessor, although this could not be confirmed with certainty.
Thousands of human fossils and tools have already been found in the Atapuerca Mountains. In 2013, researchers there uncovered, among other things, a 1.4 million-year-old carved flint.
