Europe's oldest human face found in Atapuerca: 'We may be looking at a new species'
Spanish researchers have found the remains of a facial fragment in Atapuerca, in northern Spain, which has been identified as the oldest known face in Western Europe, with an age of between 1.1 and 1.4 million years.
The study, published in the journal 'Nature' and led by IPHES-CERCA, has revealed this key discovery about the first human migrations in Europe.
The fossil, unearthed in 2022 and nicknamed 'Pink' in a nod to the leader of the project, Dr Rosa Huguet and the group Pink Floyd, belongs to a species of hominid more primitive than 'Homo antecessor'.
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After an exhaustive analysis, the scientists attribute the fragment to 'Homo affinis erectus', a species close to 'Homo erectus', although the classification is not yet definitive, which leaves open the possibility that it is a population not yet identified in Europe.
"It is possible that we are dealing with a different species, a new species that is not a 'Homo erectus'. What we do know at the moment is that it resembles 'Homo erectus' and that it is clearly different from the species we have known so far in Europe," Xosé Pedro Rodríguez-Álvarez, a specialist in the lithic industry and co-author of the study, told Euronews.
The team of scientists, led by researcher Rosa Huguet of IPHES-CERCA, has pointed out that this finding is a key piece in understanding the evolution of humans on the continent. The discovery is especially relevant, as it places the arrival of these first populations in Europe before the 'Homo antecessor', whose remains date back approximately 860,000 years.
"There are examples of 'Homo erectus' in Asia and Africa, but on the European continent until now a human with these characteristics so similar to the 'Homo erectus' of other continents had not been discovered, " says researcher Xosé Pedro Rodríguez-Álvarez.
This is the third time that Spanish scientists have broken their own world record by finding the oldest human in Western Europe. The first major discovery took place in the 1990s, when the remains of an unpublished human species, 'Homo antecessor', were dug up at the Gran Dolina site.
"When the fossils of 'Homo antecessor' were found at the Gran Dolina in 1994, it was already clear that they were different from all the species known until then, and in the end it was decided to create a new species, which was published in 1997," says Rodríguez-Álvarez.
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These fossils, some 900,000 years old, surprised the scientific community, as they challenged the idea that the first humans in Western Europe were no more than 500,000 years old. In addition, 'Homo antecessor' had surprisingly modern facial features, with a flat face structure that resembled that of 'Homo sapiens'.
"Later, in 2007, we also discovered in the Sima del Elefante, but in an archaeological layer above it, a human mandible dated at about 1.2 million years ago," adds the researcher. This fossil exhibited primitive features in the chin area, although its internal structure showed unexpectedly elegant characteristics.
In addition to the facial fragment, the researchers have found stone tools and cut marks on animal bones, suggesting that these early Europeans were already using lithic technology to hunt and process meat, adapting effectively to their environment. The landscape at the time, in the Lower Pleistocene, combined forests, grasslands and water sources, providing abundant resources for these early populations.
"They are simple tools that were made using rocks that can be found very close to the site, mainly flint quartz and limestone, which are local rocks (...) We can relate these tools to their use to make use of the ballistic resources of the sierra," explains the co-author of the research.
The cut marks identified on the animal remains found show clear evidence of the use of these tools to flesh animal carcasses, according to Rodríguez-Álvarez. "What they were probably doing was butchering small animals, because apart from the tools, we have also found around 6,000 animal bones in that layer," he adds.
The Atapuerca sites, considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000, contain the oldest and most numerous remains in Europe, and the discoveries that have been made there have had a great impact on science. "We have two different sites with very ancient human fossils ranging from 850,000 to more than 1,100,000 years old in a fairly small space of about 20 square kilometres," says the scientist.
This finding not only strengthens Atapuerca's role as a global reference in the study of human evolution, but also opens up new questions about the diversity of hominids that inhabited Europe in ancient times. Atapuerca researchers consider this discovery to be a significant step towards understanding the origins of humanity on the old continent.
"There are other sites in France and Italy that are between 1,000,000 and 1,100,000 years old. The difference is that there are no human fossils there. The only human fossils from the Lower Pleistocene, that is, the only human fossils older than 800,000 years in Europe, are all in the Iberian Peninsula, in Atapuerca," he says.
It is hoped that future studies and excavations will continue to shed light on how the different migratory waves and early human populations shaped the evolutionary history of the genus 'Homo' in Europe.
"To propose to the scientific community the existence of a new species, you have to have a lot of fossils. You have to do very deep studies, and now we are talking about only one, which is very interesting and very representative, but it is only a fragment of a face. We would need many more fossils to be able to say for sure that it resembles 'Homo erectus', but that it is different," concludes the scientist.
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Tyrannosaurs, known scientifically as Eutyrannosaurians, bring to mind hulking dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and Tarbosaurus, which weighed multiple metric tons and could take down equally large prey. With short arms and massive heads, they walked on two legs and boasted sharp teeth, Zelenitsky said. But tyrannosaurs didn't start out that way. They evolved from smaller dinosaurs before dominating the landscapes of North America and Asia between 85 million and 66 million years ago, the researchers said. While Tarbosaurus, an ancestor of T. rex, clocked in at between 3,000 and 6,000 kilograms (6,613 pounds and 13,227 pounds), the fleet-footed Khankhuuluu mongoliensis likely weighed only around 750 kilograms (1,653 pounds), spanned just 2 meters (6.5 feet) at the hips and 4 meters (13 feet) in length, according to the study authors. Comparing the two dinosaurs would be like putting a horse next to an elephant —Khankhuuluu would have reached T. rex's thigh in height, Zelenitsky said. 'Khankhuuluu was almost a tyrannosaur, but not quite,' Zelenitsky said. 'The snout bone was hollow rather than solid, and the bones around the eye didn't have all the horns and bumps seen in T. rex or other tyrannosaurs.' Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, or a closely related ancestor species, likely migrated from Asia to North America across a land bridge between Alaska and Siberia that connected the continents 85 million years ago, Zelenitsky said. Because of this migrant species, we now know that tyrannosaurs actually evolved first on the North American continent and remained there exclusively over the next several million years, she said. 'As the many tyrannosaur species evolved on the continent, they became larger and larger.' Due to the poor fossil record, it's unclear what transpired in Asia between 80 million to 85 million years ago, she added. While some Khankhuuluu may have remained in Asia, they were likely replaced later on by larger tyrannosaurs 79 million years ago. Meanwhile, another tyrannosaur species crossed the land bridge back to Asia 78 million years ago, resulting in the evolution of two related but very different subgroups of tyrannosaurs, Zelenitsky said. One was a gigantic, deep-snouted species, while the other known as Alioramins was slender and small. These smaller dinosaurs have been dubbed 'Pinocchio rexes' for their long, shallow snouts. Both types of tyrannosaurs were able to live in Asia and not compete with each other because the larger dinosaurs were top predators, while Alioramins were mid-level predators going after smaller prey — think cheetahs or jackals in African ecosystems today, Zelenitsky said. 'Because of their small size, Alioramins were long thought to be primitive tyrannosaurs, but we novelly show Alioramins uniquely evolved smallness as they had 'miniaturized' their bodies within a part of the tyrannosaur family tree that were all otherwise giants,' Zelenitsky said. One more migration happened as tyrannosaurs continued to evolve, and a gigantic tyrannosaur species crossed back into North America 68 million years ago, resulting in Tyrannosaurus rex, Zelenitsky said. 'The success and diversity of tyrannosaurs is thanks to a few migrations between the two continents, starting with Khankhuuluu,' she said. 'Tyrannosaurs were in the right place at the right time. They were able to take advantage of moving between continents, likely encountering open niche spaces, and quickly evolving to become large, efficient killing machines.' The new findings support previous research suggesting that Tyrannosaurus rex's direct ancestor originated in Asia and migrated to North America via a land bridge and underscore the importance of Asia in the evolutionary success of the tyrannosaur family, said Cassius Morrison, a doctoral student of paleontology at University College London. Morrison was not involved in the new research. 'The new species provides essential data and information in part of the family tree with few species, helping us to understand the evolutionary transition of tyrannosaurs from small/ medium predators to large apex predators,' Morrison wrote in an email. The study also shows that the Alioramini group, once considered distant relatives, were very close cousins of T. rex. What makes the fossils of the new species so crucial is their age — 20 million years older than T. rex, said Steve Brusatte, professor and personal chair of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh. Brusatte was not involved in the new study. 'There are so few fossils from this time, and that is why these scientists describe it as 'murky,'' Brusatte said. 'It has been a frustrating gap in the record, like if you suspected something really important happened in your family history at a certain time, like a marriage that started a new branch of the family or immigration to a new country, but you had no records to document it. The tyrannosaur family tree was shaped by migration, just like so many of our human families.' With only fragments of fossils available, it's been difficult to understand the variation of tyrannosaurs as they evolved, said Thomas Carr, associate professor of biology at Carthage College in Wisconsin and director of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology. Carr was not involved in the new research. But the new study sheds light on the dinosaurs' diversity and clarifies which ones existed when — and how they overlapped with one another, he said. More samples from the fossil record will provide additional clarity, but the new work illustrates the importance of reexamining fossils collected earlier. 'We know so much more about tyrannosaurs now,' Carr said. 'A lot of these historical specimens are definitely worth their weight in gold for a second look.' When the fossils were collected half a century ago, they were only briefly described at the time, Brusatte said. 'So many of us in the paleontology community knew that these Mongolian fossils were lurking in museum drawers, waiting to be studied properly, and apt to tell their own important part of the tyrannosaur story,' he said. 'It's almost like there was a non-disclosure agreement surrounding these fossils, and it's now expired, and they can come out and tell their story.'
