Latest news with #CENIEH
CNN
12-03-2025
- Science
- CNN
Cave discovery reveals earliest known human fossils in Western Europe
Summary Fossil fragments found in a cave in northern Spain reveal a previously unknown human population that lived over 1.1 million years ago. The partial skull represents the earliest known human fossils discovered in Western Europe, according to new research. Scientists suspect the remains belong to Homo erectus, though they cannot make a definitive species identification. Researchers used advanced imaging techniques to analyze the fossils. The story of human evolution in Europe has a new character. Fossilized bone fragments unearthed in a cave in northern Spain in 2022 have revealed a previously unknown human population that lived more than 1.1 million years ago, according to new research. Found at the Sima del Elefante site in the Atapuerca Mountains, the fossils make up a partial skull comprised of the left side of the face of an adult hominin. The mineralized bones are the earliest human fossil remains found so far in Western Europe. However, it wasn't immediately obvious which species of prehistoric human the team had found, and the study describing the fossils, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, doesn't put forward a definitive answer. The team suspects the specimens belonged to Homo erectus, a species well-known from fossils found in Africa and Asia but whose remains have never been conclusively found in Europe. 'This conclusion is the most honest proposal we can make with evidence we have,' María Martinón-Torres, the director of CENIEH, Spain's National Human Evolution Research Centre, told a press briefing on Tuesday. 'It is cautious, but it is also a little bit daring, because we are not closing the possibility that it is maybe something different.' Mysterious early human relatives The mountainous region of Spain where the fossils were found has been an important locale for paleoanthropology. In the mid-1990s, scientists identified an early human relative known as Homo antecessor from about 80 fossils uncovered at a site near Sima del Elefante called Gran Dolina. Those remains date to around 850,000 years old. However, Martinón-Torres said the morphology of the skull fossil found in 2022 didn't match up with the features of Homo antecessor. This archaic human had been thought to be the earliest known inhabitant of Western Europe, predating the Neanderthals, who appeared on the continent some 400,000 years ago. Homo antecessor had 'a very modern-like face, very similar to the face we our species, Homo sapiens, have, which is vertical and flat. However, this new hominin is different,' she said. It 'has a much more projecting forward face … which makes it similar to other Homo erectus (specimens),' she added. The team also reanalyzed a partial lower jawbone found in 2007 at Sima del Elefante but at a slightly higher level of sediment. The study authors now believe it belonged to the same population of prehistoric humans. However, with only small parts of the face, it was impossible to identify the species of hominin conclusively. As such, the team has assigned it to Homo affinis erectus, with affinis meaning akin to, to indicate that the fossil is closely related to, but distinct from, a known species. 'We still have to excavate the lower levels of Sima del Elefante. So who knows? We may have more surprises,' Martinón-Torres said. 'I think the key finding is that we are documenting for the first time a hominin population that we did not know we had in Europe.' Detective work Chris Stringer, a research leader in human evolution at London's Natural History Museum, said the discovery was a 'very important find.' 'The facial shape is distinct from that of antecessor (and H. sapiens) in traits like the less prominent nose and less delicate cheekbones, and thus more closely resembles some erectus fossils,' Stringer, who wasn't involved in the research, said via email. 'But I think the authors are right to only cautiously relate the finds from Elefante to the species H. erectus. They are too incomplete for any definitive conclusion.' Reconstructing the fragmented face fossil required combining traditional techniques, such as analyzing and comparing the fossils by visual inspection, with advanced imaging and 3D analysis, the study said. The researchers did not directly date the fossils but, based on three different ways of dating the layer of sediment in which the fossils embedded, they estimated they were between 1.4 million and 1.1 million years old. The team also recovered animal bones with cut marks and stone tools used to butcher carcasses from the site. The population would have inhabited a woodland environment with wet grasslands, which would have been rich in prey, the study said.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Face of Overlooked Human Ancestor Could Set Record in Western Europe
Scientists have put a face, but not an official name, to the earliest human ancestor ever found in Western Europe. This newly discovered hominin is a "new actor in the story of human evolution," says excavation coordinator Rosa Huguet, from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution in Spain. The partial 'portrait' of this prehistoric individual is formed from the left side of a jaw and cheekbone uncovered in 2022 at the famous archaeological complex of Atapuerca in northern Spain. After years of work, an international team of experts has dated the precious bones to between 1.1 and 1.4 million years old. When reconstructed, the remains create a narrow, flat face with fewer modern features than experts were expecting. The face doesn't look like any other human species found at this time and in this part of the world. That's partly why the individual is nicknamed Pink. In Spanish, the word for 'face' is the same as 'side,' and so researchers named the half-faced hominin in homage to Pink Floyd's iconic album, Dark Side of the Moon. The name also serves as an unofficial hat tip to a key leader of the Atapuerca excavation, Rosa (Spanish for 'pink') Huguet. Atapuerca is home to the oldest evidence of humans in Western Europe. Before Pink, the earliest remains belonged to the species Homo antecessor, which dates to between 800,000 and 1.2 million years ago and has a surprisingly similar face to that of modern humans. Even though Pink was found at a neighboring site to H. antecessor, this individual's flat features and underdeveloped nose are more reminiscent of Homo erectus – the first humans to leave Africa, use fire, and make advanced tools. The findings suggest Pink belonged to an overlooked, older species that arrived in Western Europe before H. antecessor. Both species may have overlapped in time and space, or they may have just missed each other. "The evidence is still insufficient for a definitive classification, which is why it has been assigned to Homo affinis erectus (H. aff. erectus)," explains María Martinón-Torres, director of CENIEH and a lead researcher of the Atapuerca Project. "This designation acknowledges Pink's affinities with Homo erectus while leaving open the possibility that it may belong to another species." Martinón-Torres suspects Pink's ancestors came from eastern Europe and not across the Gibraltar strait from Africa, as more archaeological evidence is scattered along the former migratory path. The earliest evidence of human activity at the "gates of Europe" dates back to around 2 million years ago, which leaves plenty of time for waves of early human migrants to make it to Western Europe by the Early Pleistocene. Previous archaeological evidence has found signs of early human tools and a single tooth in Western Europe dating to around 1.4 million years ago, however, additional human remains from this time have proved elusive. The Atapuerca complex in Spain could help us understand who these first inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula were, what they looked like, and where they lived. At the site where Pink was found, researchers also uncovered stone tools and animal remains with cut marks on them. This suggests H. affinis erectus knew how to make simple yet effective tools to exploit the wet and warm region's resources. Researchers working at the Atapuerca complex have noticed a 'chronological gap' between the site where Pink was found (called Sima del Elefante) and the neighboring spot where H. antecessor was found (called Gran Dolina). Some of the authors have argued this discontinuity represents a "depopulation" of the Iberian Peninsula, possibly because of extreme climate changes. Perhaps there was a significant decline in populations of H. affinis erectus around this time, leaving the landscape open to a new wave of early hominin migrants. Genetic research suggests there was a bottleneck in human diversity around 900,000 years ago, which also aligns with a substantial gap in African and Eurasian fossil records. With many questions left to answer, excavations of the Sima del Elefante site continue. "This discovery heralds another prodigious era for the Atapuerca Project," says José María Bermúdez de Castro, co-director of the Atapuerca Project and co-author of the study. The study was published in Nature. Ancestor of Black Death Has Been Discovered in Bronze-Age Sheep International Women's Day: Female Science Stars to Follow in 2025 Discovery of 1.5-Million-Year-Old Bone Tools Rewrites Early Human History
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Cave discovery reveals earliest known human fossils in Western Europe
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The story of human evolution in Europe has a new character. Fossilized bone fragments unearthed in a cave in northern Spain in 2022 have revealed a previously unknown human population that lived more than 1.1 million years ago, according to new research. Found at the Sima del Elefante site in the Atapuerca Mountains, the fossils make up a partial skull comprised of the left side of the face of an adult hominin. The mineralized bones are the earliest human fossil remains found so far in Western Europe. However, it wasn't immediately obvious which species of prehistoric human the team had found, and the study describing the fossils, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, doesn't put forward a definitive answer. The team suspects the specimens belonged to Homo erectus, a species well-known from fossils found in Africa and Asia but whose remains have never been conclusively found in Europe. 'This conclusion is the most honest proposal we can make with evidence we have,' María Martinón-Torres, the director of CENIEH, Spain's National Human Evolution Research Centre, told a press briefing on Tuesday. 'It is cautious, but it is also a little bit daring, because we are not closing the possibility that it is maybe something different.' The mountainous region of Spain where the fossils were found has been an important locale for paleoanthropology. In the mid-1990s, scientists identified an early human relative known as Homo antecessor from about 80 fossils uncovered at a site near Sima del Elefante called Gran Dolina. Those remains date to around 850,000 years old. However, Martinón-Torres said the morphology of the skull fossil found in 2022 didn't match up with the features of Homo antecessor. This archaic human had been thought to be the earliest known inhabitant of Western Europe, predating the Neanderthals, who appeared on the continent some 400,000 years ago. Homo antecessor had 'a very modern-like face, very similar to the face we our species, Homo sapiens, have, which is vertical and flat. However, this new hominin is different,' she said. It 'has a much more projecting forward face … which makes it similar to other Homo erectus (specimens),' she added. The team also reanalyzed a partial lower jawbone found in 2007 at Sima del Elefante but at a slightly higher level of sediment. The study authors now believe it belonged to the same population of prehistoric humans. However, with only small parts of the face, it was impossible to identify the species of hominin conclusively. As such, the team has assigned it to Homo affinis erectus, with affinis meaning akin to, to indicate that the fossil is closely related to, but distinct from, a known species. 'We still have to excavate the lower levels of Sima del Elefante. So who knows? We may have more surprises,' Martinón-Torres said. 'I think the key finding is that we are documenting for the first time a hominin population that we did not know we had in Europe.' Chris Stringer, a research leader in human evolution at London's Natural History Museum, said the discovery was a 'very important find.' 'The facial shape is distinct from that of antecessor (and H. sapiens) in traits like the less prominent nose and less delicate cheekbones, and thus more closely resembles some erectus fossils,' Stringer, who wasn't involved in the research, said via email. 'But I think the authors are right to only cautiously relate the finds from Elefante to the species H. erectus. They are too incomplete for any definitive conclusion.' Reconstructing the fragmented face fossil required combining traditional techniques, such as analyzing and comparing the fossils by visual inspection, with advanced imaging and 3D analysis, the study said. The researchers did not directly date the fossils but, based on three different ways of dating the layer of sediment in which the fossils embedded, they estimated they were between 1.4 million and 1.1 million years old. The team also recovered animal bones with cut marks and stone tools used to butcher carcasses from the site. The population would have inhabited a woodland environment with wet grasslands, which would have been rich in prey, the study said.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Cave discovery reveals earliest known human fossils in Western Europe
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The story of human evolution in Europe has a new character. Fossilized bone fragments unearthed in a cave in northern Spain in 2022 have revealed a previously unknown human population that lived more than 1.1 million years ago, according to new research. Found at the Sima del Elefante site in the Atapuerca Mountains, the fossils make up a partial skull comprised of the left side of the face of an adult hominin. The mineralized bones are the earliest human fossil remains found so far in Western Europe. However, it wasn't immediately obvious which species of prehistoric human the team had found, and the study describing the fossils, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, doesn't put forward a definitive answer. The team suspects the specimens belonged to Homo erectus, a species well-known from fossils found in Africa and Asia but whose remains have never been conclusively found in Europe. 'This conclusion is the most honest proposal we can make with evidence we have,' María Martinón-Torres, the director of CENIEH, Spain's National Human Evolution Research Centre, told a press briefing on Tuesday. 'It is cautious, but it is also a little bit daring, because we are not closing the possibility that it is maybe something different.' The mountainous region of Spain where the fossils were found has been an important locale for paleoanthropology. In the mid-1990s, scientists identified an early human relative known as Homo antecessor from about 80 fossils uncovered at a site near Sima del Elefante called Gran Dolina. Those remains date to around 850,000 years old. However, Martinón-Torres said the morphology of the skull fossil found in 2022 didn't match up with the features of Homo antecessor. This archaic human had been thought to be the earliest known inhabitant of Western Europe, predating the Neanderthals, who appeared on the continent some 400,000 years ago. Homo antecessor had 'a very modern-like face, very similar to the face we our species, Homo sapiens, have, which is vertical and flat. However, this new hominin is different,' she said. It 'has a much more projecting forward face … which makes it similar to other Homo erectus (specimens),' she added. The team also reanalyzed a partial lower jawbone found in 2007 at Sima del Elefante but at a slightly higher level of sediment. The study authors now believe it belonged to the same population of prehistoric humans. However, with only small parts of the face, it was impossible to identify the species of hominin conclusively. As such, the team has assigned it to Homo affinis erectus, with affinis meaning akin to, to indicate that the fossil is closely related to, but distinct from, a known species. 'We still have to excavate the lower levels of Sima del Elefante. So who knows? We may have more surprises,' Martinón-Torres said. 'I think the key finding is that we are documenting for the first time a hominin population that we did not know we had in Europe.' Chris Stringer, a research leader in human evolution at London's Natural History Museum, said the discovery was a 'very important find.' 'The facial shape is distinct from that of antecessor (and H. sapiens) in traits like the less prominent nose and less delicate cheekbones, and thus more closely resembles some erectus fossils,' Stringer, who wasn't involved in the research, said via email. 'But I think the authors are right to only cautiously relate the finds from Elefante to the species H. erectus. They are too incomplete for any definitive conclusion.' Reconstructing the fragmented face fossil required combining traditional techniques, such as analyzing and comparing the fossils by visual inspection, with advanced imaging and 3D analysis, the study said. The researchers did not directly date the fossils but, based on three different ways of dating the layer of sediment in which the fossils embedded, they estimated they were between 1.4 million and 1.1 million years old. The team also recovered animal bones with cut marks and stone tools used to butcher carcasses from the site. The population would have inhabited a woodland environment with wet grasslands, which would have been rich in prey, the study said.
CNN
12-03-2025
- Science
- CNN
Cave discovery reveals earliest known human fossils in Western Europe
Summary Fossil fragments found in a cave in northern Spain reveal a previously unknown human population that lived over 1.1 million years ago. The partial skull represents the earliest known human fossils discovered in Western Europe, according to new research. Scientists suspect the remains belong to Homo erectus, though they cannot make a definitive species identification. Researchers used advanced imaging techniques to analyze the fossils. The story of human evolution in Europe has a new character. Fossilized bone fragments unearthed in a cave in northern Spain in 2022 have revealed a previously unknown human population that lived more than 1.1 million years ago, according to new research. Found at the Sima del Elefante site in the Atapuerca Mountains, the fossils make up a partial skull comprised of the left side of the face of an adult hominin. The mineralized bones are the earliest human fossil remains found so far in Western Europe. However, it wasn't immediately obvious which species of prehistoric human the team had found, and the study describing the fossils, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, doesn't put forward a definitive answer. The team suspects the specimens belonged to Homo erectus, a species well-known from fossils found in Africa and Asia but whose remains have never been conclusively found in Europe. 'This conclusion is the most honest proposal we can make with evidence we have,' María Martinón-Torres, the director of CENIEH, Spain's National Human Evolution Research Centre, told a press briefing on Tuesday. 'It is cautious, but it is also a little bit daring, because we are not closing the possibility that it is maybe something different.' Mysterious early human relatives The mountainous region of Spain where the fossils were found has been an important locale for paleoanthropology. In the mid-1990s, scientists identified an early human relative known as Homo antecessor from about 80 fossils uncovered at a site near Sima del Elefante called Gran Dolina. Those remains date to around 850,000 years old. However, Martinón-Torres said the morphology of the skull fossil found in 2022 didn't match up with the features of Homo antecessor. This archaic human had been thought to be the earliest known inhabitant of Western Europe, predating the Neanderthals, who appeared on the continent some 400,000 years ago. Homo antecessor had 'a very modern-like face, very similar to the face we our species, Homo sapiens, have, which is vertical and flat. However, this new hominin is different,' she said. It 'has a much more projecting forward face … which makes it similar to other Homo erectus (specimens),' she added. The team also reanalyzed a partial lower jawbone found in 2007 at Sima del Elefante but at a slightly higher level of sediment. The study authors now believe it belonged to the same population of prehistoric humans. However, with only small parts of the face, it was impossible to identify the species of hominin conclusively. As such, the team has assigned it to Homo affinis erectus, with affinis meaning akin to, to indicate that the fossil is closely related to, but distinct from, a known species. 'We still have to excavate the lower levels of Sima del Elefante. So who knows? We may have more surprises,' Martinón-Torres said. 'I think the key finding is that we are documenting for the first time a hominin population that we did not know we had in Europe.' Detective work Chris Stringer, a research leader in human evolution at London's Natural History Museum, said the discovery was a 'very important find.' 'The facial shape is distinct from that of antecessor (and H. sapiens) in traits like the less prominent nose and less delicate cheekbones, and thus more closely resembles some erectus fossils,' Stringer, who wasn't involved in the research, said via email. 'But I think the authors are right to only cautiously relate the finds from Elefante to the species H. erectus. They are too incomplete for any definitive conclusion.' Reconstructing the fragmented face fossil required combining traditional techniques, such as analyzing and comparing the fossils by visual inspection, with advanced imaging and 3D analysis, the study said. The researchers did not directly date the fossils but, based on three different ways of dating the layer of sediment in which the fossils embedded, they estimated they were between 1.4 million and 1.1 million years old. The team also recovered animal bones with cut marks and stone tools used to butcher carcasses from the site. The population would have inhabited a woodland environment with wet grasslands, which would have been rich in prey, the study said.
