Latest news with #MaríaMartinón-Torres
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
1.4-million-year-old bones deepen mystery of who reached Europe first
The partial jawbone from a human ancestor nicknamed 'Pink' is helping rewrite the history of hominin migration into Western Europe. Researchers believe that Pink represents the oldest archaic fossils ever found in this region, according to a study published in Nature on March 12. The exciting fossils also indicate that at least two subspecies lived in the region during the Early Pleistocene, roughly 1.4 to 1.1 million years ago. While experts haven't confirmed Pink's exact hominin species just yet, they may belong to our famous evolutionary relative, Homo erectus. Hominins began migrating into Eurasia at least 1.8 million years ago, but the first to do so remains unclear. Paleoarcheologists previously matched a set of roughly 850,000-year-old fossils in Spain to Homo antecessor, an early human subspecies that displayed thinner facial features similar to modern Homo sapiens. However, a 1.2 to 1.1-million-year-old hominin jawbone discovered in 2007 at the country's Sima del Elefante site has not been conclusively linked to H. antecessor or any other species. According to new findings led by researchers at the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA), an incomplete set of sinus and cheekbone fossils excavated in 2022 suggests another group likely beat H. antecessor to Western Europe. Paleoarcheologists discovered the remains officially known as ATE7-1 (aka 'Pink') in 2022 roughly 6.5 feet deeper than the previously excavated jawbone. Because of its location, the team estimates that Pink is 1.4 to 1.1 million years old. This makes Pink the oldest human ancestor ever found in Western Europe. Researchers also found additional relics like stone tools made from flint and quartz, as well as animal bones displaying cut marks. Taken altogether, the items offer insight into the life and habits at the time. 'Although the quartz and flint tools found are simple, they suggest an effective subsistence strategy and highlight the hominins' ability to exploit the resources available in their environment,' Xosé Pedro Rodríguez-Álvarez, a study co-author and lithic materials specialist, said in a statement. The team worked over the next two years to conserve and carefully reconstruct the bone fragments using advanced imaging and 3D analysis tools. While the fossils aren't a complete set, experts determined they composed large portions of the left side maxilla and zygomatic bones. Following further analysis, it soon became evident that Pink wasn't a member of the H. antecessor family at all. 'Homo antecessor shares with Homo sapiens a more modern-looking face and a prominent nasal bone structure, whereas Pink's facial features are more primitive, resembling Homo erectus, particularly in its flat and underdeveloped nasal structure,' explained María Martinón-Torres, director of Spain's National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH) and a lead researcher. But while Pink's remains don't match its more modern H. antecessor relatives, researchers stopped short of identifying them as belonging to the H. erectus family. Because of this, they assigned the fossils to H. aff. erectus, which suggests its Homo erectus identity is pending additional research and evidence. Regardless, the discovery makes clear that Western Europe was home to at least two Homo species during the Early Pleistocene. Whatever hominin Pink ends up being, their final resting place highlights humanity's complex, interconnected evolutionary journey to today.
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.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Fossilized face fragments are oldest human ancestor remains ever found in Western Europe
In a cave in northern Spain, researchers have discovered pieces of a fossilized face belonging to an ancient human ancestor — the oldest human fossil ever found in Western Europe. The remains, which the team nicknamed 'Pink,' are between 1.1 million and 1.4 million years old. But they're mysterious: The facial fragments do not seem to come from any species found in the same area in the past, nor can they be conclusively identified as any particular species. 'We are documenting a previously unknown human population in Europe,' said María Martinón-Torres, a co-author of the study and a paleoanthropologist at the Spanish National Research Center for Human Evolution, said in a call with reporters. 'This fossil represents the earliest human fossil found so far in Western Europe.' The fragment, discovered in 2022, was first reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday with new details. The researchers tentatively suggested that Pink is likely related to the human ancestor Homo erectus. (The fossil was named, in part, for the band Pink Floyd, and also after Rosa Huguet, the study's primary author and the coordinator of the archaeological site where it was found.) The finding is significant because it gives researchers a better timeline of when Western Europe was first settled by human ancestors. It could also help bridge a gap in evolutionary space between the oldest known human ancestor fossils found in Europe — which are roughly 1.8 million years old and were discovered at a site in the Republic of Georgia called Dmanisi — and a species called Homo antecessor, which dates back roughly 900,000 years. 'It's not like the Dmanisi fossils, which are older, and it's not like the younger Homo sapien-like anatomy of Homo antecessor. It's something in between,' said Rodrigo Lacruz, a professor of molecular pathobiology at New York University, who was not involved in the new discovery but has studied the evolution of the human face. The discovery may therefore help researchers better understand the story of early human evolution and migration in Europe. 'We can start piecing together what that population could have looked like, and that's a great value, because you start seeing how anatomy changes over time,' Lacruz said. The team that discovered Pink said the fossil is from an adult, but they are not sure whether male or female. Pink was found about 60 feet below the top layer of sedimentary rock, at a cave within the Sierra de Atapuerca archaeological site, which is known for the rich historical record in its rock layers. Within the same sedimentary level as Pink, researchers found stone tools and animal bones with marks made by cutting, which suggests that these early ancestors butchered animals for meat. Evidence suggests that human ancestors settled Europe in multiple waves, but that most of those populations subsequently contracted and died out. The fossil record is discontinuous at the Atapuerca site and in Western Europe as a whole, indicating that there were likely long periods without human presence. The study posits that the species Pink belonged to could have overlapped briefly with Homo antecessor. It's also possible the species was wiped out during a climactic shift that started about 1.1 million years ago and has only recently been identified by researchers. Chris Stringer, a professor and research leader on human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, who was not involved in the discovery of Pink, said the climate event 'may have caused a major and perhaps complete human depopulation of western Europe.' The cave where Pink was discovered, called Sima del Elefante, or elephant chasm, has produced compelling fossils before. In 2007, researchers found a small piece of jawbone that is believed to be about 1.2 million years old, which appears to be closely related to Pink. Pink was found about 6 feet deeper than that fossil, though, which makes scientists believe it's older. Martinón-Torres said the researchers were shocked to find a new, important fossil even deeper. Her first reaction to the discovery, she said, was: 'Am I really dreaming?' The region's impressive collection of fossils likely has to do with its geography. 'Atapuerca was a natural corridor between different mountain systems,' Martinón-Torres said, adding that there was ample water. 'It was probably a place that was ideal for hominins to settle. They have the resources, they have the animals passing by.' Scientists are still digging at the archaeological site. 'We're going to keep excavating,' Martinón-Torres said. 'We may have more surprises.'This article was originally published on
