Spanish paleontologists announced, this Friday (8), the discovery of a hominid fossil, whose age is estimated at 1.4 million years, which would make it, if the dating is confirmed, the oldest human being identified in the world. Europe.
The discovery was made on June 30 at the Sima del Elefante archaeological site, in the Serra de Atapuerca (northeast Spain). According to the foundation that manages this site, paleontologists have been working there since 1978.
About ten centimeters long, this fossil corresponds to “a fragment of the face of a human being, whose age is estimated to be around 1.4 million years old”, the foundation explained in a press release.
It was at this Atapuerca site that, in 2007, a jawbone with at least 1.2 million years was discovered, considered until now the oldest hominid fossil in Europe.
“Of course, we will have to make these dates” to complete this first estimate, said the co-director of the Atapuerca project José Maria Bermudez de Castro, in a press conference.
The researcher insisted, however, that “it is logical and reasonable to think that (this fragment of face) is older”, since it was discovered in a layer of earth located “two meters below the layer where the jaw appeared” in 2007. .
The dating will be carried out at the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (Cenieh), in Burgos, 10 kilometers from Atapuerca, and should last between six and eight months, according to Bermudez de Castro.
The analysis of Cenieh, according to the foundation, may also allow the identification of the human species, to which this fragment belongs, and a better understanding of how human beings evolved and developed on the European continent.
Until now, paleontologists have not been able to determine with certainty to which species the jawbone discovered in 2007 belonged. The fossil could correspond to the species called Homo predecessordiscovered in the 1990s.
“It is very likely that the new fossil of Sima del Elefante is linked to this jaw and that it belongs to one of the first populations that colonized Europe,” the Atapuerca Foundation said in a statement.
“If that is the case, we will finally be able to determine the identity of the human species of Sima del Elefante,” he added.
Exceptionally rich, the deposits of Serra de Atapuerca have been classified since 2000 as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
Thousands of human fossils and tools have been unearthed at this site, including a 1.4-million-year-old chipped stone discovered in 2013.
