After discovering fossilized facial bones in Spain, researchers now say they’ve found the oldest face of Western Europe.
In 2022, researchers with the Atapuerca Project uncovered facial bones from an early human ancestor at the Sima del Elefante site (Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos) in northern Spain. The fossil date ranges from 1.1 million years to 1.4 million years old. After detailed study, researchers announced that the facial bones were not that of Homo antecessor, but of a different hominin.
Their findings were brought together by a collaborative research team from the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA), Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), and the National Human Evolution Research Centre (CENIEH) — recently published in Nature.
