A human fossil species in western Europe could be close to a million years old
June 7, 2018, CORDIS
A human fossil species in western Europe could be close to a million years old
Credit: Mathieu Duval
First direct dating of an early human tooth confirms the antiquity of Homo antecessor, western Europe's oldest known human fossil species.
A previous find from the unit TD6 of Atapuerca Gran Dolina archaeological site in northern Spain has yielded more information about our early human lineage. An international team of researchers from Australia, China, France and Spain has conducted the first direct dating study of a fossil tooth belonging to Homo antecessor (H. antecessor), the earliest known hominin species identified in Europe.
The study shows that H. antecessor probably lived somewhere between 772 000 and 949 000 years ago. These new results are consistent with previous indirect estimates based on the dating of the sediments and associated animal fossil teeth. This early human species might also be the last common ancestor of Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens, or very close to the point where these modern and archaic lineages are believed to have diverged (550-765 thousand years ago). The team explain their findings in a recent paper led by Dr. Duval from the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University, Australia, and published in the journal Quaternary Geochronology.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2018-06-human-fossil-species-western-europe.html#jCp
