1.4 Million-Year-Old Fossil Hints Modern Human Faces Were Present Earlier Than Thought

The facial features of a person who may be the oldest known ancient human relative in Europe are revealed by an ancient upper jaw.

The Pit of the Elephant is an archeological site in the Atapuerca Mountains that is known for its rich fossil record. The skull is believed to be the oldest of its kind in Europe and includes a tooth from a hominid who lived over one million years ago.

The Australian Museum states that the hominid group includes all living and extinct members of the human and great ape family tree.

The earliest known hominid fossils unearthed in Europe were 1.2 million years old. A 2012 study published in the British Dental Journal states that there was a portion of a mandible and several bone fragments found.

Researchers didn't expect to find fossils that were older than the ones already found.

According to El Pas, dgar Téllez, a PhD student at the National Center for Research on Human Evolution in Burgos, discovered the upper jaw in the clay soil.

The upper jawbone is believed to be similar to the one found in the previous find.

Téllez told El Pas that the modern face was already present in this maxilla.

Téllez and his team theorize that the bone could be that of someone who was more closely related to modern-day Europeans than more ape-like primates such as Homo habilis.

According to a 1999 study published in the Journal of Human Evolution, Homo antecessor is thought to be a close cousin of modern humans and Neanderthals. The first fossils of Homo antecessor were discovered in 1994.

John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wasn't affiliated with the recent dig, said that the new discovery helps give insight into the population that originally inhabited this area.

Hawks told Live Science that it will take a lot of work and comparison for that team to determine where this piece of the upper jaw is going to fit.

This is tied to a site with evidence. Every piece that we have that is tied to a site with evidence of behavior, such as making stone tools, tells us the behavioral capacities of ancestors and relatives of ours. That's the main thing for me.

It will take more study before the researchers can determine the age of the upper jawbone and if it is related to the other fossils found there.

There are related content.

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The ancient remains were found in Indonesia.

The first Homo species left Africa.

The original article was published by Live Science. The original article can be found here.