Spanish researchers have found the remains of a facial fragment in Atapuerca, in northern Spain, which has been identified as the oldest known face in Western Europe, with an age of between 1.1 and 1.4 million years.

The study, published in the journal ‘Nature’ and led by IPHES-CERCA, has revealed this key discovery about the first human migrations in Europe.

The fossil, unearthed in 2022 and nicknamed ‘Pink’ in a nod to the leader of the project, Dr Rosa Huguet and the group Pink Floyd, belongs to a species of hominid more primitive than ‘Homo antecessor’.

After an exhaustive analysis, the scientists attribute the fragment to ‘Homo affinis erectus’, a species close to ‘Homo erectus’, although the classification is not yet definitive, which leaves open the possibility that it is a population not yet identified in Europe.

“It is possible that we are dealing with a different species, a new species that is not a ‘Homo erectus’. What we do know at the moment is that it resembles ‘Homo erectus’ and that it is clearly different from the species we have known so far in Europe,” Xosé Pedro Rodríguez-Álvarez, a specialist in the lithic industry and co-author of the study, told Euronews.

The team of scientists, led by researcher Rosa Huguet of IPHES-CERCA, has pointed out that this finding is a key piece in understanding the evolution of humans on the continent. The discovery is especially relevant, as it places the arrival of these first populations in Europe before the ‘Homo antecessor’, whose remains date back approximately 860,000 years.

“There are examples of ‘Homo erectus’ in Asia and Africa, but on the European continent until now a human with these characteristics so similar to the ‘Homo erectus’ of other continents had not been discovered, ” says researcher Xosé Pedro Rodríguez-Álvarez.

Three key discoveries in Atapuerca

This is the third time that Spanish scientists have broken their own world record by finding the oldest human in Western Europe. The first major discovery took place in the 1990s, when the remains of an unpublished human species, ‘Homo antecessor’, were dug up at the Gran Dolina site.

“When the fossils of ‘Homo antecessor’ were found at the Gran Dolina in 1994, it was already clear that they were different from all the species known until then, and in the end it was decided to create a new species, which was published in 1997,” says Rodríguez-Álvarez.

These fossils, some 900,000 years old, surprised the scientific community, as they challenged the idea that the first humans in Western Europe were no more than 500,000 years old. In addition, ‘Homo antecessor’ had surprisingly modern facial features, with a flat face structure that resembled that of ‘Homo sapiens’.

“Later, in 2007, we also discovered in the Sima del Elefante, but in an archaeological layer above it, a human mandible dated at about 1.2 million years ago,” adds the researcher. This fossil exhibited primitive features in the chin area, although its internal structure showed unexpectedly elegant characteristics.

Tools were key to its survival

In addition to the facial fragment, the researchers have found stone tools and cut marks on animal bones, suggesting that these early Europeans were already using lithic technology to hunt and process meat, adapting effectively to their environment. The landscape at the time, in the Lower Pleistocene, combined forests, grasslands and water sources, providing abundant resources for these early populations.

“They are simple tools that were made using rocks that can be found very close to the site, mainly flint quartz and limestone, which are local rocks (…) We can relate these tools to their use to make use of the ballistic resources of the sierra,” explains the co-author of the research.

The cut marks identified on the animal remains found show clear evidence of the use of these tools to flesh animal carcasses, according to Rodríguez-Álvarez. “What they were probably doing was butchering small animals, because apart from the tools, we have also found around 6,000 animal bones in that layer,” he adds.

Why Atapuerca is an important site for archaeologists

The Atapuerca sites, considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000, contain the oldest and most numerous remains in Europe, and the discoveries that have been made there have had a great impact on science. “We have two different sites with very ancient human fossils ranging from 850,000 to more than 1,100,000 years old in a fairly small space of about 20 square kilometres,” says the scientist.

This finding not only strengthens Atapuerca’s role as a global reference in the study of human evolution, but also opens up new questions about the diversity of hominids that inhabited Europe in ancient times. Atapuerca researchers consider this discovery to be a significant step towards understanding the origins of humanity on the old continent.

“There are other sites in France and Italy that are between 1,000,000 and 1,100,000 years old. The difference is that there are no human fossils there. The only human fossils from the Lower Pleistocene, that is, the only human fossils older than 800,000 years in Europe, are all in the Iberian Peninsula, in Atapuerca,” he says.

It is hoped that future studies and excavations will continue to shed light on how the different migratory waves and early human populations shaped the evolutionary history of the genus ‘Homo’ in Europe.

“To propose to the scientific community the existence of a new species, you have to have a lot of fossils. You have to do very deep studies, and now we are talking about only one, which is very interesting and very representative, but it is only a fragment of a face. We would need many more fossils to be able to say for sure that it resembles ‘Homo erectus’, but that it is different,” concludes the scientist.