Fossilized face fragments are oldest human ancestor remains found in Western Europe
Researchers in Spain have discovered pieces of a fossilized face belonging to an ancient human ancestor. The fragments cannot be conclusively identified as any particular species.
In a cave in northern Spain, researchers have discovered pieces of a fossilized face belonging to an ancient human ancestor — the oldest human fossil ever found in Western Europe.
The remains, which the team nicknamed “Pink,” are between 1.1 million and 1.4 million years old. But they’re mysterious: The facial fragments do not seem to come from any species found in the same area in the past, nor can they be conclusively identified as any particular species.
“We are documenting a previously unknown human population in Europe,” said María Martinón-Torres, a co-author of the study and a paleoanthropologist at the Spanish National Research Center for Human Evolution, said in a call with reporters. “This fossil represents the earliest human fossil found so far in Western Europe.”
The fragment, discovered in 2022, was first reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday with new details.
The researchers tentatively suggested that Pink is likely related to the human ancestor Homo erectus. (The fossil was named, in part, for the band Pink Floyd, and also after Rosa Huguet, the study’s primary author and the coordinator of the archaeological site where it was found.)
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