https://www.iflscience.com/14-million-year-old-human-face-is-oldest-in-western-europe-78397
The oldest hominid facial bones ever discovered
in Western Europe have revealed that the region
was initially inhabited by a previously unknown
human lineage. Dated to between 1.1 and
1.4 million years ago, the skeletal remains don’t
match those of Homo antecessor, which until now
was thought to have been the first to reach this
part of Eurasia.
Found at the Sima del Elefante Site in the Sierra
de Atapuerca, northern Spain, the prehistoric face
and its long-dead owner have been dubbed "Pink".
Displaying some resemblance to Homo erectus, the
specimen has been assigned as Homo affinis (aff.)
erectus, pending further analysis and
categorization.
…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08681-0
The earliest human face of Western Europe
Abstract
Who the first inhabitants of Western Europe were,
what their physical characteristics were, and when
and where they lived are some of the pending
questions in the study of the settlement of
Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene epoch. The
available palaeoanthropological information from
Western Europe is limited and confined to the
Iberian Peninsula. Here we present most of the
midface of a hominin found at the TE7 level of
the Sima del Elefante site (Sierra de Atapuerca,
Spain), dated to between 1.4 million and
1.1 million years ago. This fossil (ATE7-1)
represents the earliest human face of Western
Europe identified thus far. Most of the
morphological features of the midface of this
hominin are primitive for the Homo clade and
they do not display the modern-like aspect
exhibited by Homo antecessor found at the
neighbouring Gran Dolina site, also in the
Sierra de Atapuerca, and dated to between
900,000 and 800,000 years ago. Furthermore,
ATE7-1 is more derived in the nasoalveolar
region than the Dmanisi and other roughly
contemporaneous hominins. On the basis of the
available evidence, it is reasonable to assign
the new human remains from TE7 level to
Homo aff. erectus. From the archaeological,
palaeontological and palaeoanthropological
information obtained in the lower levels of
the Sima del Elefante and Gran Dolina sites,
we suggest a turnover in the human population
in Europe at the end of the Early Pleistocene.
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