Million-year-old human tooth found in Spain
‘Spanish researchers on Friday said they had unearthed a human tooth more than one million years old, which they estimated to be the oldest human fossil remain ever discovered in western Europe.
Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, co-director of research at the Atapuerca site said the molar, discovered on Wednesday in the Atapuerca Sierra in the northern province of Burgos, could be as much as 1.2 million years old.
“The tooth represents the oldest human fossil remain of western Europe. Now we finally have the anatomical evidence of the hominids that fabricated tools more than one million years ago,” the Atapuerca Foundation said in a statement.
“Since it is an isolated fossil remain, it is not possible at this point to confirm which Homo species this tooth belongs to,” the foundation added, but said first analyses “allow us to suppose it is an ancestor of Homo antecessor (pioneer).”‘
