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Bone fragments unearthed at an ancient cave in Spain belong to the oldest known human face in western Europe, researchers say.
The fossilised remains make up the left cheek and upper jaw of an adult member of an extinct human species who lived and died on the Iberian peninsula between 1.1m and 1.4m years ago.
The discovery suggests that at least two forms of early human occupied the region in the early Pleistocene, when the cave sat within humid woodland rich in wildlife and crossed with rivers and streams.
“This paper introduces a new actor in the story of human evolution in Europe,” said Dr Rosa Huguet of the University of Rovira i Virgili in southern Catalonia, who helped uncover the fossils at the Sima del Elefante (Pit of the Elephant) cave near Atapuerca in Burgos.
Early humans reached Eurasia from Africa at least 1.8m years ago, as evidenced by five skulls dating from the period in Dmanisi in Georgia. The skulls are attributed to Homo erectus, the first early human species to have left the African continent.
Until now, the earliest human remnants in western Europe were 1.1m- to 1.2m-year-old pieces of jawbone and teeth from Sima del Elefante. Younger human remains, dating to 800,000 years ago, were unearthed at the nearby Gran Dolina (Giant Sinkhole) cavern. Particular features of the latter led researchers to consider them a distinct species, namely Homo antecessor, or pioneer man.
Writing in the journal Nature, the Spanish team say the latest remains are more primitive than Homo antecessor but resemble Homo erectus. Given the uncertainty over the fossil’s identity, the team has designated the species Homo affinis erectus, reflecting its close relationship with the older human.
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The Latin name is not the only one used for the remains, however. Informally, the researchers nicknamed the fossil “Pink” after Pink Floyd, whose album The Dark Side of the Moon translates to “La cara oculta de la luna”, where “cara oculta” means “hidden face”.
Dr María Martinón-Torres, the director of the National Centre for Research on Human Evolution in Burgos, said among its distinctive characteristics, Pink had a flatter nasal structure than Homo antecessor, which shares the more modern-looking face and prominent nasal bones of Homo sapiens.
Chris Stringer, a research leader on human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, said the fossil was “a very important find”. In 2023, Stringer and others identified a period of extreme cooling about 1.1m years ago that may have driven early humans out of western Europe, possibly explaining the different population found at Sima del Elefante afterwards.
Excavations at Sima del Elefante paint a picture of lush meadows and woodlands more than 1.1m years ago with oaks, pines, juniper and hazel trees in abundance. Rivers cutting through the landscape drew water voles and mice, hippos, bison and deer. Quartz and flint tools have also been recovered alongside animal bones bearing cut marks from butchering.
More insight into the Sima del Elefante lifestyle is apparent from a groove that runs across the partial crown of a tooth in the Pink fossil, believed to be a wear mark from using a rudimentary toothpick.
“This is another step towards understanding the first Europeans,” said Dr José María Bermúdez de Castro, the co-director of the Atapuerca Project. “We now know that this first species had an appearance reminiscent of the specimens included by many in Homo erectus. However, the remains from the Sima del Elefante site have a very particular combination of features. More fossils should be found in other contemporary sites to reach a more robust conclusion about the identity of this species.”
