Earliest human face fossil from Western Europe revealed in study

Researchers in Spain have unearthed a fossil from a potential new prehistoric member of the human family tree, and they say it’s the earliest known remnants of a face discovered in Western Europe.

The facial bones from an adult were found at the Atapuerca archaeological site in northern Spain in 2022. Since then, a team of scientists has been working to learn more about the hominin, whom they nicknamed Pink. The researchers shared their findings in a study in the journal Nature, which was published on Tuesday. 

Pink’s remains have been dated as between 1.1 and 1.4 million years old, the researchers said.

The research “introduces a new actor in the history of human evolution in Europe,” study author Rosa Huguet, of Spain’s University of Rovira i Virgili, said at a news conference, according to the AFP news agency. 

The discovery suggests that early humans settled in Europe, traveling from the east side of the continent to the west, about 1.4 million years ago, the researchers said. Until now, the oldest-known human species in Western Europe was the Homo antecessor. Experts have found Homo antecessor remains that are around 850,000 years old. 

The oldest human ancestor found in any area of Europe is the Dmanisi people, or Homo georgicus, a group that lived in what is now the nation of Georgia. Remains of that species have been dated back to 1.8 million years ago. They are the first members of the human family known to have traveled from Africa to Europe. 

The face of “Pink” 

The fossilized upper jawbone and partial cheekbone were excavated from a 52-foot-deep layer of silt and mud at Sima del Elefante, or the “elephant pit,” a site less than 1,000 feet from where the fossils of Homo antecessor were discovered in 1994. The bones were not enough for researchers to determine Pink’s age or gender. 

From those fossilized bones, researchers were able to use 3D imaging techniques to create a model of Pink’s face. The face is more “projected forward and more robust” than a modern human face or a Homo antecessor face, Maria Martinon-Torres, director of Spain’s National Research Center on Human Evolution, told the AFP. 

Pink’s face bears some similarities to the human ancestor Homo erectus, researchers said. That species spanned nearly 2 million years and was the first human species to evolve more familiar human body proportions and use fire and tools. Remains of the species have been found in Africa, Asia and Europe. 

But the similarities weren’t strong enough for the scientists to confirm that Pink was a member of that species. Instead, they have proposed that Pink could belong to a new possible species, which they called Homo ‘affinis’ erectus.

“This is the most honest proposal we can make with the evidence we have,” Martinon-Torres said, according to AFP.

The scientists were also able to analyze small stone tools and animal bones found at the excavation site to learn more about how Pink lived. The environment at the time was a humid forest landscape, and the early human population lived alongside horses, ancient cattle, monkeys and hippos, the researchers said. The area also likely had plenty of water, which would have made it an “ideal” place for the species to settle, Huguet said in the news conference. 

The researchers suggested that the species may be a bridge between the Homo georgicus species and the Homo antecessor species. Study co-author Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro told the AFP that it’s likely the species “probably disappeared” during a severe global cooling era that occurred nearly 900,000 years ago. 

Research at the excavation site will continue, the scientists said. 

contributed to this report.