Fossilized jaw shows that hominids lived in Europe earlier than we'd thought

Darkfrog submitted, created time 9 months 1 week (www.nature.com)

The article names the single-find specie "Homo antecessor" and hypothesizes descent from Homo erectus, saying that some Homo e left Africa for Asia, then quickly doubled back to Spain.

This changes the system of ideas surrounding genus Homo's entrance into Europe. Previous fossils gave a date of as early as 800,000 years ago, but this mandible dates to 1.2 million.

12 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: human evolutionary biology migrations homo primates hominids fossils paleontology