BURGOS, SPAIN—The AFP reports that a jawbone fragment discovered in northern Spain’s Atapuerca Mountains last month may be Europe’s oldest known hominin fossil. Paleoanthropologist Jose-Maria Bermudez de Castro of the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) said the jawbone was found in a layer of earth about six feet deeper than the one in which another hominin jawbone, dated to 1.2 million years ago, was found in 2007. He estimates that the newly discovered fossil could be 1.4 million years old. CENIEH researchers will date the newly unearthed fossil and also attempt to determine if it belonged to Homo antecessor or another hominin species. To read about reconstructions of the inner-ear anatomy of hominins, including specimens of pre-Neanderthal hominins recovered from the Atapuerca Mountains, go to "Neanderthal Hearing."
