Recent excavations at the famed archaeological site of Atapuerca (Sierra de Atapuerca) in northern Spain’s Burgos province unearthed the skeletal remains of an individual who belonged to an archaic human species known as Homo antecessor. This species walked the earth between 1.2 million and 800,000 years ago, and is the oldest hominin found in the fossil records of Western Europe.
The Earliest European Hominin
Homo antecessor, which means “pioneer man” in Latin, was first discovered in the Gran Dolina cavern at Atapuerca in 1994, or 30 years before the most recent find. It was identified as a distinct species in 1997, and for a time was considered to be the last common ancestor shared by modern humans and Neanderthals. More recent research has suggested this is not true, however, and the current scientific consensus is that Homo antecessor was an offshoot of the modern human evolutionary line that developed just before humans and Neanderthal’s split.
As one of the more productive archaeological sites from the perspective of the study of human evolution, the Sierra de Atapuerca has been subjected to intense scrutiny by scientists interested in learning more about the story of humankind’s long and epic journey through time. Each discovery of new archaic human artifacts or skeletal remains helps further the quest for this knowledge, which is why the second discovery of Homo antecessor in the Gran Dolina cavern is being viewed as an extraordinarily important development.
Homo antecessor incisor recovered during the 2024 campaign the TD6 unit of the Gran Dolina. (Maria D. Guillén / IPHES-CERCA)
Homo Antecessor: Finding the Ancient Occupants of Atapuerca
During the 2024 excavation season, researchers from the Catalan Institute for Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) were digging in Gran Dolina’s TD6 unit when they came across the remains of an unidentified hominin. Eventually they unearthed multiple skull fragments, 2 fragment from a mandible (lower jaw) bone, several vertebrae, a bone from the wrist, and a single incisor, all of which were eventually identified as having belonged to a Homo antecessor female of approximately 25 years of age.
Dating procedures revealed the woman had lived approximately 850,000 years ago, during the Early Pleistocene.
The latest excavations were led by a trio of veteran researchers, Spanish paleoanthropologists Jose Maria Bermudez, Eudald Carbonell, and Juan Luis Arsuaga. Active at the archaeological site of Atapuerca since the early 1990s, it was these three men who were responsible for the initial discovery of Homo antecessor remains in the TD6 unit of Gran Dolina cavern in 1994.
Excavation area at level TD6 in the Gran Dolina cave where the latest finds have been made. (Maria D. Guillén / IPHES-CERCA)
During those initial excavations they recovered approximately 170 Homo antecessor skeletal pieces, along with some ancient stone tools that had clearly been made and used by these archaic humans. Future digs at the same location unearthed more tools and another 70 or so pieces of skeleton, which came from an unknown number of individuals who had died or been buried in the cave nearly one million years ago.
Notably, the tools recovered from the Homo antecessor excavations in the 1990s and early 2000s matched tools found at several other archaeological sites spread across Western Europe. But no hominin fossils were recovered from these locations, making it impossible to say with certainty that the tools were made by Homo antecessor.
Two lithic tools found at the Gran Dolina site. (Maria D. Guillén / IPHES-CERCA)
In 2014, about 50 footprints dating back approximately one million years were found embedded in stone in Happisburgh, England, and it is believed they belonged to Homo antecessor (the only hominin known to be living in Western Europe at the time). But once again, without an actual fossilized skeleton or two having been found, there is no way to definitively link the footprints to a particular archaic human species.
In 2007, a piece of mandible bone and a few teeth were excavated in a different section of the cavern, and initially this was listed as a new discovery of a Homo antecessor skeleton. However, a closer examination of the remains proved inconclusive, and this is no longer officially recognized as a Homo antecessor find.
Searching for evidence of a species that existed so long ago and has been extinct for so long is a daunting challenge. It is believed that Homo antecessor roamed far and wide across Europe between 800,000 and 1.2 million years ago, but so far the skeletal pieces found at Atapuerca in 1994 and three decades later in 2024 are the only confirmed remains from this elusive archaic hominin.
Atapuerca as a Treasure Trove for Students of Human Evolution
The latest round of excavations at Sierra de Atapuerca involved more than 300 researchers from multiple disciplines from across the globe. While research has been intensive at the 430-square-foot (40-square-meter) Gran Dolina site, this is one of just five locations where excavations were undertaken in June and July of this year.
At the Sima del Elefante site, researchers unearthed a quartz flake tool and the rib bone from an herbivore that showed signs of having been butchered. While no skeletal remains were found in association with these discoveries, it seems these artifacts are somewhere between 1.2 and 1.4 million years old, meaning they were left behind by some of the earliest archaic human occupants of the region.
At the Galeria site, approximately 500 animal bones and 30 ancient stone tools were recovered during this excavation season. These date back to around 300,000 years ago, and apparently were left by archaic humans who lived in the region at approximately the same time as the Neanderthals.
Stone tool found in the Galeria cavern. (Maria D. Guillén / IPHES-CERCA)
Speaking of the Neanderthals, in Atapuerca’s Cueva Fantasma signs of their occupation were unearthed this year, including stone tools and animal bones. The earliest versions of Neanderthals were in Spain as long as 400,000 years ago, and the species continued to live there until going extinct around 40,000 years ago.
Finally, at El Mirador cave, researchers found Neolithic artifacts and evidence of ancient rock art. Some of the more fascinating discoveries included a stone block covered with red pigment, and a pottery piece that was decorated with images of the Sun. These finds suggest that early agricultural communities had been established in the Sierra de Atapuerca region by about 7,000 years ago.
All of these amazing finds will help researchers learn more about the path of human physical, social, and cultural evolution over the past several hundred thousand years. Sierra de Atapuerca was inhabited for an almost unimaginably long period of time, and as such represents an incredibly valuable microcosm of the ancient human experience.
Top image: Excavation work at the Ghost Cave site. Source: Maria D. Guillén / IPHES-CERCA
By Nathan Falde
