Million-year-old human tooth found in Spain

Scientists in Spain say that they have found a tooth from a distant human ancestor that is more than one million years old.

The tooth, a pre-molar, was discovered on Wednesday at the Atapuerca site in northern Spain's Burgos Province.

It represented western Europe's "oldest human fossil remain", a statement from the Atapuerca Foundation said.

It was not yet possible to confirm to which species the tooth belonged, it said, but initial analyses "allow us to suppose it is an ancestor of Homo antecessor".

Mr Bermudez de Castro said the tooth appeared to come from an individual aged between 20 and 25.

"There is no doubt, from the (geological) level where the tooth was found, that it belonged to the oldest European found to date," the French news agency AFP quoted him as saying.

Source: BBC
Tags: Tooth | Fossil | Oldest