The human jawbone fossil found on June 30 in the Arapuerca Mountains of Spain is the oldest human fossil ever found on the European continent.
Jose-Maria Bermudez de Castro, one of the leaders of the team conducting the research, stated that the “dating” studies on the new jawbone they found are continuing. During the dating studies, many methods, especially carbon testing, are used to confirm the age of the fossils found.
The final results will be announced after 6 to 8 months, and if confirmed by scientific methods, the discovery will become historical:
Due to the nature of scientific research, every piece of information is tested with different tests before it is accepted for certainty. If a 1.4-million-year-old fossil is indeed determined to be of this age, the researchers say it would be a historic discovery.
The mandible is owned by someone of the same species as us, not a Homo sapiense:
As you know, we are a species called Homo (human) sapiens (intelligent), that is, “intelligent human”, and for tens of thousands of years, no other human species has lived on earth except us. While the oldest evidence for our species dates back to just 200,000 years ago, the jawbone fossil found is 1.2 million years older than even the oldest evidence of us.
It is thought that 21 different human species have been identified on earth to date. Although some studies suggest that the number is 14, we know that the jawbone in question does not belong to a Homo sapiens. The oldest European human fossil before the fossil, which is stated to be 1.4 million years old, was discovered in 2007 and dated to 1.2 million years ago, but which human species this fossil belongs to has still not been determined.
Atapuerca, where the discovery was made in Spain, has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2000, and thousands of prehistoric fossils are said to be waiting to be discovered.
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