Today's post will continue exploring the subject of yesterday's post, about the Eurasian origin of Homo sapiens, from a basal population that lived 900 to 700 thousand years ago in Atapuerca, Spain, the Homo antecessor, that originated Neanderthals, Denisovans, and our species, in Europe.
Martinón-Torres et al., 2019 analyzed the teet of the Atapuerca fossils, and concluded that Homo antecessor is the common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans: (highlight is mine) "Overall, the data presented here support the taxonomic validity of Homo antecessor, since this species presents a unique mosaic of traits. Homo antecessor displays several primitive features for the genus Homo as well as some traits exclusively shared with Early and Middle Pleistocene Eurasian hominins. Some of these Eurasian traits were retained by the Middle Pleistocene hominins of Europe, and subsequently became the typical condition of the Neanderthal lineage. Although other skeletal parts present resemblances with Homo sapiens, TD6.2 teeth do not show any synapomorphy with modern humans. In addition, TD6.2 teeth can be well differentiated from those of Asian Homo erectus. The dental evidence is compatible with previous hypothesis about H. antecessor belonging to the basal population from which H. sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, and Denisovans emerged."
This conclusion was ratified by Welker et al., 2020, who analyzed the proteins found in the teeth of the Atapuerca fossils, and compared them to the ones extracted from the Dmanisi, Georgia hominins (believed to be Homo erectus). See the full article for free here.
Weker's team says its findings "provide evidence that H. antecessor is a close sister lineage to subsequent Middle and Late Pleistocene hominins, including modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans. This placement implies that the modern-like face of H. antecessor —that is, similar to that of modern humans— may have a considerably deep ancestry in the genus Homo, and that the cranial morphology of Neanderthals represents a derived form."
Interestingly, Huguet, et al., 2025 published a paper in Nature about The earliest human face of Western Europe and assigned it to an Homo erectus. It was found in Spain in the Sierra de Atapuerca, at the Sima del Elefante site (TE7 level). This is 1.1 to 1.4 million years old, and predates the later Homo antecessor found in the same region.
The midface bones uncovered at Sima del Elefante "... are primitive for the Homo clade and they do not display the modern-like aspect exhibited by Homo antecessor found at the neighbouring Gran Dolina site... Furthermore, ATE7-1 is more derived in the nasoalveolar region than the Dmanisi and other roughly contemporaneous hominins" These differences between erectus in Spain and Georgia, with the former being less primitive (more derived), shows that erectus were evolving in Western Eurasia but had not yet acquired the modern appearance of the antecessor people.
A surprising fact is that the people living at Atapuerca one million years ago were cannibals according to Carbonell et al., 2010; it wasn't symbolic cannibalism, it had a nutritional purpose: " In conclusion, about 1 million years ago, the hominids of level TD6 added cannibalism to their set of survival strategies as a way of competing with other human groups for available resources. This practice, accepted and included in their social system, is the oldest example of cultural cannibalism known to date."
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