The discovery of Homo antecessor

Neanderthals were discovered to roam the Eurasian continent until approximately 40,000 years ago. On the other hand, The Denisovans resided only in Asia, and some of them might have survived until 15,000 to 30,000 years ago. Meanwhile, the Homo antecessor lived long before, too, although estimates had them live in Western Europe from 800,000 to1.2 million years ago.

Now, paleoanthropologists first discovered remnants of the Homo antecessor while digging in Spain’s Sierra de Atapuerca region. The team, made up of Eudald Carbonell, José María Bermúdez de Castro, and Juan Luis Arsuaga, specifically excavated a large cavern on-site named the Gran Dolina. The trio hired a moving company and excavated the cave back in 1992 but found human remains a few years later, which they formally described as Homo antecessor. The species name “antecessor” was proposed in 1997 and derived from a Latin word that means “predecessor,” or “scout, vanguard, pioneer.”