Word: antecessor
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...antecessor...
...rich trove of fossils has been found at two sites in northern Spain's Atapuerca mountains. One, known as Gran Dolina, has yielded 800,000-year-old hominids that Spanish researchers believe are a new species, perhaps the most recent common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals. Named Homo antecessor (Latin for explorer or pioneer), they had a primitive jaw and prominent brow ridges but a projecting face, sunken cheekbones and tooth development similar to that of modern humans...
Less than half a mile away, antecessor's co-discoverer, Juan Luis Arsuaga of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, is excavating at Sima de los Huesos (Pit of Bones), deep inside a natural cave. So far, his team has found thousands of fossils from at least 33 hominids of all ages. About 300,000 years old, they appear to represent an early stage of Neanderthal evolution. Explains Eric Delson, a professor of anthropology at Lehman College in New York City: "For the first time, we have a good population from a single place and enough variation to show Neanderthal features...
...they're sure. In the current issue of Science, Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, of Madrid's Center for Scientific Investigation, and his colleagues maintain that their fossils belong to a new, possibly cannibalistic species of early man that roamed Europe nearly 800,000 years ago. Called Homo antecessor (from a Latin word meaning "explorer"), this creature may be the last common ancestor shared by modern humans and Neanderthals...
...Spanish fossils, though nearly twice as old, show a mix of modern and Neanderthal facial traits. According to the new genealogy, H. antecessor evolved in Africa and gave rise to H. heidelbergensis and another, still undiscovered species. The former begat Neanderthals; the latter led to modern H. sapiens. Not all paleoanthropologists are convinced. But if this theory holds up, the human family tree has just grown another branch...
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