Sima del Elefante
A jaw fragment from Atapuerca puts hominins in western Europe 1.2 million years ago.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 200 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 100 thousand years
- Era
- Early Pleistocene, Quaternary
The lowest levels of the Sima del Elefante shaft in the Atapuerca hills of northern Spain yielded a hominin mandible, stone flakes and cut-marked animal bones dated to about 1.2 million years ago, later joined by a partial face nicknamed Pink from around 1.4 million. These are the oldest securely dated human remains in western Europe. Europe is colonised much later and more sporadically than Asia, plausibly because its glacial winters were a harder problem than distance.