Jawbone could hold clues about Europe's earliest humans

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STORY: This ancient jawbone could hold

clues about Europe’s earliest humans

Locator: Burgos, Spain

It was found near mountain

caves in northern Spain

and is estimated to be

about 1.4 million years old

JOSE MARIA BERMUDEZ DE CASTRO, ATAPUERCA SITE CO-DIRECTOR, SAYING:

"What we can say is that we have found a fossil that's very important and interesting that belongs to one of the first populations that arrived in Europe, maybe later we will find older ones, but at this moment it is a sample of a representative of one of the oldest populations that colonized the European continent."

EUDALD CARBONELL, ATAPUERCA SITE CO-DIRECTOR, SAYING:

"This discovery will probably help us learn about the species that socialized Europe."

Scientists are still working to identify

the specific kind

of human ancestor

And say it could help them

study the evolution of human faces

JOSE MARIA BERMUDEZ DE CASTRO, ATAPUERCA SITE CO-DIRECTOR, SAYING (AS HE HOLDS A JAW FOUND IN ATAPUERCA IN 1995):

"We will be able to compare and we can work on the hypotheses of the origin of the face of man. This is truly marvelous and it's one of the great virtues of this finding."