WHO WERE THE HOMO ANTECESSORS?
A lifelike model of a Homo antecessor female is posed scooping out the brains of decapitated head
Homo antecessor is one of the earliest known varieties of human discovered in Europe, dating as far back as one million years ago.
Believed to have weighed around 14 stone, Homo antecessor was said to have been between 5.5 and 6ft tall.
Their brain sizes were roughly between 1,000 and 1,150 cm³, which is smaller than the average 1,350 cm³ brains of modern humans.
The species is believed to have been right-handed, making it different from other apes, and may have used a symbolic language, according to archaeologists who found remains in Burgos, Spain in 1994.
How Homo antecessor may be related to other Homo species in Europe has a subject of fierce debate.
Many anthropologists believe there was an evolutionary link between Homo ergaster and Homo heidelbergensis.
Archaeologist Richard Klein claims Homo antecessor was a separate species completely, that evolved from Homo ergaster.
However, others claim Homo antecessor is actually the same species as Homo heidelbergensis, who lived in Europe between 600,000 and 250,000 years ago in the Pleistocene era.
In 2010 stone tools were found at the same site in Happisburgh, Norfolk, believed to have been used by Homo antecessor.
Scientists believe that these early human species would breed with one another on a regular basis.
Dr Matthias Meyer, a palaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany said: 'The evolutionary history of archaic humans in the Middle Pleistocene was quite complex.
'It could be that both the ancestors of the Sima people and Denisovans interbred with another archaic group like Homo antecessor or Homo erectus.
'Or it is possible that the mitochondrial DNA we know from late Neanderthals came in from another group that left Africa.'
Read articles that feature this panel
Ancestor species of modern humans and Neanderthals that lived in Spain one million years ago resorted to CANNIBALISM as it was more...
Researchers from Spain's National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH) found remains with clear evidence human tooth marks, cuts and...
Britain's oldest human footprints belonging to a long-extinct ancestor dubbed 'pioneer man' are discovered on a Norfolk beach and date back...
Archaeological enthusiast Paul Macro discovered the indentations on a beach in Happisburgh, near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, in May.
'Oldest human genetic material' ever found reveals a 'sister group' to modern people, Neanderthals and Denisovans that lived 800,000 years...
Researchers in Denmark say they are confident their study shows that Homo antecessors were a 'sister group' to the last common relatives of...
The Gran Dolina Boy was really a GIRL: 800,000-year-old skeleton of an ancient human ancestor thought to be male since its discovery in the...
The gender change for the skeleton, previously known as the Boy of Gran Dolina, came after researchers used modern techniques to analyse ...
Our ancestors were CANNIBALS: Scientists discover grisly evidence ancient human species ate children 850,000 years ago
Ancient human ancestors ate small children 850,000 years ago, a gruesome discovery suggests.
Most watched News videos
- Epstein describes himself as a 'tier one' sexual predator
- New video shows Epstein laughing and chasing young women
- Buddhist monks in Thailand caught with a stash of porn
- Jenna Bush Hager in tears over disappearance of Nancy Guthrie
- Sarah Ferguson 'took Princesses' to see Epstein after prison
- Forth Bridge fireball fall into village streets
- Trevor Noah takes shots at Trump, Bill Clinton, and Epstein
- Lord Peter Mandelson resigns from the Labour Party
- Savannah Guthrie issues statement on disappearance of her mother
- China unveils 'Star Wars' warship that can deploy unmanned jets
- Inside Jeffrey Epstein's prison cell where he was found dead
- Shock footage of civil unrest in remote community of Wadeye
