Homo antecessor

Homo antecessor is an extinct human species (or subspecies) dating from 1.2 million to 800,000 years ago that was discovered by Eudald Carbonell, Juan Luis Arsuaga and J. M. Bermúdez de Castro.

H. antecessor is one of the earliest known human species in Europe.Various archaeologists and anthropologists have debated how H. antecessor relates to other Homo species in Europe, with suggestions that it was an evolutionary link between H. ergaster and H. heidelbergensis, although Richard Klein thinks that it was instead a separate species that evolved from H. ergaster.

Some scientists consider H. antecessor to be the same species as H. heidelbergensis, who inhabited Europe from 250,000 to 600,000 years ago in the Pleistocene.The best-preserved fossil is a maxilla that belonged to a ten-year-old individual found in Spain.

Based on palaeomagnetic measurements, it is thought to be older than 780–857 ka.

In 1994 and 1995, eighty fossils of six individuals who may have belonged to the species were found in Atapuerca, Spain.

At the site were numerous examples of cuts where the flesh had been flensed from the bones, which indicates that H. antecessor may have practiced cannibalism.

Footprints presumed to be from H. antecessor dating to more than 800,000 years ago have been found at Happisburgh on the coast of Norfolk, England.

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