Facial bones dated to between 1.4 and 1.1 million years old have been found in a cave in the Atapuerca mountains in Spain.
They are the oldest bones of their kind in Western Europe, and researchers say they belong to a species closer to the more primitive Homo erectus.
What's next?
While the discovery provides more evidence on the earliest human species to appear in Europe, more research is needed to settle how they got there from Africa. (read on)