1. Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social, Àrea de Prehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Plaça Imperial Tarraco 1, 43005 Tarragona, Spain
2. Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre Evolución Humana, Avenida de la Paz 28, 09004 Burgos, Spain
3. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, 2534 CCL Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
4. Departamento de Geodinámica, Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
5. Área de Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Zaragoza, c/ Pedro Cerbuna, 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
6. Departamento de Paleobiología, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, C.S.I.C., José G. Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain
7. Departamento de Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
8. Centro de Investigación (UCM-ISCIII) de Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos, c/ Sinesio Delgado, 4 (Pabellón 14), 28029 Madrid, Spain
9. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
10. Yosemite National Park, 5083 Foresta Road, PO Box 700, El Portal, California 95318, USA
11. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Plaça Imperial Tarraco 1, 43005 Tarragona, Spain
12. Laboratorio de Prehistoria, Edificio I+D+i, Universidad de Burgos, Plaza Misael Bañuelos s/n, 09001 Burgos, Spain

Correspondence to: Eudald Carbonell¹José M. Bermúdez de Castro² Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to E.C. (Email: eudald.carbonell@urv.cat) and J.M.B. de C. (Email: jm.ber@cenieh.es).

Abstract

The earliest hominin occupation of Europe is one of the most debated topics in palaeoanthropology. However, the purportedly oldest of the Early Pleistocene sites in Eurasia lack precise age control and contain stone tools rather than human fossil remains^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. Here we report the discovery of a human mandible associated with an assemblage of Mode 1 lithic tools and faunal remains bearing traces of hominin processing, in stratigraphic level TE9 at the site of the Sima del Elefante, Atapuerca, Spain^{6, 7, 8}. Level TE9 has been dated to the Early Pleistocene (approximately 1.2–1.1 Myr), based on a combination of palaeomagnetism, cosmogenic nuclides and biostratigraphy. The Sima del Elefante site thus emerges as the oldest, most accurately dated record of human occupation in Europe, to our knowledge. The study of the human mandible suggests that the first settlement of Western Europe could be related to an early demographic expansion out of Africa. The new evidence, with previous findings in other Atapuerca sites (level TD6 from Gran Dolina^{9, 10, 11, 12, 13}), also suggests that a speciation event occurred in this extreme area of the Eurasian continent during the Early Pleistocene, initiating the hominin lineage represented by the TE9 and TD6 hominins.