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Barranco León formed in an old deposit left by floodwaters that came down from the nearby limestone ranges to the lake shore. Combined dating places it at around 1.4 million years ago, in the Lower Pleistocene.
It yielded a milk tooth from a juvenile individual of the genus Homo, about 1.4 million years old, which its researchers present as the oldest human fossil in Western Europe. It is the crown of a heavily worn milk molar and, according to their study, the tooth was probably shed during life. The site has also produced more than a thousand Oldowan stone tools, knapped from flint and limestone, and fossils of hippos, horses, bison and deer.
It is a Site of Geological Interest of the Granada Geopark and its exact location is not disclosed in order to protect it; the map point is approximate. Its finds can be seen at the Museum of the First Settlers of Europe.
Source: Toro-Moyano et al. (2013), Journal of Human Evolution 65; Andalusian Government Decree 335/2012.
