Discover
In 2002 a tiny human tooth, catalogued as BL02-J54-100, was found at Barranco León. It is the crown of a lower left first milk molar, heavily worn and without roots: according to the study that published it, the roots were reabsorbed because the tooth was shed during life, just as milk teeth fall out.
Its authors attribute it to the genus Homo and date it to about 1.4 million years ago, which would make it the oldest human fossil in western Europe, although they acknowledge that the error margins overlap with those of the Sima del Elefante at Atapuerca. The Andalusian regional government describes it as the oldest human evidence in the western part of the European continent.
The image shows a replica of the tooth.
Source: Toro-Moyano, I. et al. (2013), Journal of Human Evolution 65; Junta de Andalucía, ReDes-ORCE record (2023).
