Hominid bond found in U.K.

Excavations at a quarry in southern England have yielded a fossil bone from one of the earliest known members of the human evolutionary family in Euroep, according to a report in the May 26 NATURE.

The shaft of a lower left year at a quarry near the village of Boxgrove. Extinct animal bones and hominin-fashioned stone tools previously found at the site indicate that the fossil is aproximately 500,000 years old, contend Mark B. Roberts, an archaelogoist at University College, London, and his coworkers.

The only european hominid specimen of comparable age, a partial lower jaw, turned up in 1907 near Heidelberg, Germany. Some investigators assign that find to the species Homo heidelbergensis (SN: 6/20/92, p.408). Roberts' team provisionally places the Boxgrove fossil in the same species.

However, the bone bears some resembalence to later European Neandertals, they note. Further discoveries of early hominds at sites such as Atapuerca, a Spanish cave the contains the remains of early Neandertals from around 300,000 years ago (SN: 4?10?93, P.228), will help clarify the species of the Boxgrove find, the team says.

Based on the shin bone's dimensions, Robert's group estimtes that the ancient hominid was a male who stood about 6 feet tall and weighed at least 176 pounds.