内容摘要：While Ulfani is studying airport management, her father and mother are planning to move. They would have preferred to have already left, but say that they don’t have the money right now.

While Ulfani is studying airport management, her father and mother are planning to move. They would have preferred to have already left, but say that they don’t have the money right now.

is the oldest in western Europe, archaeologists reported Wednesday.The incomplete skull — a section of the left cheek bone and upper jaw – was found in northern Spain in 2022. The fossil is between 1.1 million and 1.4 million years old, according to research

“The fossil is exciting,” said Eric Delson, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the study. “It’s the first time we have significant remains older than 1 million years old in western Europe.”The fossil of the left midface of a hominin between 1.1 million and 1.4 million years old recovered from the Sima del Elefante site in Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain. (Maria D. Guillén/IPHES-CERCA via AP)The fossil of the left midface of a hominin between 1.1 million and 1.4 million years old recovered from the Sima del Elefante site in Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain. (Maria D. Guillén/IPHES-CERCA via AP)

A collection of older fossils from early human ancestors was, near the crossroads of eastern Europe and Asia. Those are estimated to be 1.8 million years old.

The Spanish fossil is the first evidence that clearly shows human ancestors “were taking excursions into Europe” at that time, said Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program.

But there is not yet evidence that the earliest arrivals persisted there long, he said. “They may get to a new location and then die out,” said Potts, who had no role in the study.One way to show humans caused the warming “is by eliminating everything else,” said Princeton University climate scientist Gabe Vecchi.

Scientists can calculate how much heat different suspects trap, using a complex understanding of chemistry and physics and feeding that into computer simulations that have been generally accurate in portraying climate, past and future. They measure what they call radiative forcing in watts per meter squared.The first and most frequent natural suspect is the sun. The sun is what warms Earth in general providing about 1,361 watts per meter squared of heat, year in year out. That’s the baseline, the delicate balance that makes Earth livable. Changes in energy coming from the sun have been minimal, about one-tenth of a watt per meter squared, scientists calculate.

But carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is now trapping heat to the level of 2.07 watts per meter squared, more than 20 times that of the changes in the sun, according to the U.S.Methane, another powerful heat-trapping gas, is at 0.5 watts per meter square.