Anthropologists delving into a cave in northeastern Spain announced today they had uncovered the earliest known remains of a human in Europe, a find that they dated to as much as 1.2 million years old.

The exceptional fossil strengthens the theory that humans, after emerging from their African home, struck out towards western Europe far earlier than thought, they said.

The find comprises teeth and part of a lower jawbone about four centimetres across, found in the Atapuerca hills east of the city of Burgos, the team reported in the weekly British science journal Nature.

The site, called the Sima del Elefante, comprises a cave 18 metres deep and 15 metres wide, with sediment and debris from ancient human settlement, bats and other animals forming layers many metres thick deep.