Some paleoanthropologists are used to popularizing their discoveries by increasing a catchy nickname to fossils with a sometimes less immediate charm. This is the case of “Pink”, presented on March 12 In a study in the journal Nature in title “The oldest human face in Western Europe”. For the Boeotian, however difficult to discern the features. The fossil, more than 1.1 to 1.4 million years old and unearthed near Burgos (Spain), is only made up of a maxillary and a zygomatic bone on the left side.
But these bones have enough signs – “A flattened and poorly developed nasal structure” – so that Rosa Huguet (Rovira I Virgili University, Tarragona) and his colleagues attribute them to a new species with “Affinities” with Homo erectus. Which leads them to propose, temporarily, to assign the Latin name to him: Homo aff. erect.
Tribute to Pink Floyd Groups
“The nickname Pink is a tribute to the Pink Floyd group and the album Dark Side of the Moonbecause in Spanish, the lunar face [cara oculta] and the face [cara] are translated by the same word “explained Maria Martinon -Torres (Cenieh – National Center for Research on Human Evolution in, Burgos) during a press conference, adding that the nickname is also an allusion to the first name of the excavation manager, Rosa Huguet, who blushed.
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