
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 11, 1995                   TAG: 9508110074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

OLD BONES MAY REVEAL HUMAN TALE

Fossils unearthed in Spain and age-dated at 780,000 years may be the oldest evidence yet of humanlike creatures in Europe. The discovery fills a major gap in human evolutionary history, experts say.

Thirty-six fossils of hominid bones along with primitive stone tools were found in caves in northern Spain by a group of Spanish scientists. A new technique set the age of the specimens at least 200,000 years older than any other humanlike fossil found in Western Europe.

``If the date for this material is correct, then it is an extremely exciting discovery,'' said Alison Brooks, a George Washington University scientist and faculty member of the Smithsonian's Institute of Human Origins.

``This finding means there may have been pre-humans widespread in Europe at a very early age, a quarter of a million years earlier than we thought,'' Brooks said.

Two reports on the findings are to be published today in Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

- Associated Press

by CNB