We scientists have brought him back to life

Juan Luis Arsuaga

Experts recreated the head of the boy known as El Nino de la Dolina, who lived in northern Spain 800,000 years ago and was eaten by other humans, the Spanish news agency Efe said.

He is thought to have been aged 10 or 11, Efe added.

The skull of El Nino de la Dolina was found in 1995, at Gran Dolina, in the Atapuerca archaeological site in Burgos Province.

Taken by cannibals

It was among the fossilised remains of six people who had been dragged there and eaten, the Spanish daily El Mundo said.

El Nino de la Dolina has a rounded forehead, a flat face and a snub nose.

"We scientists have brought him back to life by putting flesh on the bones", Juan Luis Arsuaga, the co-director of the excavations, told El Mundo.

Arsuaga's team presented a replica of the boy's head at the Kutxaespacio museum in San Sebastian on Wednesday.

Common ancestor

Also on show is a replica head of Homo heidelbergensis - one of 32 people found in Atapuerca and dating back 300,000 years.

It is based on a skull found in Sima de los Huesos (Pit of Bones), Europe's oldest known burial site, in Atapuerca.

The ancestry of modern humans is still under debate

Some scientists think Homo heidelbergensis was the last common ancestor of the Neanderthals and today's humans.

But Arsuaga and his team challenge this view, attributing this status to what they call Homo antecessor of whom, they say, El Nino de la Dolina is an example.

Main image is courtesy of Inaki de Andres, El Mundo

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