If we ignore the overall uncertainty:
An important advancement in human evolution studies has been achieved after scientists retrieved the oldest human genetic data set from an 800,000-year-old tooth belonging to the hominin species Homo antecessor…
Although the hypothesis that Homo antecessor could be the common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans is very difficult to fit into the evolutionary scenario of the genus Homo, new findings in TD6 and subsequent studies revealed several characters shared among the human species found in Atapuerca and the Neanderthals. New studies confirmed that the facial features of Homo antecessor are very similar to those of Homo sapiens but very different from those of the Neanderthals and their more recent ancestors.
“I am happy that the protein study provides evidence that the Homo antecessor species may be closely related to the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. The features shared by Homo antecessor with these hominins clearly appeared much earlier than previously thought. Homo antecessor would therefore be a basal species of the emerging humanity formed by Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans”, adds José María Bermúdez de Castro, Scientific Co-director of the excavations in Atapuerca and co-corresponding author on the paper.
University of Copenhagen, “Oldest ever human genetic evidence clarifies dispute over our ancestors” at News
The “ Homo antecessor species”? But what about “the ‘increasingly outdated concept of what constitutes a species,’‘“just one of dozens of competing definitions’”? Is all this just a racket that keeps these people employed? Where is he conference that really confronts the problem?
See also: Human evolution changes dramatically—again! It’s one thing to be expected to believe an orthodoxy, another to be expected to believe that the current revolution of a whirligig represents some ultimate reality