Fossil teeth push the human-Neandertal split back to about 1 million years ago
A new study estimates the age of these hominids’ last common ancestor
![teeth](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/051419_bb-fossilized-teeth_feat-rev.jpg?fit=860%2C460&ssl=1)
CROWNING ROOTS An analysis of hominid tooth evolution, including specimens from Spanish Neandertals (top row), pushes back the age of a common Neandertal-human ancestor to more than 800,000 years ago. The bottom row shows Homo sapiens teeth.
A. Gómez-Robles, Ana Muela and Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro