Juan-Luis Arsuaga, Ignacio Martínez, Carlos Lorenzo & Ana Gracia Departamento de Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain Instituto de Geología Económica UCM-CSIC, Unidad Asociada de Paleoantropología UCM-CSIC. E-mail: azara@eucmax.sim.ucm.es Alberto Mun ˜oz Departamento de Radiología y Medicina Física, Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, Carretera de Andalucía, Madrid, Spain Oscar Alonso Departamento de Tecnología de Computadores y Automática, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain Jesu ´ s Gallego Departamento de Astrofísica, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain Received 30 June 1998 Revision received 9 March 1999 and accepted 14 March 1999 Keywords: Lower Pleistocene, Gran Dolina, Atapuerca, Cranium, Homo antecessor. The human cranial remains from Gran Dolina Lower Pleistocene site (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain) In this article we study the cranial remains of the late Lower Pleistocene human fossils from Gran Dolina (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain), assigned to the new species Homo antecessor. The cranial remains belong to at least five individuals, both juveniles and adults. The most outstanding feature is the totally modern human mor- phology of the very complete face ATD6-69, representing the earliest occurrence of the modern face in the fossil record. The Gran Dolina fossils show in the face a suite of modern human apomorphies not found in earlier hominids nor in contemporary or earlier Homo erectus fossils. There are also traits in the Gran Dolina fossils shared with both Neandertals and modern humans, which reinforce the hypoth- esis that Neandertals and modern humans form a clade, and that the Gran Dolina fossils are a common ancestor to both lineages.  1999 Academic Press Journal of Human Evolution (1999) 37, 431–457 Article No. jhev.1999.0309 Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on 0047–2484/99/090431+27$30.00/0  1999 Academic Press