Researchers Just Dug Up A Half-Million-Year-Old Human Jawbone Tia Ghose, LiveScienceFebruary, 2013 . An ancient hominin jawbone unearthed in a Serbian cave may be more than half a million years old. Scientists have unearthed a jawbone from an ancient human ancestor in a cave in Serbia. The jawbone, which may have come from an ancient Homo erectus or a primitive-looking Neanderthal precursor, is more than 397,000 years old, and possibly more than 525,000 years old. The fossil, described today (Feb. 6) in the journal PLOS ONE, is the oldest hominin fossil found in this region of Europe, and may change...