A 16-year-old French volunteer archaeologist has found an adult tooth dating back about 560,000 years in south western France, in what researchers have hailed as a “major discovery”.

The tooth was found at one of the world’s most important prehistoric sites in Tautavel, which has been excavated for about 50 years.

“A large adult tooth – we can’t say if it was from a male or female – was found during excavations of soil we know to be between 550,000 and 580,000 years old, because we used different dating methods,” paleoanthropologist Amelie Viallet said.

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“This is a major discovery because we have very few human fossils from this period in Europe.”

It is also the site of the discovery of fossils belonging to Tautavel Man, a species that lived an estimated 450,000 years ago.

Volunteer Camille, 16, was working with another young archaeologist when she found the tooth.