The discovery of a new fossil from China is being deemed by a group of scientists as the oldest ever instance in the world of the bone structure now identified as a face.

The team from the University of Oxford has published its study in the online journal Nature. The fossil of the well-preserved fish from Entelognathus primordialis family was found in Southeast China. A layer of sediment as old as the Silurian period i. e. almost 419 million years old reported the fish.

The researchers are of the view that the discovery would prove its worth being the earliest ever known demonstration of basic facial bone structure. As per the findings, the fish has two eyes, one jaw, a nose and a mouth.

On the other hand, all the other fish from the geological time period were jawless. These fish could include today's lamprey and hagfish.

Experts have an idea that the latest discovery could be human life's director ancestor.

"It's going to take a while for people to digest it and figure out what it all means. From a fossil like this, you've got a cascade of implications, and this is just the first paper to deal with them", said paleobiologist Matt Friedman.