This 210,000-Year-Old Skull May Be the Oldest Human Fossil Found in Europe
A new study could shake up the accepted timeline of Homo Sapiens’ arrival on the continent—though not all experts are on board
By Brigit Katz
smithsonian.com
July 11, 2019
In the late 1970s, two fossilized human crania were discovered in the Apidima cave in southern Greece. Researchers were somewhat befuddled by the remains; they were incomplete and distorted, for one, and had been found without any archaeological context, like stone tools. But because the skulls had been encased in a single block of stone, experts assumed they were the same age and of the same species—possibly Neanderthals.
Now, a bombshell study published in Nature posits that one of the crania, dubbed “Apidima 1,” in fact belonged to an early modern human that lived 210,000 years ago. The report has been met with skepticism by some experts, but if its conclusions are correct, Apidima 1 represents the oldest Homo sapiens fossil in Europe by some 160,000 years.
For the past 40-odd years, Apidima 1 and the other cranium, “Apidima 2,” have been held at the University of Athen’s Museum of Anthropology. Scientists there recently reached out to Katerina Harvati, director of paleoanthropology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, to see if she would be interested in taking a fresh look at the skulls, reports Maya Wei-Haas of National Geographic.
Harvati and a team of colleagues analyzed the remains using cutting-edge techniques. First, they CT-scanned both fossils and generated 3D reconstructions in an attempt to get a better picture of what the skulls looked like. Though it had been badly damaged over the centuries, Apidima 2 is the more complete fossil; it includes the facial region, and the new models affirmed previous research indicating that the specimen belonged to a Neanderthal. Apidima 1 consists of just the back of the crania, but the team’s reconstructions and analyses revealed something surprising: the fossil’s features were consistent not with those of Neanderthals, but with those of modern humans.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/210000-skull-may-be-oldest-human-fossil-found-europe-180972629/#jeoReokcFLb5isOB.99
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Skull found in Greece
Friday July 2019
An article on theguardian.com - Piece of skull found in Greece is oldest human fossil outside Africa - reports on the remains discovered on Mani peninsula in Greece which could rewrite history of Homo sapiens in Eurasia.
More:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/news/index.php?id=676
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