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Humans, the most evolved species on Earth, have a new lead on their ancient provenience and ancestors.
A new discovery of a human skull fossil, has solved a few mysteries regarding the evolution of our species. Archeologists, declared that the upper region of the skull, the bowed section, not including the face or the jaws, had been unburied from Manot Cave from Western Galilee of Israel. The cave is situated on the only road that ancient humans could have taken when traveling from Africa to Asia, Europe and The Middle East. The dating procedures, showed that the skull dated from around 55, 000 years ago, and researcher are suspecting the fossil belongs to a female, but its not certain.
Around that period, human ancestors were thought to have been stepping out of Africa and certain features of the skull imply that this person had a close relationship with the population of the first homo sapiens that populated Europe later in time. Another proof brought by the skull, was that the Homo sapiens have settled into that region at the same time as Neanderthals.
The leader of the study, published in the Nature journal, Israel Hershkovitz, from the University of Tel Aviv, considered the skull an essential piece of the puzzle of the history of the evolution of the human species.
Preceding genetic studies, suggested that our species and the Neanderthals have interbred in the period from where the skull is dating and as a consequence Eurasian origins people, are still holding a small number of Neanderthal DNA.
The new found fossil, represents the first evidence that modern humans and Neanderthals have populated the same region during the same period of time, explained Bruce Latimer, researcher and paleontologist at the Case Western Reserve University from Cleveland.
The two communities co existing in a restrained geographic area in the same period of time in which genetic studies foresee interbreeding, leads scientists to believe that the interbreeding could have taken place in the region of Levant, added study leader, Hershkovitz.
The hefty Neanderthals have developed across Europe and Asia, starting from, around 350,000 to 400,000 years ago and went extinct shortly after the arrival of Homo sapiens.
The Homo sapiens, are estimated to have appeared around 200,000 years ago in Africa and from there, they started migrating.
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