Rare skull sheds new light on human history

A partial skull unearthed in the Manot Cave in Western Galilee in northern Israel is generating fresh debate about the story of human evolution.

The 55 000-year-old skull is a rare fossil record from the time when humans were believed to be migrating out of Africa into Eurasia (between 40 000 and 60 000 years ago).

The rare find was reported in an article in the journal Nature by an international team of researchers led by Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University.

The skull, known as Manot 1, is described as being “the first fossil evidence from the critical period when genetic and archaeological models predict that African modern humans successfully migrated out of Africa and colonised Eurasia”.

The researchers suggest the skull comes from a population that had recently migrated out of Africa and established itself in the Levantine corridor when the climate was warmer and wetter in the northern Sahara and Mediterranean.

The skull has a distinctive bun-shape at its base, resembling modern African and European skulls but differing from other early anatomically modern humans in the Levant.

It is also described as being “the only modern human specimen to provide evidence that during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic interface, both modern humans and Neanderthals contemporaneously inhabited the southern Levant, close in time to the likely interbreeding event with Neanderthals”.

However, an article in the New York Times suggests that the question of whether the skull is the result of interbreeding remains open-ended and could only be confirmed through DNA testing and the discovery of more specimens.

Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem spent years dating the skull to 55 000 years ago.

The Manot Cave was only discovered in 2008 after its roof was opened up accidentally during construction. Excavations of this cave are set to continue here for at least the next five years, possibly revealing more secrets of this critical period of human evolution.