Ancient Human Skull May Reveal the Origins of the First Europeans

An ancient human skull may shed some light on the migration of modern humans out of Africa. The 55,000-year-old skull has features that may link it to the very first Europeans. 

The skull itself is a partial skull and was discovered at Manot Cave in Israel's West Galilee. It has a distinctive "bun"-shaped occipital region at the back, which causes it to resemble modern African and European skulls. However, this makes it differ from other anatomically modern humans from the Levant. This suggests the Manot people could actually be closely related to the first modern humans that later colonized Europe.

The finding doesn't only tell researchers a bit about possible migration routes. It also provides evidence that both modern humans and Neanderthals inhabited the southern Levant during the late Pleistocene; it's likely that interbreeding occurred between the two species.

In fact, this is the first fossil evidence from the critical period when genetic and archaeological models predict that African modern humans successfully migrated out of Africa and colonized Eurasia. It also represents the first fossil evidence that during the late Middle Paleolithic, the Levant was occupied not only by Neanderthals, but also by modern humans.

It's like that the human population from Levant had recently migrated out of Africa and established itself in the Levantine corridor; this was probably largely due to warmer and wetter climatic events over the Northern Sahara and the Mediterranean.

The findings reveal a bit more about the past of ancient human populations. More specifically, it highlights a time when human migration was first beginning. Over time, humans would spread across the world.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

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