Overview

• The peer‑reviewed study, led by Christophe Falguères, dated calcite layers on and around the cranium to establish a firm minimum age of 277,000 years.
• Depending on how the skull came to rest against the cave wall, the age range falls between 277,000–410,000 years or 277,000–539,000 years.
• The team reports the cranium’s anatomy is distinct from both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, indicating a more primitive Middle Pleistocene lineage.
• Researchers note similarities to the Kabwe skull and suggest the specimen could align with archaic populations often linked to Homo heidelbergensis, though taxonomy remains unresolved.
• The fossil was found in 1960 in Greece’s Petralona Cave fused to the wall by calcite growth, and the new results appear in the Journal of Human Evolution.