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New Dating Sets Petralona Skull’s Minimum Age at 286,000 Years, Undercutting Older Claims

Direct uranium-series testing of calcite on the fossil provides a reproducible age floor and narrows when the cranium likely entered the cave system.

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Image Source: Wikicommons)

Overview

  • Calcite encrusting the cranium yields a finite minimum age of 286,000 ± 9,000 years, according to the new study in the Journal of Human Evolution.
  • Scenario-based constraints suggest the skull dates to 277,000–539,000 years if it was cemented to the wall, or 410,000–277,000 years if later deposited and coated.
  • Researchers sampled the crust on the skull and multiple cave speleothems, with high-precision mass spectrometry performed in Paris and China.
  • The results challenge prior estimates of about 700,000 years and do not support claims that the fossil was embedded in a half‑million‑year‑old wall layer.
  • Anatomically distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans, the specimen likely represents a more archaic lineage that coexisted with evolving Neanderthals, though its exact classification remains unsettled.