It wasn’t a Homo sapiens like us, nor was it a Neanderthal.<\/p>\n
‘Assigning an age to the nearly complete cranium found in the Petralona Cave in Greece is of outstanding importance,’ say the team of researchers in\u00a0China<\/a>, France<\/a>, Greece and the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘This fossil has a key position in European human evolution.’\u00a0<\/p>\n The Petralona skull was found with a distinctive point sticking from the top, which is a\u00a0stalagmite \u2013 a mineral formation that rises from the floor of caves.<\/p>\n Stalagmites grow slowly as water drips down from the cave ceiling, gaining a millimetre every few years.<\/p>\n The Petralona skull\u00a0was found sticking to the wall in a small cavern of the cave back in 1960. A new study now provides a precise age estimate for the\u00a0nearly complete cranium<\/p>\n Assigning an age to the nearly complete cranium found in the Petralona Cave in Greece is of ‘outstanding importance’ because this fossil has a key position in European human evolution<\/p>\n The Petralona skull was originally found by a local villager, Christos Sariannidis, back in 1960, apparently just cemented to the wall of a cave\u00a0chamber.\u00a0<\/p>\n Scientists later determined it was fused to the wall by the gradual accumulation of calcite, a common mineral typically found in caves.\u00a0<\/p>\n Calcite is also found in the great\u00a0stalagmite poking from its head, which was since removed during a cleaning process before its transfer to the\u00a0Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, where it is on display.\u00a0<\/p>\n For this new study, the scientists dated the\u00a0calcite that grew directly on the ‘nearly complete cranium’, which has the lower jaw missing.<\/p>\n This calcite sample ‘is the only sample able to provide crucial information on the age of the fossil’, the team say in their new paper.\u00a0<\/p>\n They found that it is at least 277,000 years old, but possibly 295,000 years old, which places it during the later Middle Pleistocene era of Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the time, Europe was covered in forests and open woodland and the climate was generally more humid and with less pronounced variations in temperature during the seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n Previous estimates have spanned about 170,000 to 700,000 years in age \u2013 so much less exact.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Petralona skull was removed and cleaned and is now on display at\u00a0Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Greece<\/p>\n Pictured, a sample corresponding to the stalagmitic veil, where the cranium was supposed to be attached<\/p>\n What is the\u00a0Petralona skull? <\/p>\n The Petralona skull is the skull of a hominid found in Petralona Cave, about 22 miles south\u2013east of Thessaloniki, Greece.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was found with a distinctive point sticking from the top, which is a\u00a0stalagmite, a mineral formation that rise from the floor of caves.<\/p>\n The Petralona skull it is clearly of the Homo genus, it is distinctly different from both Neanderthals and current modern humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dating the skull has remained difficult to narrow down, with previous estimates spanning about 170,000 to 700,000 years in age.\u00a0<\/p>\n <!- – ad: https:\/\/mads.dailymail.co.uk\/v8\/us\/sciencetech\/none\/article\/other\/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 – -><\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n This ancient individual would have lived in Europe alongside Neanderthals, the\u00a0extinct group of archaic humans and our\u00a0closest ancient human relatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, experts suspect the male individual was part of a different human group known as Homo heidelbergensis, which came before Neanderthals and was more primitive.\u00a0<\/p>\n European populations of Homo heidelbergensis evolved into Neanderthals, while a separate population of Homo heidelbergensis in Africa evolved into our own species, Homo sapiens.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Petralona skull was almost certainly male based on the fossil’s size and robustness, which is why it’s also referred to as the ‘Petralona man’.\u00a0<\/p>\n The skull’s teeth only had moderate wear, so it likely belonged to a young adult, study author Professor Chris Stringer,\u00a0anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, told Live Science<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even though the Petralona skull was originally found more than 60 years ago it’s been perplexing researchers ever since.<\/p>\n In the early 1980s, the dating of the skull was the subject of a major scientific debate, partly because\u00a0early results were sometimes difficult to interpret.\u00a0<\/p>\n Paleoanthropologists variously attributed it to Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, or ‘archaic Homo sapiens’.\u00a0<\/p>\n This image shows the elaborate mineral formations inside the\u00a0Petralona Cave in Greece, which is open to tourists\u00a0<\/p>\n Fossil evidence suggests species such as Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis lived in Africa and other regions during the period of Group A and Group B. Pictured, the\u00a0most complete skull of an Homo heidelbergensis ever found<\/p>\n ‘This topic has been debated since its discovery more than 60 years ago, highlighting the difficulties in applying physical dating methods to prehistoric samples,’ the team say.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But their new study, published in\u00a0the Journal of Human Evolution<\/a>, gives the closest indication yet which species this individual belonged to.\u00a0<\/p>\n The skull is not yet definitively confirmed as Homo heidelbergensis, but this could be confirmed in a future study.\u00a0<\/p>\n Homo heidelbergensis lived between 300,000 and 600,000 years ago, evolving in Africa but by 500,000 years ago some populations situated in Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n The species was adept enough to hunt large animals for food, while the hides may also have been mad use of especially in colder areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101655773-15045957-image-a-33_1756451636851.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Assigning](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101656677-15045957-image-m-43_1756454350076.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101656747-15045957-The_Petralona_skull_was_removed_and_cleaned_and_is_now_on_displa-m-46_17564546408.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Pictured,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101658651-15045957-Pictured_a_sample_corresponding_to_the_stalagmitic_veil_where_th-a-48_17564589312.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101655775-15045957-image-a-38_1756451704577.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Fossil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/96309943-15045957-Fossil_evidence_suggests_species_such_as_Homo_erectus_and_Homo_h-a-39_175645215911.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"Homo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/4E8B7D8600000578-5988329-image-a-1_1532466598801.jpg\")
<\/p>\n