Strangely archaic 130,000-year-old hominin may be last gasp of an ancient group that spawned the Neanderthals, and not in Europe but in the Middle Eas

New Type of Prehistoric Human Discovered in Israel: Homo Nesher Ramla

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2021-06-25 03:00:06

Strangely archaic 130,000-year-old hominin may be last gasp of an ancient group that spawned the Neanderthals, and not in Europe but in the Middle East, archaeologists posit

Almost a decade ago, archaeologists in central Israel discovered the fragmentary remains of a very strange hominin skull. After years of study, the researchers revealed their conclusion on Thursday: It belonged to a previously unknown type of archaic humans.

The specimen, dubbed Homo Nesher Ramla after a limestone quarry in central Israel where it was found, lived between 140,000 and 120,000 years ago. It may have been one of the last survivors of a very ancient group of prehistoric hominins, one that may have been ancestral to the European Neanderthal, its discoverers postulate.

The discovery, made by a team of Israeli and international scholars, graced the cover of this week’s Science Magazine and was detailed in two articles, one discussing the skull itself and the other the masses of tools and animal bones unearthed with it.

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