Bones of unknown early human discovered in Israel
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E-mail Xinhua, June 25, 2021
An Israeli-led international research team have discovered bones of an unknown kind of early human, the Tel Aviv University (TAU) said on Thursday.
The discovery of the 130,000-year-old bones is included in a study led by the TAU and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in collaboration their colleagues from Israel, France, Spain and Germany, and published in the journal Science.
The bones, discovered at the prehistoric site Nesher-Ramla in central Israel, is unlike modern humans, displaying a completely different skull structure, no chin, and very large teeth.
However, it shares features with the later Neanderthal species, especially the teeth and jaws, and with the archaic Homo (Middle Paleolithic period, 500,000 to 30,000 years ago), specifically the skull.
The researchers believe that the unique Nesher-Ramla Homo type is the "source" population from which most humans of the Middle Pleistocene developed.
The resemblance of the newly discovered species to pre-Neanderthal populations in Europe, challenges the prevailing hypothesis that Neanderthals originated from Europe.
The researchers thus suggested that the ancestors of European Neanderthals lived in the Levant as early as 400,000 years ago, repeatedly migrating westward to Europe and eastward to Asia.
The new finding also suggests that the Nesher-Ramla people and the Homo sapiens who arrived in the region some 200,000 years ago lived side by side in the Levant for more than 100,000 years.
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