Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – For over fifty years, a significant enigma in the field of paleoanthropology has persisted. An almost complete cranium discovered in the Petralona, a Greek cave has puzzled scientists for decades, as they have struggled to accurately determine he artifact’s age orwhat place it had within the human evolutionary lineage.
The skull of Petralona. Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. Image credit: Knop92 – Public Domain
After 65 years of speculations, this archaeological mystery has finally been resolved. Recent research has precisely dated the Petralona skull, offering insights that could significantly alter our understanding of human evolution in Europe.
The Petralona skull was found in 1960 in a small chamber of the cave called the Mausoleum without any stratigraphic context, apparently just cemented to the chamber wall. The morphology of the cranium was studied by a number of paleoanthropologists attributing it variously to Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, or ‘archaic Homo sapiens’.
Now, researchers at the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in Paris used an advanced uranium-thorium dating technique to establish that the minimum age of this skull is 286,000 years. Their study focused on on the calcite layer directly covering the skull. The analysis revealed that this calcite originates from a different period compared to that on the cave walls.
Considering that the stalagmite formations on these walls are over 650,000 years old, it indicates that the process of calcite deposition on the skull started significantly later. The Petralona hominin belongs to a distinct and more primitive group than Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, and the new age estimate provides further support for the coexistence of this population alongside the evolving Neanderthal lineage in the later Middle Pleistocene of Europe.
This means that until 300,000 years ago, the continent was inhabited by at least two different lineages of hominins developing in parallel.
The discovery made by this study has contributed to better understanding of the complexity of human evolution. Now we get a picture of a complex network of populations that coexisted, interbred, or developed in isolation.
Rather than a straightforward linear progression, it reveals a complex network of populations that coexisted, interbred, or evolved in isolation. The Petralona skull plays a crucial role in European human evolution by bridging the gap between earlier forms and later Neanderthals. Its accurate dating enables scientists to gain deeper insights into the pace and directions of evolutionary change during these critical periods.
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The dating of the Petralona hominin cranium was the subject of a major scientific debate in the early 1980s.
The Petralona Cave, situated in Chalkidiki approximately 50 kilometers from Thessaloniki, Greece is a noteworthy geological formation.
It has developed within the Upper Jurassic limestone of Mount Katsika, where an extensive horizontal karstic network extends for several hundred meters. In its central region, significant chambers have formed due to structural breakdowns, notably featuring a dome breakout in the central-western section that facilitates the accumulation of debris cones.
The cave also exhibits fracture-guided passages and abruptly terminated corridors alongside distinctive formations such as ceiling cupolas and half tubes, which are characteristic of hypogenic caves.
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Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer
