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Discovered within the darkness of Petralona Cave, this remarkable skull - which belongs to an archaic species of human - is notable for the fact that it has a stalagmite growing directly through it. Initially found in 1960 and often referred to as "Petralona Man", this intriguing specimen has long left paleoanthropologist's scratching their heads. A recent study has concluded that it is neither Neanderthal nor human, leaving a question mark over exactly which species of archaic human ancestor it actually belonged to. The 'Petralona Man' skull. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 NadinaThe skull is also now believed to date...

A new study has provided the clearest picture yet of one of Europe’s most debated fossils — a nearly complete human skull discovered in Petralona Cave, northern Greece. The fossil, first unearthed in 1960, has long challenged scientists with questions about both its identity and its age. A skull unlike Neanderthals or modern humans The Petralona skull belongs to the Homo genus but stands apart from known groups. It shows marked differences from Neanderthals and modern humans, leaving researchers uncertain about where it fits in the evolutionary record. Its age has also been a source of dispute for decades, with...

QAnon 8 hrs · Child's skull found, other human bones scattered. VOP Alpha Co - Team Pulaski Still waiting for Sheriff's Department because Border Patrol did not want to stop and secure scene. https://youtu.be/CarMaoW7eWA

Ancient Britons were not averse to using human skulls as drinking cups, skeletal remains unearthed in southwest England suggest. The braincases from three individuals were fashioned in such a meticulous way that their use as bowls to hold liquid seems the only reasonable explanation. The 14,700-year-old objects were discovered in Gough's Cave, Somerset. Scientists from London's Natural History Museum say the skull-cups were probably used in some kind of ritual. "If you look around the world there are examples of skull-cups in more recent times - in Tibetan culture, in Fiji in Oceania, and in India," said Dr Silvia Bello,...

Skull Changes Show Time of Human-Neandertal Split Scott Norris for National Geographic NewsMarch 17, 2008 Gradual changes in human skull size and shape suggest a split between humans and Neandertals (often spelled Neanderthals) about 300,000 to 400,000 years ago, according to a new study. The work provides the first estimate a divergence date for modern humans and Neandertals based on the rate of change of physical characteristics. Genetic Drift Just as DNA changes accumulate over time and provide a kind of "molecular clock" by which the separation of closely related species can be dated, evolved differences in physical form can...

The Sunday Times November 20, 2005 Scientists show we’ve been losing face for 10,000 years Jonathan Leake, Science Editor THE human face is shrinking. Research into people’s appearance over the past 10,000 years has found that our ancestors’ heads and faces were up to 30% larger than now. Changes in diet are thought to be the main cause. The switch to softer, farmed foods means that jawbones, teeth, skulls and muscles do not need to be as strong as in the past. The shrinkage has been blamed for a surge in dental problems caused by crooked or overlapping teeth. “Over...

In Portugal, archaeologists uncover mass graves from a medieval clash that rewrote European history. The evidence reveals brutal close-quarters combat and the shocking tactics that secured a nation's survival. The Forgotten Battle That Saved a Kingdom Medieval Dead | S2 E3 | Full Episode | 44:11 Forbidden Mysteries | 5.55K subscribers | 9,611 views | December 21, 2025 YouTube transcript can be processed at reformatted at textformatter.ai.

According to a statement released by the University of Vienna, an international team of researchers has identified a rare genetic condition in the remains of a mother and daughter who were buried in an embrace in the same grave more than 12,000 years ago. The burial was discovered in 1963 at Grotta del Romito in southern Italy. Romito 1, the remains of a woman who stood under five feet tall, held the remains of Romito 2, an adolescent girl with pronounced limb shortening, and an estimated height of about 3.5 feet. DNA analysis also showed that the daughter carried two...

When the Prince was found more than 80 years ago, excavators immediately suspected he had suffered a significant traumatic event around the time of his death because of widespread damage to the bones of his left shoulder area, neck and lower jaw. But no official analysis of the skeleton was ever published, and the Prince's body was reassembled, glued together and put on display in the Ligurian Archaeological Museum shortly after World War II. Recently, the researchers obtained permission from the museum to remove bones from the display one at a time so that they could look at them under...

Who were the Celts really? Mythical druids of legend or feared warriors of antiquity? Deep inside the European Alps, sealed salt mines have preserved astonishing evidence of a powerful civilisation that flourished more than 3,000 years ago. These people were neither barbarians nor island dwellers -- they were the rulers of a vast Kingdom of Salt, enriched by one of the most valuable resources of the ancient world. Now, a remarkable discovery raises new questions. Inside a 2,400-year-old Celtic tomb, the remains of an aristocratic woman and two unusually large men are uncovered. Were they relatives, ritual sacrifices, or part...

Science in Poland reports that cinnabar has been recovered from graves in a Scythian cemetery in southern Ukraine. Known as the Chervony Mayak cemetery, the site was in use from the second century B.C. to the mid-third century A.D. More than 175 graves in the cemetery have been excavated to date. Lumps of cinnabar, a toxic mercury sulphide with an intense red color, were found in three of these burials by a team of researchers led by Oleksandr Symonenko of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The lumps have now been analyzed by Beata Polit of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University...

According to a statement released by the University of Vienna, a team of scientists from the University of Vienna, the University of Tartu, Cambridge University, and University College London have reconstructed the genomes of human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B (HHV-6A/B) from samples taken from human remains recovered from archaeological sites in Europe. Today, HHV-6B infects about 90 percent of children by age two, causing roseola infantum, also known as "sixth disease, " an illness characterized by a rash and a fever. In addition to causing illness, these viruses are capable of integrating into human chromosomes and remaining dormant. Such inherited...

A study of the genomes of Italians who have reached the age of 100 has found that they carry a higher proportion of genetic material from the ancestral group known as Western Hunter-Gatherers than the rest of the population, according to a Phys.org report. Researchers led by Stefania Sarno and Vincenzo Iannuzzi of the University of Bologna analyzed the genes of 333 Italian centenarians and 690 healthy adults around the age of 50. These genomes were then compared to more than 100 ancient genomes from four ancestral groups: Western Hunter-Gatherers, Neolithic Anatolian farmers, Bronze Age nomads, and ancient groups from...

A woman long believed to be the 'first Black Briton' was in fact white and had local ancestry from southern England, according to a new genetic study that overturns more than a decade of public perception.For years, scientists believed the woman, known as the Beachy Head Woman, came from sub-Saharan Africa. Her remains were discovered near the cliffs of Beachy Head in East Sussex and were widely presented as early evidence of African presence in Roman Britain...Her remains were first rediscovered in 2012 in Eastbourne Town Hall, stored in a box suggesting they were originally excavated in the 1950s. At...

Fossil fragments of a face as well as teeth were reassembled to produce the most complete cranium of a human ancestor from this time in the Horn of Africa. (Credit: Karen L. Baab. Scans provided by National Museum of Ethiopia. Photographs courtesy of M. Rogers and G. Suwa.) ================================================================= 1.6-Million-Year-Old Fossil Combines Homo habilis Face With Homo erectus Brow In A Nutshell * What did researchers find? A 1.6-to-1.5-million-year-old skull from Ethiopia combines features from two different stages of human evolution. The braincase and brow ridge match Homo erectus, but the face, teeth, and brain size look more like the...

A new breakthrough shows that some of biology’s most fragile molecules can persist far deeper into the past than scientists ever imagined. By decoding ancient gene activity from Ice Age remains, researchers have opened a window into the real-time biology of long-extinct animals. Credit: Shutterstock =========================================================================== For the first time, researchers have uncovered Ice Age RNA preserved within permafrost mammoth tissue, offering a rare glimpse into real-time gene activity from tens of millennia ago. Researchers at Stockholm University have, for the first time ever, isolated and sequenced RNA molecules from woolly mammoths that lived during the Ice Age. The team...

European researchers have achieved a milestone in paleogenomics by sequencing RNA from a woolly mammoth specimen dating back approximately 39,000 to 40,000 years, roughly three times older than the previous record for ancient RNA. The RNA was recovered from a well-preserved juvenile mammoth known as Yuka, discovered in northern Siberian permafrost in 2010, according to Love Dalén, a professor of evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University and lead author of a study published in the journal Cell. Dalén told the Wall Street Journal that the findings could aid in identifying the genetic traits responsible for the mammoth’s distinctive woolly coat. The...

The 2,000-year-old remains of a dog with its fur still intact have been found at a Roman fort. The rare find was made at Vindolanda, Hexham, near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, and has been sent for analysis to determine the dog's breed... Other finds included an 1,800-year-old skull of a beheaded native Briton that was stuck on a spike... The top part of the human skull also found showed evidence of numerous wounds including sword injuries... Another artefact found during this year's dig was a solid silver brooch in the shape of a duck dating back more than 1,800 years....

The most direct way to answer the ancestry question is through genetics. Recent studies of ancient DNA (aDNA) have provided a robust, chronologically consistent picture of the Egyptian people’s origins, showing remarkable stability over thousands of years, followed by gradual admixture. Genetic evidence shows that the foundational population of the Nile Valley was established long before the first dynasty. During the “Green Sahara” period (approx. 11,000 to 5,000 years ago), populations migrated towards the Nile from all directions as the Sahara dried, creating a unique, indigenous mix of Northeast African peoples and migrants from the Near East. A breakthrough 2025...

A central claim among those who deny a link between ancient and modern Egyptians is that subsequent invasions replaced the original population. This is not supported by demographic, genetic, or linguistic evidence. Genetic studies show ancient Egypt DNA continues.The Greek and Roman Periods: The Ptolemaic Greeks and later the Romans ruled as small, elite minorities. Their demographic footprint on the overall gene pool of Egypt was negligible.The Arab Conquest (7th Century CE): This was the most significant cultural event, introducing Arabic and Islam. However, this was a case of elite dominance and cultural diffusion, not population replacement. The Genetic Impact:...