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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...

The face of an eight-year-old Neanderthal boy who died more than 30,000 years ago has been reconstructed by scientists who used a skull initially found in the Teshik-Tash cave in Uzbekistan in 1938. The portrait is the first three-dimensional restoration of a Neanderthal skull fossil, which reveals the young boy had a small, turned-up nose that sunk into his face. The fossil is the first Neanderthal fossil discovered in Asia and the only complete Asian Neanderthal skull fossil preserved so far....

For this study, the researchers collected data on craniofacial morphology from the published literature. This ultimately resulted in a data set including 13 Neandertals, 233 prehistoric Homo sapiens, and 83 modern humans.The researchers focused on standard craniofacial measurements, which are reproducible, and used those measurements to assess the size and shape of key facial structures. This then allowed the researchers to do an in-depth analysis to determine whether a given human population was likely to have interbred with Neandertal populations, as well as the extent of that likely interbreeding.

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

A new study of the 37,000-year old remains of the "Deep Skull" - the oldest modern human discovered in island South-East Asia - has revealed this ancient person was not related to Indigenous Australians, as had been originally thought. The Deep Skull was also likely to have been an older woman, rather than a teenage boy. The research, led by UNSW Australia Associate Professor Darren Curnoe, represents the most detailed investigation of the ancient cranium specimen since it was found in Niah Cave in Sarawak in 1958. "Our analysis overturns long-held views about the early history of this region," says...

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...

A Pennsylvania man has been arrested and is facing more than 500 charges after he was accused of stealing human skulls and “numerous” skeletal remains from an abandoned cemetery on Philadelphia’s outskirts, according to police. Bones and skulls visible in the back seat of a car near the cemetery led police to the home and storage unit of Jonathan Gerlach, 34, after police had been looking into a string of burglaries. Investigators checked Gerlach’s licence plates and found that he had been near the cemetery repeatedly during the period when the burglaries occurred. Officers say the Jan. 6 arrest culminated...

Police received a report Dec. 21, 2023, about a local business selling human bones on Facebook Marketplace, FOX 35 Orlando reported. Officers were sent images from the business’s Facebook page, which allegedly advertised the disturbing items. The Orange City business, Wicked Wonderland, was selling on its website two human skulls for $90, a human clavicle and scapula for $90, a human rib for $35, human vertebrae for $35 and a partial human skull for $600, according to authorities. Police took the human remains as evidence and submitted them for testing by a medical examiner, FOX 35 Orlando reported. When asked...

As many as 20 human skulls were found in a New Mexico home after the man who lived there tossed bones out of a car while hitching a ride, according to police. Police made the grisly discovery earlier this month at a residence in Jal “associated with rumors of human remains,” according to the Lea County Sheriff’s Office, which said some of them appear to belong to a woman who vanished in 2019. Authorities began investigating after they received a troubling phone call from a resident who reported an “unsettling encounter” while offering someone a ride on Nov. 5. The...

Modern-day grave robbers in Texas have seized unclaimed bodies belonging to veterans and sold their limbs for profit without the consent or knowledge from their grieving family members. Victor Carl Honey, 58, a dedicated Army veteran, who struggled with mental illness, died in September 2022 of heart failure. Honey was among the 2,350 people whose remains were sent to the body donation program at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort-Worth. However, a month after his death, the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Officer deemed Honey's body 'unclaimed' after they said phones for relatives were disconnected even though...

In March 2016, top Planned Parenthood officials in California eagerly emailed one another about an upcoming meeting with the state’s then-attorney general, Kamala Harris. The meeting carried so much import that the Planned Parenthood officials met with Harris’ staff ahead of time “to discuss prep,” emails reviewed by The Daily Signal show. About two weeks later, on April 5, 2016, California Department of Justice authorities raided the home of a pro-life journalist in his late 20s—David Daleiden, the head of the Center for Medical Progress, who had recently published videos allegedly showing Planned Parenthood officials gruesomely describing how they extract...

'My Heart Will Go On' singer Celine Dion says she is postponing some tour dates due to health diagnosisFighting back tears, singer Celine Dion shared in a video to fans she has been diagnosed with an incurable neurological disorder. Speaking out on Instagram, the 54-year-old Canadian native said, "As you know, I've always been an open book. And I wasn't ready to say anything before — but I'm ready now. I've been dealing with problems with my health for a long time. And it's been really difficult for me to face these challenges and talk about everything that I've been...

HUTCHINSON ISLAND, Fla. — The bones stuck out of the sand. Dakota Brady, 30, said he was with some friends at Chastain Beach in southeast Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Nicole when they discovered human remains. “It was just surreal. Just to think that this is something that we walk on on a daily basis and nobody knows. Everybody’s oblivious to it," Brady said. Authorities learned of the remains soon after. Investigators are examining what they said are likely human remains of the indigenous Ais tribe on Hutchinson Island, a barrier island along the Atlantic about 50 miles north...

When Mexican police found a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave near the Guatemalan border, they thought they were looking at a crime scene, and took the bones to the state capital. It turns out it was a very cold case. It took a decade of tests and analysis to determine the skulls were from sacrificial victims killed between A.D. 900 and 1200, the National Institute of Anthropology and History said Wednesday. Frontera Comalapa in southern Chiapas state has long been plagued by violence and immigrant trafficking. And pre-Hispanic skull piles in Mexico usually show a hole bashed...

About two years ago I visited Cambodia. While there I wrote this January 2019 post, which focused on the “killing fields” genocide that swept Cambodia in 1975-79, during the rule of the Khmer Rouge and their leader Pol Pot. In connection with my trip, I bought the Ben Kiernan history titled “The Pol Pot Regime,” which I have just now gotten around to reading. Why my fascination with Cambodia in the day of the Khmer Rouge? It is one of the clearest modern instances of leftist/socialist ideology put into practice and then pushed to its logical conclusion. Highly educated elitists...

Mobile technology has transformed the way we live — how we read, work, communicate, shop and date. But we already know this. What we have not yet grasped is the way the tiny machines in front of us are remolding our skeletons, possibly altering not just the behaviors we exhibit but the bodies we inhabit. New research in biomechanics suggests that young people are developing hornlike spikes at the back of their skulls — bone spurs caused by the forward tilt of the head, which shifts weight from the spine to the muscles at the back of the head, causing...

Most people don't spend their free time imagining what it would be like to get on the subway and sit across from a 300,000-year-old person. But anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin isn't most people. In June, Hublin published two papers in the highly-respected journal Nature suggesting that the first Homo sapiens — that is, the first members of our species — lived 100,000 years earlier than previously thought in a place that no one would have expected. They also had faces that looked surprisingly like ours. ”I’m not sure these people would stand out from a crowd today," said Hublin on a...