An international team of researchers has just revealed its discovery of a rare 55,000-year-old partial skull in a cave in northern Israel. Their report, “Levantine cranium from Manot Cave (Israel) foreshadows the first European modern humans,” suggests that this find provides new clues about the migration of modern humans out of Africa. The partial skull is the first fossil evidence from the critical period when genetic and archaeological models predict that modern humans successfully migrated out of Africa and colonized Eurasia around 40,000-60,000 years ago. Their report was published on January 28 in the prestigious journal Nature.

Due to the scarcity of human fossils from this period, these ancestors of all present-day non-African modern populations have largely remained a mystery. The skull also represents the first fossil evidence that during the late Middle Paleolithic era, the southern Levant was occupied by Neanderthals as well as modern humans who may have interbred. The skull’s distinctive “bun”-shaped occipital region at the back resembles modern African and European skulls, but differs from other anatomically modern humans from the Levant. This suggests that the Manot Cave people may have been closely related to the first modern humans who later colonized Europe. (via Israel21c)

[Photo: Simon Fraser University – University Communications / Flickr ]