Scientists have found a hominin cranium bone or a skull in Portugal. The part of the bone has the characteristics of a Neanderthal and a mixture of the modern human beings. it will definitely bring more information as to how people in Europe have evolved.
After the discovery of the skull fragment from almost half a million years ago, researchers claimed that Neanderthals did not evolve and become the modern humans like what was previously thought. The said skull was found in Aroeira cave site in Portugal. It was the oldest human cranium fossil not only in Portugal but in the whole of Europe, stated Mail Online.
However, there are still many questions about the skull fragment found. The researchers do not know if the owner of the skull is a woman or a man, they also do not know how old was the person when it died and how It died. The researchers are also not sure what type of pre-historic human it was. They are sure it is related to fossils found in Spain and Italy but it is neither a Neanderthal nor a human ancestor. What the scientists are sure of is that the skull fragment is associated with the Acheulean stone tool industry, reported Phys.org.
Rolf Quam, an anthropologist, is very fascinated with the discovery saying it is very interesting fossil discovery from the Iberian Peninsula. This will definitely help understand how Neanderthals evolve and their origin. "The Aroeira cranium is the oldest human fossil ever found in Portugal and shares some features with other fossils from this same time period in Spain, France and Italy. The Aroeria cranium increases the anatomical diversity in the human fossil record from this time period, suggesting different populations showed somewhat different combinations of features," said Quam, an associate professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, State University of New York.
