Ancient Greek skull reveals secrets of early humans
A skull found in Greece's Petralona Cave back in 1960 has finally given up some secrets.
Thanks to a 2025 study using uranium-thorium dating, scientists now believe this ancient skull is at least 290,000 years old, with an estimated age range between around 170,000 and 700,000 years depending on deposition history.
The findings suggest it could belong to a different branch of early humans called Homo heidelbergensis.
Skull belongs to ancient human species called Homo heidelbergensis
The Petralona skull doesn't match Homo sapiens or Neanderthals.
Instead, its features fit Homo heidelbergensis—a species that likely lived alongside Neanderthals in Europe during the Middle Pleistocene.
This discovery hints that several types of ancient humans shared the continent at the same time, giving us fresh clues about how our own story unfolded.