Mysterious Skull Fused to Cave Wall Could Belong to a Rare Human Species

A skull that was found embedded in a cave wall in Greece more than 60 years ago may finally have an identification.

A new dating of the minerals that surrounded and grew over the mysterious Petralona skull places its age at 277,000 years at least – and suggesting it is a member of a primitive, extinct hominid that lived alongside Homo neanderthalensis .

"From a morphological point of view," writes a team led by geochronologist Christophe Falguères of the Institute Of Human Paleontology in France, "the Petralona hominin forms part of a distinct and more primitive group than Homo sapiens and Neanderthals , and the new age estimate provides further support for the coexistence of this population alongside the evolving Neanderthal lineage in the later Middle Pleistocene of Europe.