Homo Who? A New Mystery Human Species Has Been Discovered in Israel

A recovered skull may hold a missing piece in the story of human evolution.
By Michelle Langley, Griffith University
Jul 10, 2021 10:00 AM

As researchers Israel Hershkovitz, Yossi Zaidner and colleagues detail in two companion studies published in Science last month, this archaic human community traded both their culture and genes with nearby Homo sapiens groups for many thousands of years.

The New Fossils
Pieces of a skull, including a right parietal (towards the back/side of the skull) and an almost complete mandible (jaw) were dated to 140,000–120,000 years old, with analysis finding the person it belonged to wasn’t fully H. sapiens.

Nor were they Neanderthal, however, which was the only other type of human thought to have been living in the region at the time.

Instead, this individual falls right smack in the middle: a unique population of Homo never before recognized by science.

More:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/homo-who-a-new-mystery-human-species-has-been-discovered-in-israel