700,000-year-old human skull found in Greece completely destroys the “Out of Africa” theory

700,000-year-old human skull found in Greece completely shatters ‘out of Africa theory’

Nature has always been a random architect. Entering the Petralona Cave, which was formed in the limestone of Katsika Hill about a million years ago, makes this abundantly clear.

The discovery of a fossilized human skull and many other objects led to Petralona Cave being called the Parthenon of paleontology.

The cave, known as “the red rock cave” because of the colour given to the stone by bauxite deposits, covers an area of 10,400 m2 and is full of stalactites, stalagmites, curtains and shields, columns and other formations. Its discovery in 1959 opened a window into the prehistoric period.

It is currently the most important of Greece’s 12,000 caves due to its abundance of fossils (one of the richest collections in Europe) and the discovery of the oldest human remains ever unearthed in Greece some 50 years ago.

The strange hole at the base of Katsika Hill was initially discovered by residents of the Petralona settlement. They made a small entrance, climbed down with a rope, and then re-emerged carrying petrified animal teeth and bones which they presented to Professor Petros Kokkoros of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Greek scientists began excavating the site, revealing passages and gathering artifacts after the discovery inspired the scientific community. The cave quickly became known outside of Greece as a treasure trove of geological and anthropological artifacts.

Scientists made their most important find in September 1960 when they discovered a fossilized human skull among hundreds of other animal fossils from 22 different species, including extinct bears, lions and hyenas.

Laboratory of Geology and Palaeontology, 1963: the first of the fossils from Petralona Cave. From left to right: E. Tsorlinis, L. Sotiriadis, G. Marinos (director), Otto Sickenberg and H. Sakellariou-Mane

The skull’s physical characteristics suggest it belonged to a person who evolved from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. After much research and discussion, it is now believed to be 200,000 years old.

An essential component of the human evolutionary puzzle was the skull. The “Parthenon of paleontology” has been investigated by some of the world’s leading paleoanthropologists.

Although the cave has not yet been fully explored, a man-made tunnel provides convenient access for tourists to appreciate the intricate formations and two examples of rock art.

One shows a bear, which is near the original entrance to the cave, and the other shows people eating.

Petralona’s skull after its facial area was cleaned by Prof. J. Melentis. Facial view.

However, it is not yet established whether people originally lived in the cave. There may have been an accident involving the skull.

Palaeontologist Dr Evangelia Tsoukala, a professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and one of the researchers who examined the items recovered from the cave, says future research involving international collaboration and new techniques will tell us exactly what happened.

She says: “Halkidiki is continuously producing fossils. “At Kryopigi we found a giraffe, a wild boar, small mammals, large and small carnivores and three different species of prehistoric horses.

The most important fossil we discovered was one of the best-preserved skulls of an Old World monkey called Mesopithecus pentelicus.

Ursus spelaeus, cave bear: Skull, jaw and forehead strongly domed.

Researchers discovered a set of teeth from the upper jaw of a Deinotherium, a trunk- and tusk-bearing animal that roamed the world between 5 and 10 million years ago, at another site called Aghia Paraskevi.

They found numerous fossilized tree trunks in Kassandra and evidence of huge turtles on the coast of Halkidiki.

Next to the cave is an Anthropological Museum, a 1,000 m2 structure with 400 display cases and more than 2,500 finds not only from Halkidiki but also from other sites investigated by the Anthropological Association of Greece.

On display are fossils of large mammals discovered in the Petralona Cave, stone and bone tools and fossils from various locations in northern Greece.

Bone splinters, typical food remains left by hyenas, which few researchers had confused with bone artifacts.

The famous human skull is on display at the Museum of Geology and Paleontology of Aristotle University, along with a considerable number of casts and other global finds.