Changing Human Origins: Skull Found in Greek Cave, Dating Back 700,000 Years, Challenges the Out of Africa Theory.
The "Petralona Man," also known as "Petralona Archanthropus," is a human skull that is around 700,000 years old. It was discovered in 1959 and has caused a lot of disagreement among scientists ever since.
The skull, showing the oldest human with European traits, was found embedded in the wall of a cave in Petralona, near Chalkidiki in Northern Greece.
A shepherd stumbled upon the cave, which was filled with stalactites and stalagmites.
The study of the cave and the skull was led by Dr. Aris Poulianos, an expert anthropologist, who is a member of UNESCO's International Union of Anthropology and Ethnology and also the president of the Anthropological Association of Greece.
Before this discovery, Dr. Poulianos was known for his research on "The Origin of the Greeks." His research was based on studying the skulls and physical characteristics of modern Greek populations. He found evidence that modern Greeks are related to ancient Greeks and not descendants of Slavic nations.
After thorough examination of the 700,000-year-old skull, he determined that the "Petralona Man" was not associated with the species originating from Africa.His arguments were mainly based on the skull's nearly perfect structure, the shape of its dental arch, and the construction of the occipital bone.
According to the "Out of Africa" theory, modern humans, known as "Homo sapiens," originated in Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago before spreading to other parts of the world. This theory was based on the fact that most prehistoric fossils were found in Africa.
In 1964, two German researchers, anthropologist E. Breitinger and paleontologist O. Sickenberg, who were invited to Greece, suggested that the skull was actually 50,000 years old, rejecting Dr. Poulianos' theory.
Furthermore, Breitinger argued that the skull belonged to the "first African out of Africa." A few years later, in 1971, the US Archaeology magazine confirmed Poulianos' statement.
The science magazine verified that a cave more than 700,000 years old existed and humans were found in nearly every layer of rock.
Additionally, the magazine confirmed that humans were present because Paleolithic tools from the same time period were discovered, along with the oldest signs of fire made by humans.
The research went on from 1975 to 1983, but stopped, and the findings couldn't be studied until 1997.
Today, 50 years after the discovery of the "Petralona Man," modern methods of absolute chronology confirm Dr. Poulianos' theory.
Most scholars believe that the skull belongs to an ancient human with strong European traits and characteristics of Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and sapiens, but they distinguish it from all these species.
This amazing find brings up new questions about how humans evolved and definitely questions the "Out of Africa" idea.