[Jerusalem Post] A new scientific study has shed fresh light on one of Europe’s most important human fossils, the Petralona cranium, discovered in a cave in northern Greece more than six decades ago. Long the subject of debate, the fossil’s true age has now been pinned down with unprecedented precision, offering crucial insights into human evolution.Researchers from France, China, the UK, and Greece used advanced uranium-series dating techniques to analyze calcite that had formed directly on the skull. Their findings, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, reveal that the Petralona cranium is at least 286,000 years old, placing it firmly in the Middle Pleistocene era. Earlier attempts at dating had produced wildly conflicting results, ranging from 170,000 to nearly 700,000 years.
“This fossil has always been central to discussions of European prehistory,” said lead author Christophe Falguères of the Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in Paris. “For the first time, we have a reliable minimum age that allows us to place Petralona in its proper evolutionary context.”