Extraordinary Fossils Of 9 Neanderthals Found In Cave Near Rome
One Italian official boasted the discovery will be the “talk of the world.”
Archeologists have unearthed fossils from nine Neanderthals in a cave outside Rome that an Italian official boasted will be the “talk of the world.”
The oldest remains date back some 100,000 years. Fossils of the other eight Neanderthals date to between 50,000 to 68,000 years ago, the Italian Culture Ministry announced Saturday.
#NEANDERTHAL / New discoveries in the Guattari Cave (Italy) place the Circeo area among the most important ones in the world about the knowledge of our ancestors: new research bring to light fossil finds which are attributable to 9 Neanderthal individuals. https://t.co/A3wGRwznEGpic.twitter.com/4iSJlVp0eH Ministero della cultura (@MiC Italia) May 8, 2021
According to
The New York Times , because this skull had a large hole in the temple, its finder, paleontologist Alberto Carlo Blanc, suggested that the cave’s Neanderthal inhabitants had engaged in “ritual cannibalism.”
Neanderthals emerged from Africa and hunted their way across Eurasia from the Atlantic coast to the Ural mountains between 400,000 years ago and 40,000 years ago before becoming extinct.
While Neanderthals are often portrayed as less intelligent, but stronger relatives of modern humans, it is now known that our cousins had similar sized brains, developed complex stone tools, wore jewellery, and maintained “a culture” that we find represented in their cave art.
Emanuele Antonio Minerva/AP
The Italian Culture Ministry announced the discovery on Saturday (local time), saying it confirmed that the Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo, where a Neanderthal skull was discovered in 1939, was “one of the most significant places in the world for the history of Neanderthals”. The excavations, begun in 2019, involved a part of the cave that hadn’t yet been explored, including a lake first noted by the anthropologist Alberto Carlo Blanc, who is credited with the 1939 Neanderthal skull discovery. Culture Minister Dario Franceschini called the finding “an extraordinary discovery that will be the talk of the world”.
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