Paleoanthropologists from Tel Aviv University, the Université de Liège and France’s Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle say they have found a combination of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens traits in the skeleton of a five-year-old child discovered in 1931 at Skhūl Cave on Mount Carmel, Israel.
A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler B. Tretsven.
The site of Mugharat es Skhūl (Skhūl Cave), located on Mount Carmel in Israel, was uncovered in 1928 by Theodore McCown and Dorothy Garrod.
Excavations uncovered the skeletons of 7 adults and 3 children and several isolated bones attributed to 16 other individuals, with fauna and Mousterian tool industry.
The fossils were attributed to Homo sapiens or ‘anatomically modern human’ and dated to the end of the Middle Pleistocene to 140,000 years ago.
The first individual discovered at the cave was a child aged between 3 and 5 years.
In a new study, Tel Aviv University’s Professor Israël Hershkovitz and colleagues found that the child’s skull, which in its overall shape resembles that of Homo sapiens — especially in the curvature of the skull vault — has an intracranial blood supply system, a lower jaw, and an inner ear structure typical of Neanderthals.
“This discovery reveals the world’s earliest known human fossil showing morphological traits of both of these human groups, which until recently were considered two separate human species,” the researchers said.
“The current study shows that the five-year-old child’s skeleton is the result of continuous genetic infiltration from the local — and older — Neanderthal population into the Homo sapiens population.”
“Genetic studies over the past decade have shown that these two groups exchanged genes,” Professor Hershkovitz added.
“Even today, 40,000 years after the last Neanderthals disappeared, part of our genome — 2 to 6% — is of Neanderthal origin.”
“But these gene exchanges took place much later, between 60,000 to 40,000 years ago. Here, we are dealing with a human fossil that is 140,000 years old.”
For years, Neanderthals were thought to be a group that evolved in Europe, migrating to the Land of Israel only about 70,000 years ago, following the advance of European glaciers.
In a 2021 study, archaeologists showed that early Neanderthals lived in the Land of Israel as early as 400,000 years ago.
This human type, called ‘Nesher Ramla Homo,’ encountered Homo sapiens groups that began leaving Africa about 200,000 years ago — and, according to the current study’s findings, interbred with them.
The child from Skhūl Cave is the earliest fossil evidence in the world of the social and biological ties forged between these two populations over thousands of years.
The local Neanderthals eventually disappeared when they were absorbed into the Homo sapiens population, much like the later European Neanderthals.
“The fossil we studied is the earliest known physical evidence of mating between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens,” Professor Hershkovitz said.
“In 1998, a skeleton of a child was discovered in Portugal that showed traits of both of these human groups.”
“But that skeleton, nicknamed the ‘Lapedo Valley Child,’ dates back to 28,000 years ago — more than 100,000 years after the Skhūl child.”
Traditionally, anthropologists have attributed the fossils discovered in the Skhūl Cave, along with fossils from the Qafzeh Cave near Nazareth, to an early group of Homo sapiens.”
“The current study reveals that at least some of the fossils from the Skhūl Cave are the result of continuous genetic infiltration from the local — and older — Neanderthal population into the Homo sapiens population.”
The findings were published June 14 in the journal L’Anthropologie.
_____
Bastien Bouvier et al. 2025. A new analysis of the neurocranium and mandible of the Skhūl I child: Taxonomic conclusions and cultural implications. L’Anthropologie 129 (3): 103385; doi: 10.1016/j.anthro.2025.103385
