Human skull sheds light on relations with Neanderthals

A human skull thought to be about 55,000 years old has provided evidence that human beings were in the same place at the same time as Neanderthals and may have even interbred with them, scientists said on Wednesday.

The skull was retrieved from the Manot Cave in Israel, in a region where Neanderthals periodically lived, and is situated along the only land route available for ancient humans to travel out of Africa to the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

Tel Aviv University anthropologist Israel Hershkovitz, who led the study published in the journal Nature, called the skull "an important piece of the puzzle of the big story of human evolution".