An international research team has identified the earliest fossil showing both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens traits.
The skeleton, belonging to a five-year-old child found 90 years ago in Israel’s Skhul Cave, dates back about 140,000 years. Researchers say the discovery is the first physical proof that the two groups interbred in the region far earlier than previously believed.
Neanderthal and human traits
The study was led by Prof. Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University and Anne Dambricourt-Malassé of the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Their team analyzed the child’s skull and jaw with advanced micro-CT scans.
The results showed a mix of features. The skull vault curved like that of Homo sapiens. But the intracranial blood supply system, lower jaw, and inner ear structure resembled Neanderthals.
“This discovery reveals the world’s earliest known human fossil showing morphological traits of both of these human groups,” the researchers said. They added that the skeleton is “the result of continuous genetic infiltration from the local—and older—Neanderthal population into the Homo sapiens population.”
Prof. Hershkovitz noted that modern genetic studies confirm Neanderthal DNA still exists in humans today. “Even today, 40,000 years after the last Neanderthals disappeared, part of our genome—2 to 6 percent—is of Neanderthal origin,” he said. “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.”
Rethinking migration timelines
For decades, scholars believed Neanderthals evolved in Europe and reached Israel only around 70,000 years ago. But recent studies challenge that view.
In 2021, Prof. Hershkovitz and colleagues described fossils from the Nesher Ramla site dating back 400,000 years. That suggested early Neanderthals lived in the region long before Homo sapiens left Africa. The two groups encountered each other in the Levant about 200,000 years ago.
The Skhul child provides the earliest direct fossil evidence of their interaction. “The fossil we studied is the earliest known physical evidence of mating between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens,” said Hershkovitz. He compared the finding with the “Lapedo Valley Child” found in Portugal in 1998, which also showed mixed traits but dated to only 28,000 years ago.
The researchers carried out a detailed morphological analysis by creating 3D models of the skull and jaw.
These scans also revealed non-visible structures like the inner ear. To map the blood vessel system around the brain, the team produced a full 3D reconstruction of the inside of the skull.
Traditionally, fossils from the Skhul and nearby Qafzeh caves were classified as early Homo sapiens. The new study shows at least some of them resulted from genetic blending with local Neanderthals.
According to the researchers, the finding illustrates how ancient populations in the region did not exist in isolation but shaped one another through contact and interbreeding.
The study is published in the journal l’Anthropologie.