Oase-1: The oldest modern human skull found in Europe
The oldest fossil evidence for modern human newcomers in eastern Europe comes from a skull named Oase-1, discovered in a cave—Peștera cu Oase or "Cave with Bones"—in Romania's Carpathian Mountains, and radio-carbon-dated to 40,000 years ago.
These early humans lived as nomadic hunter-gathers, using stone tools to take down big game for food, and making clothes out of their hides. It would take over 30,000 years before modern people turned to agriculture and built the first permanent settlements.
To learn more about him archaeologists examined Oase-1's remains from every angle. What they found went against scientific orthodoxy.
Just like the earliest members of our species living in Africa, Asia, and Australia, Oase-1 had a high forehead, a smooth, rounded braincase and a forward-pointing chin. He was a classic modern human.
But other features were at odds with this status.
Oase-1s molars got bigger towards the back of his mouth, ending with the third molar—the wisdom tooth—being biggest of all. This was a pattern not seen in Homo sapiens, but instead seen in Homo neanderthalensis: Neanderthals. Oase-1 looked like a hybrid—part Homo sapiens and part Neanderthal.
Neanderthal jaws were bigger than ours, large enough to comfortably house large molars with space left over for their wisdom teeth to grow—a vestige perhaps, from their foliage-eating days.