100,000 year old human skull fossil discovered in China

BEIJING: An almost 100,000-year-old human skull fossil that could shed light on a 'critical period' of human evolution has been excavated by Chinese archaeologists in Henan.
    
The Henan find came after two years of excavation at the site in Xuchang in what could be called the 'greatest discovery' in China after the Peking Man and Upper Cave Man skull fossils in Bejing early last century.
    
"We expect more discoveries of importance," the state-run China Daily quoted Li Zhanyang, an archaeologist with the Henan cultural relics and archaeology institute who is leading the excavation, as saying.
     
The newly discovered fossil consists of 16 pieces of the skull with protruding eyebrows and a small forehead.
     
"More astonishing than the completeness of the skull is that it still has a fossilised membrane on the inner side, so scientists can track the nerves of the Paleolithic ancestors," Li said.
    
"It was freezing cold and digging was difficult. We had planned to leave until one of us saw something like part of a human being," Li said.
    
Archaeologists have worked on an area of 260 sq m, one 100th of the Paleolithic site, which was discovered in 1965, when animal fossils and stone artefacts were found from soil dug for a well.
    
More than 30,000 animal fossils, stone and bone artifacts were also discovered in the past two years.
    
The earlier human skull fossils discovered in China were five of the Peking Man in Beijing dating back to 200,000 to 700,000 years, three of the Upper Cave Man, also in Beijing, about 18,000 years old, and one Jinniushan Man in Liaoning, 150,000 years old.