prehistoric (Page 11)

Michel Brunet has found a skull that?s between 6 and 7million years old in the African nation of Chad that he?snamed Touma?. The skull is the oldest human fossil everfound, and comes from the time when humans and chimpanzeeswere just becoming separate species.

Since this is the first time a skull this old has beendiscovered, “There must have been a group of apes knockingaround between 5 and 8 million years ago for which there’s avery poor fossil record,” says anthropologist Bernard Woodof George Washington University.
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Scientists have told us that we?re all descended from oneEve, like the ancient, primitive partial female skeletonthat archeologists named Lucy. They?ve never figured outwhat happened to the Neanderthals?did they intermix with ourancestors or did they die out? Now it?s been discovered thatthree distinct groups of early humans migrated from Africaand maybe even lived together about 1.7 million years ago.The evidence is a skull and other fossils that have beenfound in the Republic of Georgia, part of the former SovietUnion.
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A prehistoric skull from 7,000 years ago has been found in a middle eastern settlement dating back to the stone age. The skull shows evidence that a Stone Age surgeon may have carried out a primitive form of brain surgery and that the patient actually lived after the operation.

Dr. Henrike Kiesewettes, a German anthropologist who discovered the skull, believes that this was an unsuccessful attempt to remove a brain tumor. “Although there were no surgery instruments at that time, the skull was opened with the help of sharp stones,” she says. “First they removed theskin and then made a hole on the right side of the skull for the operation, which can be called one of the oldest major surgeries in the world.
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