When they first laid eyes on the fragmentary remains of the dun-colored skull—part of a flat and low brain case, a nearly complete, chinless lower jaw, and one lonely tooth—the Israeli paleoanthropologists immediately realized it was not one of… us.

Unlike we Homo sapiens, who have tall, rounded skulls encasing our large brains, the remains before the researchers had features typical of older species of Homo that likely arrived in the Middle East around 450,000 years ago, a quarter-million years before Homo sapiens showed up. Meanwhile, the tooth seemed very similar to those found in local hominin populations dated to 400,000 years ago, as well as those of Neanderthals.

Surprisingly, this unusual skull with some rather archaic features turns out to be