Humanity’s Strange Face
Stone Age skull stokes debate over what it takes to be human
By Bruce Bower
In June 2003, three cave researchers prepared for what they hoped would be a return to the Stone Age. The explorers strapped on scuba gear and plunged into a lake in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains. These intrepid souls, led by Stefan Milota of Pro Acva Grup in Timisoara, Romania, swam one at a time into a rocky passage that snakes up into an adjacent limestone hillside. At the top of the 80-foot-long channel, they emerged into the musky air of a pitch-dark cave that most of the group had first visited the previous year. Helmet-mounted lights cast a glow over a panorama of bones scattered across the ground.
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The group had chanced upon the cave for the first time while exploring the hillside’s many fluid-filled conduits. Millennia ago, the deep space would have been accessible on foot, but since then, a massive rockslide has plugged the aboveground entrance.