This month we’re in an Italian cave with a bellissimo fossil.
If I was giving a live talk, at this point I would ask for a show of hands: have you heard of Altamura Man? Since it was new to me, I’m going to guess that most of you will be unfamiliar with it. Which is peculiar, because it’s an astonishing specimen.
To find Altamura Man you would need to travel to Puglia (also known as Apulia) in southern Italy: if you think of Italy as looking like a boot, Puglia is the heel. Much of it is karst, a landscape where water draining through bedrock creates sinkholes, springs and caves – including Lamalunga cave near the town of Altamura.
In early October 1993, local researchers were exploring Lamalunga cave when they stumbled upon human bones, including a skull. They alerted anthropologists including Eligio Vacca and Vittorio Pesce Delfino at the nearby University of Bari Aldo Moro, who arrived the following evening. It was immediately obvious that the skeleton was in excellent conditi...
