The new chronology of the Ceprano calvarium (Italy)

The geological and palaeobiological evidence collected in the Ceprano area provides information on the history of the Lirino Lake, the environment of deposition and taphonomy of the Ceprano calvarium, and the age of the sediments where the human specimen was found, which can be reasonably ascribed to a warm phase of MIS 11 and dated between about 430 and 385 ka. Given this new chronological framework, the morphology of the human calvarium from Ceprano, which lacks Neanderthal traits and does not have a real counterpart among the continental penecontemporaneous fossil record, appears now tantalizing. It adds an amount of unexpected diversity into the range of variation known for the European populations of the Middle Pleistocene.