Neanderthal (caveman) found buried alive

Matt Hrodey, DIscover Magazine via MSN.com, 9/14/23; Eds. Wisdom Quarterly

Was Altamura Man a MISFIT? He fell through hole, got stuck, disappeared, never came home.

Who was the Neanderthal Altamura Man, found in cave in Southern Spain? (Discovery Mag)

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Altamura Man: How one Neanderthal's misfortune became a blessing for science

In 1993, cave explorers entered a long, narrow tunnel at the Lamalunga Cave near the town of Altamura in Southern Italy.

At the far end, they found an upside-down human skull fused into the rock alongside a large collection of other human bones.

The skull’s jutting brow was covered in a layer of pearl-like coralloid, calcium deposits otherwise known as "cave popcorn."

Much of the remains were covered in some form of the mineral that had leached down from the surrounding limestone.

• ART BY WHO? Archaeologists discover more than 100 ancient drawings in a Spanish cave*

Today, scientists believe the Neanderthal (the “Altamura Man”) had fallen through a sinkhole in the surrounding limestone karst and never made it back out again.

• The fascinating path of Neanderthal evolution: Where did Neanderthals come from? | Discover Magazine

He starved to death, and the calcium deposits, along with stalactites and stalagmites, had sealed him into a calcified tomb.

Who was the Altamura Man?

In the early going, no one knew if the skeleton had belonged to an early Homo sapiens human or a Neanderthal, and given its remote location, serious scientific study was slow to come.

In 2009, a group of researchers received permission from Italian authorities to remove a piece of its right shoulder blade in an attempt to understand who this unlucky person had been. More

*Who made this ancient Spanish art?

Horse head painting near extinct auroch

(Smithsonian Magazine) Two years ago, when a team of archeologists spotted a painting of an extinct wild bull called an auroch on the wall of a cave in Spain’s Cova Dones, located in Millares, near Valencia, they knew it was important. While Spain has the largest number of Paleolithic cave art sites, most are concentrated in the country’s northern region, while few have been documented in Eastern Iberia [the European peninsula that includes the Basque Country and Portugal]. However, they didn’t realize just how significant the newly discovered cave art was until they returned to fully document it. More