He specializes in physical anthropology and the evolutionary background to recent human biological and cultural diversity. The skeleton was found on a hillside in the Lapedo Valley north of Lisbon, Portugal. The child was buried with a pierced shell and red ochre, which indicates ritual burial. Radiocarbon dating late last week confirmed the age of the skeleton, which shows the child lived 4,000 years after the time that Neanderthals and early modern humans co-existed on the Iberian Peninsula. Trinkaus is working with Joao Zilhao, Portugal's director of antiquities who is overseeing the excavation team.
Many people like to distance themselves categorically from Neanderthals.
This skeleton, which has some characteristics of Neanderthals and others of early modern humans, demonstrates that early modern humans and Neanderthals are not all that different. They intermixed, interbred and produced offspring. The results of admixture were there in the population 4,000 years after Neanderthals and early modern humans first met on the Iberian Peninsula. Trinkaus added that in Spain and Portugal the spread of early modern humans was very late, compared to the transition elsewhere in Europe that was believed to be 5,000 years earlier. The image must be credited to the Portuguese Institute of Archaeology.