In photos: Hominin skulls with mixed traits discovered

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Skull researchers

Here, the team of researchers who discovered hominin remains, including several skulls, in the Spanish cave Sima de los Huesos.

(Image credit: © Javier Trueba / Madrid Scientific Films)

Here, the team of researchers who discovered hominin remains, including several skulls, in the Spanish cave Sima de los Huesos.

Water vole

fossil fragment from a water vole discovered in a Spanish cave.

(Image credit: Dr. Gloria Cuenca-Bescos)

A fragment of a fossil, the first lower molar, from an extinct water vole (Arvicola aff. Sapidus) discovered in the Sima de los Huesos cave in Spain.

Hamster fossil

The right maxilla with three molars from an extinct hamster were discovered in the Spanish cave Sima de los Huesos.

(Image credit: Dr. Gloria Cuenca-Bescos)

The researchers also found specimens from an extinct hamster in the Spanish cave. Here, the hamster's right maxilla with three molars.

Toothed white shrew

A tooth of the white-tooth shrew, <em>Crocidura</em>, discovered in the Spanish cave Sima de los Huesos.

(Image credit: Dr. Gloria Cuenca-Bescos)

A tooth of the white-tooth shrew, Crocidura, discovered in the Spanish cave Sima de los Huesos.

Jeanna Bryner
Managing editor, Scientific American

Jeanna Bryner is managing editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.