6,000-year-old skull ‘oldest tsunami victim’

A SKULL found in Papua New Guinea is likely the world’s oldest-known tsunami victim, experts said yesterday, after a new analysis of the area it was found in.

The partially preserved Aitape Skull was discovered in 1929 by Paul Hossfeld, an Australian geologist, seven miles inland from the northern coast of the Pacific nation. It was thought to belong to Homo erectus, a species that died out some 140,000 years ago.

But more recent radiocarbon dating estimated it was closer to 6,000 years old, making it a member of our own species, Homo sapiens.

At that time, sea levels were higher and the area would have been near the coast. A team led by the University of New South Wales returned to the site to collect geological deposits.

They studied details of the sediment including its grain size and geochemical composition. James Goff, the study author, said: “We conclude that this person who died there so long ago is probably the oldest-known tsunami victim in the world.”