Skhūl Cave is known for fossils and other artifacts marking human evolution over hundreds of thousands of years. The researchers believed her parents belonged to Paleoanthropus palestinensis, a transitional species between Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens). The skull’s pastiche of Neanderthal and modern human features suggests she was possibly a hybrid—and that the earliest burial rituals were not exclusively invented by either species. Because the mid-face and most of the skull base had been lost to time, the plaster mandible could not be properly articulated. Any modern features integrated so well with the more ancient features that it only strengthened the case for a hybrid.