Prehistoric skull with puncture wounds could be world's first murder mystery

Pieced together from 52 fragments found in cave in northern Spain, 430,000-year-old skull seems to show victim was bludgeoned to death

Scientists have pieced together the world's earliest murder mystery, showing that an ancient human appears to have met their end after being bludgeoned to death and thrown down a cave shaft.

The skull, which has two holes above the left eye, belonged to an early human closely related to Neanderthals who lived around 430,000 years ago. The discovery suggests that violence and murder long predate the emergence of modern humans, around 200,000 years ago.