Fishing boat lands World's oldest underwater human bone

A fishing boat trawling for mussels off the Dutch coast has instead landed a 40,000 year-old human bone, German scientists said on Sunday after examining the find.

Anthropologists from the University of Leipzig in eastern Germany confirmed that the forehead bone was "at least 40,000 years old and therefore the oldest ever found underwater," according to August's edition of GEO magazine.

The fishermen also found the caveman's "tool kit", consisting of a hand-axe and flints.

However, despite the fact the bone was found under the sea, the man dwelt on land and primarily ate meat, the scientists said.

When he lived, the Netherlands and Britain were one land mass.

(c) 2009 AFP