Part of a skull - thought to be around 55,000 years old and discovered in a cave - holds important clues about human evolution, according to experts.
The domed, upper section, which has no face or jaws, was unearthed in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel.
Manot Cave was sealed off for 30,000 years, but the skull was discovered during sewage construction work in 2008.
Scientists say the skull's characteristics suggest the individual was a close relation of the first Homo sapiens populations that eventually colonised Europe.
It dates from a time when members of the human species were thought to have been leaving Africa.
Experts say the skull also provides the first evidence that Homo sapiens inhabited the region at the same time as Neanderthals.
They are the closest extinct human relative.
Previous genetic evidence has suggested Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred during roughly the time period represented by the skull.
Israel Hershkovitz, an anthropologist at Tel Aviv University who led the study, called the skull "an important piece of the puzzle of the big story of human evolution".
"The co-existence of these two populations in a confined geographic region at the same time that genetic models predict interbreeding promotes the notion that interbreeding may have occurred in the Levant region," he said.
Neanderthals thrived across Europe and Asia between around 350,000 and 400,000 years ago. They became extinct some time after Homo sapiens arrived.
Scientists believe the human species first appeared around 200,000 years ago in Africa and eventually migrated elsewhere.
The cave where the discovery was made lies along the only land-based route that ancient humans would have used to go from Africa into the Middle East, Asia and Europe.
Further human remains, hunting tools, animal bones and seashells - thought to be ornamental - have also been excavated inside.
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