Scientists who exhumed the original skeleton of Equihominid aprilis near Volos, Greece in 1980 report that they have uncovered more than a dozen new individuals in the exposed shoreline sediments near Samsun in northern Turkey.

“The preservation of these fossils is extraordinary,” said Project Director Manolis Ipponikos, who led a team from the Istanbul University of Turkey. “Having a larger sample size of these rare specimens allows us to better understand the variability of this species.”

According to Professor Ipponikos, fish bones were found in the stomach contents of the centaurines, along with spearpoints nearby, which points to a pescetarian diet. “Some of the male skeletons exhibited healed postcranial injuries,” he said, “suggesting that they had previously engaged in some form of violent conflict.”

However, the creatures appear to have perished from a mass drowning event, most likely when the Black Sea was inundated from the Bosphorus, as suggested by Walter Pitman’s Black Sea deluge hypothesis. Radiocarbon evidence from the skeletons confirms the  6500BC date for the flooding event.