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ARCHAIC HOMO SAPIENS
Homo Heidelbergensis Archaic Homo sapiens is term used to describe hominins viewed as transitions between Homo erectus and modern man, and possibly Neanderthals too. These creatures came on the scene when big browed, jutting jaw hominins were still around. Homo sapien means "Wise Man."
Geologic Age: Variable estimates, ranging between 100,000 to 750,000 years. Most scientists believe modern man originated in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. A 260,000-year-old Florisbad skull from South Africa had pronounced browridges but less of than its predecessors and was more like the brow of modern humans.
Size: males: 1.75 meters (5 feet 9 inches), 62 kilograms (137 pounds); females: 1.57 meters (5 feet 2 inches), 51 kilograms (112 pounds). Skull Features: bony chin and high forehead typical of modern humans but bigger face, weaker chin and a protruding browridge above the eyes. Body Features: Basically modern but more ruggedly built.
Discovery Sites: Found in Asia, Europe and Africa but not America and Australia. Most complete skull found in 1960 in Petralona, Greece by Greek villagers. Skull housed in Paleontological Museum, University of Thessaloniki. Good fossils also found in Zambia. [Source: Kenneth Weaver, National Geographic, November 1985 [┹]
A one-million-year-old cranium from Buia, Eritrea has characters of both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. A "spectacular" partial cranium of the same age with a similar billing was was found in Ethiopia. The earliest hard evidence of fire comes in the form of stone hearths and clay ovens made in the last 250,000 years, some think, by archaic “homo sapiens”.
José María Bermúdez de Castro at the National Research Centre on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain told New Scientist that there is indirect evidence that hominins arrive in Europe more than 1,2 million years ago: “[Stone tools from] Pirro Nord in Italy may be older than Sima del Elefante,” dated to 1.1 million years old. “Likewise, the Barranco León and Fuente Nueva 3 Spanish sites have yielded stone tools probably 1.3 million years old.” [Source: Colin Barras, New Scientist, March 26, 2008]
Around 700,000 years ago there were great temperatures, ice volume and sea level fluctuations. Many species in Africa went extinct and those that survived mostly remain today. These changes may have also been important in the emergence of a species that was a predecessor of modern humans, a species that was able to deal with a changing environment. This also enabled them to live in habitats outside Africa.
Websites and Resources on Hominins and Human Origins: Smithsonian Human Origins Program humanorigins.si.edu ; Institute of Human Origins iho.asu.edu ; Becoming Human University of Arizona site becominghuman.org ; Hall of Human Origins American Museum of Natural History amnh.org/exhibitions ; The Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com ; Britannica Human Evolution britannica.com ; Human Evolution handprint.com ; University of California Museum of Anthropology ucmp.berkeley.edu; John Hawks' Anthropology Weblog johnhawks.net/ ; New Scientist: Human Evolution newscientist.com/article-topic/human-evolution
400,000-Year-old Archaic Human Remains Found in Israeli?
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Homo Heidelbergensis In December 2010, archaeologists announced in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology that the modern human lived in Israel as early as 400,000 years ago. It’s the earliest evidence for the existence of “modern man” anywhere and undermines the traditional view that modern humans emerged around 200,000 years ago. [Source: World Science, Tel Aviv University, December 30, 2010]
Archaeologists Avi Gopher and Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University in Israel and other scientists analyzed eight human teeth found in Qesem Cave near Rosh Ha’ayin, Israel. Using CT scans and X-rays they concluded the size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern man. The teeth also are said to resemble other evidence of modern man from two other Israeli sites, dated to around 100,000 years ago.
Qesem Cave is dated to a period between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago. Gopher and Barkai said the culture of those who dwelt in the Qesem Cave at the time included regular use of fire, hunting, cutting and sharing of animal meat, and mining raw materials to make flint blades. This reinforces a view that this was innovative and pioneering behavior that may correspond with the appearance of modern man, they added.
In recent years, archaeological evidence and skeletons found in Spain and China also undermined the proposition that modern humans evolved in Africa, according to the researchers. Yet they described the Qesem Cave findings as unprecedented because of their early age.
See Separate Article: MEAT EATING BY HOMININS 500,000 TO 10,000 YEARS AGO factsanddetails.com
Homo Heidelbergensis
Homo Heidelbergensis Homo heidelbergensis (hy-dil-ber-GEN-sis) is a species of “Homo” named after a 500,000-year-old jawbone found in 1907 near Heidelberg, Germany that some scientists believe evolved into Neanderthals. Its tools included the Acheulan hand ax.
Some scientists believe that all their hominin remains found in Europe come from three species: “Homo erectus “, “Homo sapiens” and Neanderthals. Others believe that the “Homo “ tree is much more complex. They say other species such as “Homo heidelbergensis” and perhaps other hominin species not yet discovered may have existed as well.
Geologic Age: 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, Size: males: 1.7 meters (5 feet 7 inches), 57 kilograms (125 pounds); females: 1.57 meters (5 feet 2 inches), 51 kilograms (112 pounds). Skull Features: large mandible, a very large browridge, and a larger braincase and flatter face than older early human species; Body Features: Similar to modern humans but wide. They were the first early human species to live in colder climates; their — short, wide bodies were likely an adaptation to conserving heat. Discovery Sites: Europe; possibly Asia (China); Africa (eastern and southern). Heidelberg, Germany is the most famous discovery site and the source of its name
See Separate Article: HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS factsanddetails.com
Ceprano Man and Homo Antecessor
Homo Antecessor female In 1994, forty-five miles southeast of Rome near the town of Ceprano, Italian archaeologist Italo Biddittu discovered hundred of bone fragments unearthed by a bulldozer building a highway. He and his colleagues pieced enough of the fragments together by the spring of 1996 to reveal most of the skullcap of a “Homo “ species between 800,000 and 900,000 years old. The skullcap, later dubbed Ceprano Man, was older than other “Homo” species found in Europe by 300,000 years.
Scientists tentatively labeled Ceprano man “Homo erectus” . Antonio Ascenzi told National Geographic, "Classic “Homo erectus “ has a slight crest along the center of its skull. This skull has no crest at all." Ceprano man's brain was also significantly larger than classic “Homo erectus” .
Nearly a 100 hominin fossils from a 10-year-old boy and five other individuals and 200 stone tools were found in an 800,000 year old strata at the Sierra de Atapuerca's Gran Dolina site in northern Spain in 1994 and 1995. The site was inadvertently revealed by a railroad excavation.
Some scientists describe this hominin as an entirely new species called “Homo Antecessor” (Antecessoris Latin for “explorer” or “pioneer”), which might be a common ancestor for both modern man an Neanderthals. The skull of the boy had features similar to both species, including a prominent jaw, prominent brow ridges and projecting face like Neanderthals and sunken cheekbones and tooth development similar to modern humans. Many paleontologists dismiss the claims because they say it is difficult draw to many conclusions from bones of children.
Archaic Humans in China from 300,000 to 100,000 Years Ago
The earliest evidence of early modern man (used to be called Cro-Magnon Man) in China dates to around 100,000 to 40,000 years ago. What took place between the arrival of the first hominins in Asia roughly 2 million years ago and the earliest modern man is very sketchy, ambiguous and confusing. Many of the hominin fossils found in China from this period are very strange and some of them have been labeled new species.
Some scientists believe the unusual fossils coming out of China, dated from 300,000 to 100,00 years ago, are from Denisovans, Neanderthal-like humans that are known only from a tooth and finger bone found in Siberia and a jawbone found in Tibet. According to the Washington Post: Denisovans exist mainly as sequenced DNA taken from finger bone and a tooth found in the Siberian cave. Thought to have lived some 100,000 to 50,000 years ago, the Denisovans shared genetic material with humans as well as Neanderthals. A 2015 analysis of the specimen scraps indicated that the Denisovans lived for some 60,000 years side-by-side with Neanderthals and humans in Asia.
According to to Business Insider: Archaic Homo sapien fossils often carry a mixture of old facial structures and modern features so that timeline is a bit more complicated than school books would have us think. That's the case, for instance, for remains found in Morocco in 2017 from about 300,000 years ago with Homo sapien-like features which suggested humans might have emerged much earlier than previously thought. Recent findings of archaic human remains in Israel and Greece dating back about 200,000 years also suggested human ancestors might have left Africa a lot earlier than previously thought. There's also paleontological and genetic evidence that suggests ancient humans interbred with the Neanderthals and Denisovans, their cousins, further complicating the bloodlines. [Source: Marianne Guenot, Business Insider, August 7, 2023].
See Separate Article: ARCHAIC HUMANS IN CHINA FROM 300,000 TO 100,000 YEARS AGO factsanddetails.com
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons except 500,000-year-old spear heads from Scientific American
Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.
Last updated April 2024