Hominins That Lived Between 1 Million Years and 300,000 Years Ago | Early European History And Religion

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PALEOLITHIC PERIOD

Homo Heidelbergensis
The Paleolithic Period (about 3 million years to 10,000 B.C.) — also spelled Palaeolithic Period and also called Old Stone Age — is a cultural stage of human development, characterized by the use of chipped stone tools. The Paleolithic Period is divided into three period: 1) Lower Paleolithic Period (2,580,000 to 200,000 years ago); 2) Middle Paleolithic Period (about 200,000 years ago to about 40,000 years ago); 3) Upper Paleolithic Period (beginning about 40,000 years ago). The three subdivisions are generally defined by the types of tools used — and their corresponding levels of sophistication — in each period. The period is studied through archaeology, the biological sciences, and even metaphysical studies including theology. Archaeology supplies sufficient information to provide some insight into the minds of Neanderthals and early Modern humans (i.e. Cro Magnon Man) who lived during this time.

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica: “The onset of the Paleolithic Period has traditionally coincided with the first evidence of tool construction and use by Homo some 2.58 million years ago, near the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch (2.58 million to 11,700 years ago). In 2015, however, researchers excavating a dry riverbed near Kenya’s Lake Turkana discovered primitive stone tools embedded in rocks dating to 3.3 million years ago—the middle of the Pliocene Epoch (some 5.3 million to 2.58 million years ago). Those tools predate the oldest confirmed specimens of Homo by almost 1 million years, which raises the possibility that toolmaking originated with Australopithecus or its contemporaries and that the timing of the onset of this cultural stage should be reevaluated. “Throughout the Paleolithic, humans were food gatherers, depending for their subsistence on hunting wild animals and birds, fishing, and collecting wild fruits, nuts, and berries. The artifactual record of this exceedingly long interval is very incomplete; it can be studied from such imperishable objects of now-extinct culture. [Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica ^]

“At sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic Period (2,580,000 to 200,000 years ago), simple pebble tools have been found in association with the remains of what may have been some of the earliest human ancestors. A somewhat more-sophisticated Lower Paleolithic tradition known as the Chopper chopping-tool industry is widely distributed in the Eastern Hemisphere and tradition is thought to have been the work of the hominin species named Homo erectus. It is believed that H. erectus probably made tools of wood and bone, although no such fossil tools have yet been found, as well as of stone.^

“About 700,000 years ago a new Lower Paleolithic tool, the hand ax, appeared. The earliest European hand axes are assigned to the Abbevillian industry, which developed in northern France in the valley of the Somme River; a later, more-refined hand-ax tradition is seen in the Acheulean industry, evidence of which has been found in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Some of the earliest known hand axes were found at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) in association with remains of H. erectus. Alongside the hand-ax tradition there developed a distinct and very different stone tool industry, based on flakes of stone: special tools were made from worked (carefully shaped) flakes of flint. In Europe the Clactonian industry is one example of a flake tradition. ^

“The early flake industries probably contributed to the development of the Middle Paleolithic flake tools of the Mousterian industry, which is associated with the remains of Neanderthals. Other items dating to the Middle Paleolithic are shell beads found in both North and South Africa. In Taforalt, Morocco, the beads were dated to approximately 82,000 years ago, and other, younger examples were encountered in Blombos Cave, Blombosfontein Nature Reserve, on the southern coast of South Africa. Experts determined that the patterns of wear seem to indicate that some of these shells were suspended, some were engraved, and examples from both sites were covered with red ochre. [Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica ^]

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

Examining Fossil Teeth to Find a Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans

homo sapien and homo erectus teeth

Geoffrey Mohan wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Scientists seeking the missing link between modern Europeans and Neanderthals ought to head back to Africa, according to a new study that could prune some of the younger branches of the evolutionary tree. Researchers took another look at a common fossil used to date early humans – teeth. By looking at the pattern of points on molars of European fossils, older African and Asian fossils, and modern humans, they arrived at a picture of what the teeth of a common ancestor might have looked like. [Source: Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2013 |**|]

““What we realized is that none of the species we have in the fossil record is similar to that ancestor morphology that we calculated as the most likely one,” said Aida Gomez-Robles, an anthropologist at George Washington University and lead author of the study published online Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We think that we didn’t find it because we actually don’t have this ancestor in the fossil record.” |**|

“Paleontologists have offered various fossil finds as a candidate for the common ancestor to Europeans, paramount among them Homo heidelbergensis, a tall and strong species that wandered out of Africa less than 800,000 years ago, and which was named for the southwestern German city near which it was found. |**|

Most DNA analysis places the split between Neanderthals and modern humans at roughly 400,000 years ago, give or take a few hundred thousand years. But Heidelberg man’s teeth tell a different tale, Gomez-Robles said. They are too similar to those of the famed species named for a cave in the Neander Valley, farther north. “It shows clear dental affinity with Neanderthals, and we think the reason for this is that they are already in the lineage leading from Neanderthals.” |**|

“The missing ancestor ought to have teeth that look a bit more like the choppers of Homo ergaster, which wandered around eastern and southern Africa 1.3 to 1.8 million years ago, according to the study. We can rule out all the European species as possible ancestors, because they are already in the line leading to Neanderthals, and we have an African species, which is the most similar one to the ancestor morphology,” Gomez-Robles said. “So the most intuitive explanation is that some African species posterior to Homo ergastor will be the ancestor.” |**|

“The study suggested that ages derived from DNA modeling were underestimated. Alternatively, teeth may have started changing more rapidly for modern humans, or tooth shape was changing before such species diverged. Neither of those hypotheses is supported by the data or by commonly accepted models of evolution, Gomez-Robles noted. A study published last week in the journal Science similarly shook the common view of the evolutionary tree, suggesting that several species dating to about 2 million years ago are instead one.” |**|

Neanderthals and Humans Split 550,000 and 765,000 Years Ago

In 2016, a team lead by Matthias Meyer,a molecular biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, sequenced 430,000-year-old DNA from a cave in northern Spain, and has pushed back estimates of the time at which the ancient predecessors of humans split from those of Neanderthals to 550,000 and 765,000 years ago.[Source: Ewen Callaway, Nature, March 14, 2016 ]

Ewen Callaway wrote in Nature: “The analysis addresses confusion over which species the remains belong to. A report published in 2013 sequenced a femur’s mitochondrial genome — which is made up of DNA from the cell’s energy-producing structures that is more abundant in cells than is nuclear DNA. It suggested that at least one individual identified from the remains was more closely related to a group called Denisovans — known from remains found thousands of kilometres away in Siberia — than it was to European Neanderthals. “It’s wonderful news to have mitochondrial and nuclear DNA from something that is 430,000 years old. It’s like science fiction. It’s an amazing opportunity,” says Maria Martinón-Torres, a palaeoanthropologist at University College London.

The nuclear DNA, Meyer’s team,” reported in the March 14, 2016 issue of Nature, “shows that the Sima hominins are in fact early Neanderthals. And its age suggests that the early predecessors of humans diverged from those of Neanderthals between 550,000 and 765,000 years ago — too far back for the common ancestors of both to have been Homo heidelbergensis, as some had posited. Researchers should now be looking for a population that lived around 700,000 to 900,000 years ago, says Martinón-Torres. She thinks that Homo antecessor, known from 900,000-year-old remains from Spain, is the strongest candidate for the common ancestor, if such specimens can be found in Africa or the Middle East.”

Atapuerca, Spain — Hominins from 1.2 Million Years Ago

Atapuerca in northern Spain is an anthropological and archaeological site designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000 and home to some of the oldest hominin remains found in Europe. According to UNESCO: “The caves of the Sierra de Atapuerca contain a rich fossil record of the earliest human beings in Europe, from nearly one million years ago and extending up to the Common Era. They represent an exceptional reserve of data, the scientific study of which provides priceless information about the appearance and the way of life of these remote human ancestors. [Source: UNESCO World Heritage site website =]

Atapuerca

The Archaeological Site of Atapuerca is located near the city of Burgos, in the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León, in the North of the Iberian Peninsula. The property encompasses 284.119 ha and contains a rich fossil record of the earliest human beings in Europe, from nearly one million years ago and extending into the Common Era. It constitutes an exceptional scientific reserve that provides priceless information about the appearance and way of life of these remote human ancestors. =

“The Sierra de Atapuerca sites provide unique testimony of the origin and evolution both of the existing human civilization and of other cultures that have disappeared. The evolutionary line or lines from the African ancestors of modern humankind are documented in these sites. The earliest and most abundant evidence of humankind in Europe is found in the Sierra de Atapuerca. The sites constitute an exceptional example of continuous human occupation, due to their special ecosystems and their geographical location. The fossil remains in the Sierra de Atapuerca are an invaluable reserve of information about the physical nature and the way of life of the earliest human communities in Europe. In addition, painted and engraved panels have been recorded, with geometrical motifs, hunting scenes, and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures.

First Hominins in Northern Europe and Britain, 850,000 Years Ago

The earliest evidence of humans in Britain is found at Happisburgh in Norfolk, where lithic artefacts and fauna have eroded from coastal deposits. The site is dated to 850,000 years old or older. Environmental data suggesting a relatively cold climate at the time of occupation. The Happisburgh site is particularly significant as it has pushed back the estimate of human presence in Northern Europe. It is also the location of the oldest hominin footprints located outside of Africa. [Source: University College London]

Archaeologists digging on a Norfolk beach in found the flint tools that show the first humans were living in Britain much earlier than previously thought. Ian Sample wrote in The Guardian: While digging along the, archaeologists discovered 78 pieces of razor-sharp flint shaped into primitive cutting and piercing tools. The stone tools were unearthed from sediments that are thought to have been laid down either 840,000 or 950,000 years ago, making them the oldest human artefacts ever found in Britain. [Source: Ian Sample, The Guardian, July 7 2010]

Researchers led by the Natural History Museum and British Museum in London began excavating sites near Happisburgh in 2001 as part of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project and soon discovered tools from the stone age beneath ice-age deposits. So far, though, they have found no remains of the ancient people who made them. "This would be the 'holy grail' of our work," said Stringer. "The humans who made the Happisburgh tools may well have been related to the people of similar antiquity from Atapuerca in Spain, assigned to the species Homo antecessor, or 'pioneer man'."

According to the BBC: Because of the missing fossil evidence, it is unclear what species of humans were in Happisburgh, but later remains in other parts of Europe suggest they may have been a more advanced species called Homo antecessor. The Happisburgh species of humans might have evolved into the Neanderthals, who were well established by 400,000 years ago.

In neighbouring Suffolk lies another site, Pakefield, which is dated to 700,000 years old, with fauna and environmental data suggesting a Mediterranean climate. No hominin remains have been recovered from these sites; however, the dates, human-made tools, and the size of the hominin footprints may indicate a Homo antecessor or a similar hominin (Ashton et al. 2014). [Source: University College London]

Sima de los Huesos, Spain — Hominins from 780,000 to 125,000 Years Ago

The Sima de los Huesos (“Pit of Bones”) site is northern Spain about 100 feet (30 meters) below the surface at the bottom of a 42-foot (13-meter) vertical shaft. This “Pit of Bones” has yielded fossils of at least 28 individuals, the world's largest collection of human fossils dating from the Middle Pleistocene, about 780,000 to 125,000 years ago, along with remains of cave bears and other animals. The oldest fossils of modern humans found yet date back to about 200,000 years ago. Archaeologists suggest the bones may have been washed down it by rain or floods, or that the bones were even intentionally buried there.

Atapurca location

Henry McHenry wrote in Encyclopædia Britannica: “More than 1,600 human fossils, including several nearly complete skulls, have been found. The age of this material is at least 300,000 years and may be as old as 600,000 years. Brain sizes are within the range of both Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis) and modern humans. The skeletons possess several traits unique to Neanderthals, including a projecting midface, long and narrow pubic bones, and thick finger bones. Unlike later Neanderthals, however, they do not fully express the characteristic Neanderthal form. The site also harboured a 430,000-year-old fractured skull, which is the earliest evidence of interpersonal violence in Homo. [Source: Henry McHenry, Encyclopædia Britannica]

Fossils from The Sima de los Huesos Spain, dated to be 400,000 years old, provide earliest genetic evidence of Neanderthals. It is possible or likely that the fossils are from a pre-Neanderthal hominin. Ewen Callaway wrote in Nature: “The remains are known as the Sima hominins because they were found in Sima de los Huesos (Spanish for ‘pit of bones’), a 13-metre-deep shaft in Spain’s Atapuerca mountains. Few ancient sites are as important or intriguing as Sima, which holds the remains of at least 28 individuals, along with those of dozens of cave bears and other animals. The hominins might have plummeted to their death, but some researchers think they were deliberately buried there. [Source: Ewen Callaway, Nature, March 14, 2016]

“The Sima hominin skulls have the beginnings of a prominent brow ridge, as well as other traits typical of Neanderthals. But other features, and uncertainties around their age — some studies put them at 600,000 years old, others closer to 400,000 — convinced many researchers that they might instead belong to an older species known as Homo heidelbergensis. Confusion peaked when Meyer, his colleague Svante Pääbo and their team revealed the mitochondrial connection to the Denisovans. But they hoped that retrieving the skeletons’ nuclear DNA — which represents many more lines of ancestry than does mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited solely from the maternal line — would clear things up.”

Hominins in Israel 400,000-250,000 Years Ago

University of Arizona anthropologist Mary C. Stiner discovered that humans living at Qesem Cave in central Israel between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago were successful at big-game hunting as were later stone-age hunters at the site. “The Lower Paleolithic (earlier) hunters were skilled hunters of large game animals, as were Upper Paleolithic (later) humans at this site,” she said. “This might not seem like a big deal to the uninitiated, but there’s a lot of speculation as to whether people of the late Lower Paleolithic were able to hunt at all, or whether they were reduced to just scavenging. Evidence from Qesem Cave says that just like later Paleolithic humans, the earlier Paleolithic humans focused on harvesting large game. They were really at the top of the food chain.” [Source: Lori Stiles, University of Arizona Communications, uanews.org, August 12, 2009]

According to the University of Arizona: “The Qesem Cave people hunted cooperatively, then carried the highest quality body parts of their prey to the cave, where they cut the meat with stone blade cutting tools and cooked it with fire. “Qesem” means “surprise.” The cave was discovered in hilly limestone terrain about seven miles east of Tel-Aviv not quite nine years ago, during road construction.

“Meat is one of the highest quality foods that humans may eat, and it is among the most difficult resources to harvest from the environment. Archaeologists know that the roots of carnivory stretch deep into the past. But the details of carnivory and meat sharing have been sketchy. And they are important details, because they reflect the evolutionary development in human economic and social behaviors. Stiner and her colleagues reported on the research in their article, “Cooperative hunting and meat sharing 400-200 kya at Qesem Cave, Israel” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Homo splitter theory of human evolution

Homo lumper theory of human evolution

Remains 200,000-Year-Old Pre-Neanderthal Discovered in France

Remains of a 200,000-year-old pre-Neanderthal have been found in Normandy, France. They are 'the only known example from northern Europe' and can help fill in a missing part of the evolutionary timeline, according to researchers. Katie Spicer wrote in the International Business Times: “Three arm bones from the Middle Pleistocene era, were discovered by archaeologists from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap), who published their results in the PLOS ONE scientific journal. [Source: Katie Spicer, International Business Times, October 10, 2014 ]

“The fossils, a humerus, a radius and an ulna, were found at Tourville-la-Rivière, near Normandy, and are from the left arm of a teenager or an adult, who is thought to be the oldest Norman ever discovered. Other fossils found at the site include the remains of 15 animal species.

“Similar finds have been made in the UK and Germany, and scientists are hoping that the discovery in Normandy will fill a gap in the evolution of pre-Neanderthals as "this is a period with very few fossils," according to Bruno Maureille, co-author of the study."The analysis tells us that the Tourville man is closer to the Neanderthals than to modern man," said Maureille. In their study of the bones, the archaeologists found that the humerus had an unusual bone ridge where a ligament had ruptured, possibly due to repetitive movements such as throwing. According to Maureille, similar bone ridges have been seen in modern-day athletes.”

Extreme Homo splitter theory of human evolution

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons except Spanish ax from Nature

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