Concept
Archaeological site of Atapuerca
Related concepts (11)
Tautavel Man
Tautavel Man refers to the archaic humans which—from approximately 550,000 to 400,000 years ago—inhabited the Caune de l’Arago, a limestone cave in Tautavel, France. They are generally grouped as part of a long and highly variable lineage of transitional morphs which inhabited the Middle Pleistocene of Europe, and would eventually evolve into the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis or H. sapiens neanderthalensis). They have been variably assigned to either H. (s.?) heidelbergensis, or as a European subspecies of H.
Homo antecessor
Homo antecessor (Latin "pioneer man") is an extinct species of archaic human recorded in the Spanish Sierra de Atapuerca, a productive archaeological site, from 1.2 to 0.8 million years ago during the Early Pleistocene. Populations of this species may have been present elsewhere in Western Europe, and were among the first to colonise that region of the world, hence the name. The first fossils were found in the Gran Dolina cave in 1994, and the species was formally described in 1997 as the last common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals, supplanting the more conventional H.
Neanderthal
Neanderthals (niˈændə(r)ˌtɑːl,neɪ-,-ˌθɑːl; Homo neanderthalensis or H. sapiens neanderthalensis), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. The reasons for Neanderthal extinction are disputed. Theories for their extinction include demographic factors such as small population size and inbreeding, competitive replacement, interbreeding and assimilation with modern humans, climate change, disease, or a combination of these factors.
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis (also H. erectus heidelbergensis, H. sapiens heidelbergensis) is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of H. erectus in 1950 as H. e. heidelbergensis, but towards the end of the century, it was more widely classified as its own species. It is debated whether or not to constrain H.
Hominidae
The Hominidae (hɒˈmɪnᵻdiː), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (ˈhɒmᵻnɪdz), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); Gorilla (the eastern and western gorilla); Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo); and Homo, of which only modern humans (Homo sapiens) remain. Several revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term hominid to vary over time.
Homo erectus
Homo erectus (ˌhoʊmoʊ_ə'rɛktəs; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Its specimens are among the first recognizable members of the genus Homo. Several human species, such as H. heidelbergensis and H. antecessor, appear to have evolved from H. erectus, and Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans are in turn generally considered to have evolved from H. heidelbergensis. H.
Mousterian
The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latter part of the Middle Paleolithic, the middle of the West Eurasian Old Stone Age. It lasted roughly from 160,000 to 40,000 BP. If its predecessor, known as Levallois or Levallois-Mousterian, is included, the range is extended to as early as 300,000–200,000 BP.
Denisovan
The Denisovans or Denisova hominins (prondɪˈniːsəvə ) are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human that ranged across Asia during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Denisovans are known from few physical remains; consequently, most of what is known about them comes from DNA evidence. No formal species name has been established pending more complete fossil material. The first identification of a Denisovan individual occurred in 2010, based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) extracted from a juvenile female finger bone excavated from the Siberian Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in 2008.
Early modern human
Early modern human (EMH) or anatomically modern human (AMH) are terms used to distinguish Homo sapiens (the only extant Hominina species) that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans, from extinct archaic human species. This distinction is useful especially for times and regions where anatomically modern and archaic humans co-existed, for example, in Paleolithic Europe.
Hand axe
A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history. It is made from stone, usually flint or chert that has been "reduced" and shaped from a larger piece by knapping, or hitting against another stone. They are characteristic of the lower Acheulean and middle Palaeolithic (Mousterian) periods, roughly 1.6 million years ago to about 100,000 years ago, and used by Homo erectus and other early humans, but rarely by Homo sapiens.