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Chapter Summary
Around 500,000 years ago, Homo erectus fossils disappear, and are replaced by Homo heidelbergensis, which shows a mosaic of features found in Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. There are many debates about the fate of Homo erectus and the origin of Homo sapiens, with some scholars favouring the replacement model and others the regional continuity model.
Neanderthals flourished between 230,000 and 27,000 years ago. They were shorter and more robust than anatomically modern H. sapiens. Their molars showed taurodontism, their jaws possessed retromolar spaces, and they may have habitually used their incisors as a clamp. Their average cranial capacity was larger than that of modern human populations, although their skull was shaped differently. Neanderthal fossils found in Europe are typically associated with the Mousterian stone-tool tradition. Similar tools found in southwestern Asia and Africa have been assigned to the Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age, which probably began at least 200,000 years ago.
Anatomically modern human beings appeared around 200,000 years ago. Fossil evidence suggests that Neanderthals and moderns likely lived side by side or took turns occupying the same areas in southwestern Asia for at least 45,000 years, and both populations used the same kinds of Mousterian tools. There is also DNA evidence of interbreeding.
By 35–40,000 years ago, Late Stone Age/Upper Paleolithic people made many different stone tools as well as tools and ornaments out of bone, ivory, and antler; composite tools, such as spears and arrows; and clothing from animal fur. They regularly hunted large game and used bones from animals such as mammoths to construct dwellings and to burn as fuel. Cave paintings and personal ornaments offer the most striking evidence in the Upper Paleolithic for the modern human capacity for culture. Upper Paleolithic peoples show few signs of injury or disease, and their life expectancy was longer than that of Neanderthals. Anatomically modern people with Upper Paleolithic cultures were the first humans to migrate into the northernmost regions of Asia and into the New World, arriving at least 12,000 years ago—probably earlier. Further, DNA research provides evidence that the New World was populated by more than one wave of immigrants from Siberia. Anatomically modern people first arrived in Australia between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, probably by boat.
Learning Objectives
In this chapter, the student should learn to do the following:
- identify the distinctive morphological features of various hominin species;
- outline how and why bipedalism may have developed and explain why it is an adaptive trait;
- identify the main features of various hominin stone tool industries;
- outline the various theories that have been put forth to explain the appearance and geographical dispersal of Homo sapiens;
- explain various interpretations regarding the fate of Neanderthals;
- outline how and when the peopling of the New World and Australia occurred;
- explain how the concept of culture was an adaptive feature of Homo sapiens.