When Did Anatomically Modern Forms of Homo sapiens Appear?
Although 160,000-year-old fossils from Ethiopia have been described as anatomically modern, the answer to this question is quite complex. Anatomical modernity refers to particular characteristics in the shape of the skull. While all humans today are members of a single species, and as such are equally “modern,” some contemporary populations do not meet the definition of anatomical modernity used by some paleoanthropologists. To exclude contemporary humans from the species based on the shape of their skulls is an obvious impossibility. By extension, the application of this definition of anatomical modernity to the fossil record is a source of debate. Still, it is generally agreed that by 30,000 years ago, Upper Paleolithic populations in all parts of the inhabited world showed greater resemblance to more recent human populations than earlier large-brained Homo.
When and How Did Humans Spread to Australia and the Americas?
Around the time of the Upper Paleolithic, humans expanded into new regions, most dramatically Australia and the Americas. Expansion into Australia and New Guinea required crossing a deep, wide ocean channel and was thus dependent upon sophisticated watercraft. Spread to the Americas involved successful adaptation to Arctic conditions and movement over land through northeastern Asia to the Americas, along with the use of watercraft over even more extended distances. Anthropologists use archaeological, linguistic, and biological evidence to reconstruct the spread of humans into these new regions.
What Is the Relationship Between Middle Paleolithic Homo and Modern Homo sapiens?
Some paleoanthropologists propose that Neandertals, like other archaic forms, evolved into anatomically modern versions of Homo sapiens as different features of modern anatomy arising in other regional populations were carried to them through gene flow. In this framework, human populations throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia contributed to the making of modern humans. Other paleoanthropologists propose that anatomically modern humans with superior cultural capabilities appeared first in Africa about 200,000 years ago, replacing existing archaic forms as they spread from Africa to the rest of the world.
What Was the Culture of Upper Paleolithic Peoples Like?
Between 70,000 and 40,000 years ago the global archaeological record begins to become richer, not only with varied and sophisticated tool industries but also with evidence of increased human creativity, ingenuity, and problem solving. Upper Paleolithic cultures generally include a greater diversity of tools than previously, as well as a greater frequency of blade tools. Pressure-flaking techniques and the use of burins to fashion implements of bone and antler became widespread. In Europe, success of large game hunting increased with the invention of the spear-thrower, or atlatl, and nets aided in hunting of small game. In Africa the earliest small points appropriate for arrowheads appear during this time period. There was as well an explosion of creativity, represented by impressive works of art discovered in a variety of sites in Africa, Australia, Eurasia, and Australia.
The remains of ancient people who looked more like contemporary Europeans than Neandertals were first discovered in 1868 at Les Eyzies in France, in a rock shelter together with tools of the Upper (late) Paleolithic. Consisting of eight skeletons, they are commonly referred to as Cro-Magnons, after the rock shelter in which they were found. The name was extended to thirteen other specimens recovered between 1872 and 1902 in the caves of southwestern France and, since then, to other Upper Paleolithic skeletons discovered in other parts of Europe.
Because Cro-Magnons were found with Upper Paleolithic tools and seemed responsible for the production of impressive works of art, they were seen as particularly clever when compared with the Neandertals. The idea that Neandertals were dimwitted comfortably supported the prevailing stereotype of their supposedly brutish appearance. Their Mousterian tools were interpreted as evidence of cultural inferiority. Hence, Cro-Magnons were regarded as an anatomically modern people with a superior culture sweeping into Europe and replacing a primitive local population. This idea mirrored the European conquest of other parts of the world during
Upper Paleolithic The last part (10,000 to 40,000 years ago) of the Old Stone Age, featuring tool industries characterized by long slim blades and an explosion of creative symbolic forms. Cro-Magnon A European of the Upper Paleolithic after about 36,000 years ago.
The colonial expansion that was concurrent with the discovery of these fossils.
With the invention of reliable dating techniques in the 20th century, we now know that many Neandertal specimens of Europe and the later Cro-Magnon specimens date from different time periods. The Middle Paleolithic Mousterian technology is associated with earlier fossil specimens, Upper Paleolithic technology and art with later fossil specimens. Perhaps the most Eurocentric aspect of all is that historically this discussion focused on the European fossil evidence instead of incorporating evidence from throughout the globe. Recent fossil evidence for early anatomical modernity in Africa, evidence of regional continuity from Asia, and associated genetic studies allow paleoanthropologists to develop more comprehensive theories for the origins of modern humans.
World History
