scholarly journals The challenge of the abstract mind: symbols, signs and notational systems in European prehistory

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 221-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Haarmann
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Southeastern Europe ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Symbiotic Interaction ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Cave Paintings ◽  
Naturalistic Pictures

Since the earliest manifestations of symbolic activity in modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) in the Upper Palaeolithic, there is evidence for two independent cognitive procedures, for the production of representational images (naturalistic pictures or sculptures) and of abstract signs. The use of signs and symbols is attested for archaic humans (Homo neanderthalensis) and for Homo erectus while art in naturalistic style is an innovation among modern humans. The symbiotic interaction of the two symbolic capacities is illustrated for the visual heritage of Palaeolithic cave paintings in Southwestern Europe, for rock engravings in the Italian Alps (Val Camonica) and for the vivid use of signs and symbols in Southeastern Europe during the Neolithic. Around 5500 BC, sign use in Southeastern Europe reached a sophisticated stage of organization as to produce the earliest writing system of mankind. Since abstractness is the main theme in the visual heritage of the region, this script, not surprisingly, is composed of predominantly abstract signs.

scholarly journals Arguments that Prehistorical and Modern Humans Belong to the Same Species

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Kühne
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Out Of Africa

I argue that the evidence of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis and the evidence of multiregional evolution of prehistorical humans can be understood if there has been interbreeding between Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens at least during the preceding 700,000 years. These interbreedings require descendants who are capable of reproduction and therefore parents who belong to the same species. I suggest that a number of prehistorical humans who are at present regarded as belonging to different species belong in fact to one single species.  

scholarly journals Arguments that Prehistorical and Modern Humans Belong to the Same Species

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Walter Kühne
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Out Of Africa

I argue that the evidence of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis and the evidence of multiregional evolution of prehistorical humans can be understood if there has been interbreeding between Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens at least during the preceding 700,000 years. These interbreedings require descendants who are capable of reproduction and therefore parents who belong to the same species. I suggest that a number of prehistorical humans who are at present regarded as belonging to different species belong in fact to one single species.

Neanderthals and modern humans

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco J. Ayala ◽  
Camilo J. Cela-Conde
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Differentiation ◽  
Nuclear Dna ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Whole Genome ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Modern Mind ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Mode 3

This chapter deals with the similarities and differences between Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens, by considering genetic, brain, and cognitive evidence. The genetic differentiation emerges from fossil genetic evidence obtained first from mtDNA and later from nuclear DNA. With high throughput whole genome sequencing, sequences have been obtained from the Denisova Cave (Siberia) fossils. Nuclear DNA of a third species (“Denisovans”) has been obtained from the same cave and used to define the phylogenetic relationships among the three species during the Upper Palaeolithic. Archaeological comparisons make it possible to advance a four-mode model of the evolution of symbolism. Neanderthals and modern humans would share a “modern mind” as defined up to Symbolic Mode 3. Whether the Neanderthals reached symbolic Mode 4 remains unsettled.

scholarly journals Recent origin of low trabecular bone density in modern humans

2014 ◽  
Vol 112 (2) ◽  
pp. 366-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Habiba Chirchir ◽  
Tracy L. Kivell ◽  
Christopher B. Ruff ◽  
Jean-Jacques Hublin ◽  
Kristian J. Carlson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Trabecular Bone ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Lower Limbs ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Human Skeleton ◽  
Trabecular Density ◽  
Fossil Hominins

Humans are unique, compared with our closest living relatives (chimpanzees) and early fossil hominins, in having an enlarged body size and lower limb joint surfaces in combination with a relatively gracile skeleton (i.e., lower bone mass for our body size). Some analyses have observed that in at least a few anatomical regions modern humans today appear to have relatively low trabecular density, but little is known about how that density varies throughout the human skeleton and across species or how and when the present trabecular patterns emerged over the course of human evolution. Here, we test the hypotheses that (i) recent modern humans have low trabecular density throughout the upper and lower limbs compared with other primate taxa and (ii) the reduction in trabecular density first occurred in early Homo erectus, consistent with the shift toward a modern human locomotor anatomy, or more recently in concert with diaphyseal gracilization in Holocene humans. We used peripheral quantitative CT and microtomography to measure trabecular bone of limb epiphyses (long bone articular ends) in modern humans and chimpanzees and in fossil hominins attributed to Australopithecus africanus, Paranthropus robustus/early Homo from Swartkrans, Homo neanderthalensis, and early Homo sapiens. Results show that only recent modern humans have low trabecular density throughout the limb joints. Extinct hominins, including pre-Holocene Homo sapiens, retain the high levels seen in nonhuman primates. Thus, the low trabecular density of the recent modern human skeleton evolved late in our evolutionary history, potentially resulting from increased sedentism and reliance on technological and cultural innovations.

Birth and Death of the Holocene

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Zalasiewicz ◽  
Mark Williams
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Quaternary Period ◽  
Climate Oscillations ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Droughts And Floods ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
The Many

It is just the latest of many climate phases of the Quaternary Period. The 103rd major shift in climate-driven global oxygen isotope values, to be precise, since the official-designated beginning of the Quaternary Period, 2.58 million years ago. And, many of those major phases, as we have seen, include dozens of climate oscillations far greater in scale than humans have witnessed since written records began. Nevertheless, it is our warm phase, that within which our civilization has grown, and hence it has been separated as a distinct epoch, the Holocene, a little over 0.01 of a million years long. Its counterpart is the Pleistocene Epoch, in which reside those other 2.57 million years of Quaternary time, and those other 102 major climate oscillations. Thus, we live—at least as far as formal geological nomenclature goes—in a privileged time. When this epoch began, Homo sapiens had already existed for some 150,000 years. As a species its prospects might not have seemed bright: this creature lacked anything terribly impressive in the way of claws or teeth or thick fur or armour. But by being ingenious at developing what one might describe as artificial claws and teeth—axes and spears and arrows—it could kill and eat mammals considerably larger than itself. In those early days, it might not have prospered, exactly, but it clung to existence, seemingly weathering at least one very bad patch, several tens of thousands of years ago, when its numbers dropped almost to extinction levels. It survived the climate oscillations of the late Pleistocene—the droughts and floods and episodes of bitter cold and killing heat—by adapting its behaviour or migrating as best it could. Its migrations from its place of origin, Africa, were on an epic scale. The many thousands of individual and collective stories of hope, fear, endurance, courage, tragedy, and (less commonly) triumph are all lost. What remains is the evidence that humans, by the beginning of the Holocene, had spread widely over Europe and Asia, ousting (it seems) their kindred hominin species, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo erectus.

scholarly journals Muscles of Facial Expression in Extinct Species of the Genus Homo

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturo Tozzi
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Anatomical Variation ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Genus Homo ◽  
Levator Labii Superioris ◽  
Mimetic Muscles

ABSTRACTWe display a detailed description of mimetic muscles in extinct human species, framed in comparative and phylogenetic contexts. Using known facial landmarks, we assessed the arrangement of muscles of facial expression in Homo sapiens, neanderthalensis, erectus, heidelbergensis and ergaster. In modern humans, several perioral muscles are proportionally smaller in size (levator labii superioris, zygomaticus minor, zygomaticus major and triangularis) and/or located more medially (levator labii superioris, zygomaticus minor and quadratus labii inferioris) than in other human species. As mimetic musculature is examined in the most ancient specimens up to the most recent, there is a general trend towards an increase in size of corrugator supercillii and triangularis. Homo ergaster’s mimetic musculature closely resembles modern Homo, both in size and in location; furthermore, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis share many muscular features. The extinct human species had an elaborate and highly graded facial communication system, but it remained qualitatively different from that reported in modern Homo. Compared with other human species, Homo sapiens clearly exhibits a lower degree of facial expression, possibly correlated with more sophisticated social behaviours and with enhanced speech capabilities. The presence of anatomical variation among species of the genus Homo raises important questions about the possible taxonomic value of mimetic muscles.

Species of the Upper Pleistocene

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco J. Ayala ◽  
Camilo J. Cela-Conde
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Adaptive Strategy ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Morphological Differences ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter analyzes the two taxa of the Upper Pleistocene: Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. The first one is explored starting with the Feldhofer discovery and the early interpretations of that specimen. The next issue is the evolutionary model of the Neanderthals and their geographic range. The ensuing questions are the Neanderthal morphology, its ontogenetic development, and the relationship between its traits and its adaptive strategy. The morphological differences between Neanderthals and modern humans make it difficult to understand the relationships between the two taxa, which will be settled in Chapter 11 by means of molecular methods. But the present chapter already deals with the origin of modern humans by considering the coalescence of mitochondrial DNA and other factors facilitated by molecular genetics, in order to characterize the origin of our species. Finally, there is consideration of the fossil and archaeological evidence concerning the earliest modern humans from South African sediments.

scholarly journals Quantifying the potential causes of Neanderthal extinction: abrupt climate change versus competition and interbreeding

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Timmermann
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Abrupt Climate Change ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Climatic Environment ◽  
Anatomically Modern Humans ◽  
Last Ice Age

Anatomically Modern Humans are the sole survivor of a group of hominins that inhabited our planet during the last ice age and that included, among others, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo denisova, and Homo erectus. Whether previous hominin extinctions were triggered by external factors, such as abrupt climate change, volcanic eruptions or whether competition and interbreeding played major roles in their demise still remains unresolved. Here I present a spatially resolved numerical hominin dispersal model (HDM) with empirically constrained key parameters that simulates the migration and interaction of Anatomically Modern Humans and Neanderthals in the rapidly varying climatic environment of the last ice age. The model simulations document that rapid temperature and vegetation changes associated with Dansgaard-Oeschger events were not major drivers of global Neanderthal extinction between 50-35 thousand years ago, but played important roles regionally, in particular over northern Europe. According to a series of parameter sensitivity experiments conducted with the HDM, a realistic extinction of the Neanderthal population can only be simulated when Homo sapiens is chosen to be considerably more effective in exploiting scarce glacial food resources as compared to Neanderthals.

scholarly journals The human genome reveals the evolution of Homo sapiens

2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-45
Author(s):  
K. Schwartz ◽  
◽  
M. Sorokin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Genome ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Max Planck ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Language Communication ◽  
History Of ◽  
Development Of Language

The evolution of modern humans began two and a half million years ago as Homo erectus. Several hundred thousand years ago, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern men Homo sapiens have been separated from the Homo erectus branch. Nevertheless, Homo sapiens is the only one that has survived to our days. The complex history of Homo is revealed by genetic research and comparison of the modern human genome with genes of Neanderthals and Denisovans. Svante Pääbo, a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, made a significant contribution to these studies and decoded the genome of Neanderthals and Denisovans. Comparison of the genome of modern humans with the genes of Neanderthals and Denisovans made it possible to reveal the size of the population, the paths and times of migrations, interactions of various groups of ancient humans and their biological crossing. It was found that in Eurasia, modern man carries traces of Neanderthal genes, whereas in Asia and Oceania – Denisovan genes. According to anthropological research, the survival of Homo sapiens was driven by the cognitive revolution, which took place about seventy thousand years ago and included the development of language, communication and association in large groups.

Evolution of Cranial and Endocranial Profiles inHomoSpecies: a Study in 2D Geometric Morphometrics

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 118-131
Author(s):  
L. Albessard ◽  
D. Grimaud-Hervé ◽  
A. Balzeau
Keyword(s):  
Geometric Morphometrics ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cranial Bone ◽  
Cranial Morphology ◽  
Anatomical Features ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Object Of Study

Cranial anatomical features play a prominent part in the definition of extinctHomotaxa and in species identification in fossils. Thus, knowledge of cranial morphology considered within its geochronological framework is essential to the understanding of the evolution, chronology, and dispersal of the genusHomo. The brain is also a valuable object of study for research on human evolution, because of features such as its large size and a high encephalization quotient in someHomospecies, as well as the complexity of human cognition. However, the joint evolution of endo- and ectocranial anatomies is still little studied, and landmarks representing cerebral anatomy rather than inner cranial bone anatomy are still rarely used. This exploratory piece of research examines endo- and ectocranial profiles in samples representing 3Homotaxa:Homo sapiens(fossil and recent specimens),Homo erectus, andHomo neanderthalensis. We used 2D geometric morphometrics to analyze the shape of the endo- and ectocranial vaults, as well as the relationships between selected anatomical features such as the extension of lobes and bones. The shapes of the vaults were computed using both fixed landmarks and sliding semi-landmarks. The fixed landmarks used for the endocranium were chosen in order to represent cerebral anatomy, in that they are defined by the imprints left by brain structures on the inner bone surface of the skull, and not by bony structures such as the inferior side of cranial sutures. Among other results, we have shown or confirmed specific features in the shape of the endocranium inHomo sapiens, as well as a few differences in the patterns of interplay between lobes and bones. These data, and any further results obtained with larger samples, may provide new insights into the development of the endocranial anatomical pattern inHomo sapiensand of its variability.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document