ANTH 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Mousterian, Upper Paleolithic, Kebara Cave
Document Summary
Glacial period - sea level lowered (because most of the sea was ice), land got arid and expansion of ice sheets. Homo erectus evolves into homo sapiens (aka archaic h. sapiens) From two sites in the sierra de atapuerca region of norther spain. No chin (important trait because its very recent and defines only humans) Led to the specification of the heidelgerensis as a species. Teeth are at the small edge of the erectus range. Gap behind third molar (trait only in archaic h sapiens) Thought that the transition went from heidelgerensis to neanderthal to sapiens. Neanderthals - a morphologically distinct group of hominids. 1856 - quarry workers in neander valley western germany found them in feldhofer cave. Schaffhausen argued that the bones were the remains of humans who lived in europe before the celts. Huxley, one of darwin"s staunchest supporters suggested they belonged to a primitive extinct kind of human.