The most recent species of genus homo (to the best of my knowledge) are H. erectus, H. heidelberg, H. neanderthal, and H. sapiens. During what time frames did these flourish and what areas? Also if I missed any that were around during the last million years, enlighten me (ignore H. florensis for now).
Range (time & space) of prehistoric man
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Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Neanderthals lived in Europe up until around 20,000BCE. That's why we call them that: Neanderthal is the German name of the Neander Valley, near Düsseldorf. They normalized German spelling in 1901 so Thal is now Tal, but they didn't change the name of the species. The H is silent, there is no TH sound in German.
The valley is named after the writer Joachim Neumann. He wrote under the pen name of Neander, which is the Greek translation of his surname, "New Man."
Homo sapiens and H. neanderthalensis lived concurrently in Europe for some time. I'm not an anthropologist but from what I've read I gather that it's pretty well accepted that when sapiens arrived they interbred with Neanderthals, so modern humans have some as yet undetermined quantity of Neanderthal genes.
That original wave of modern humans are not by most reckoning the ancestors of today's European peoples. Most of those people are descended from the Indo-European tribes who didn't arrive until very roughly 4000BCE, the Celts being the first tribe to set foot on the continent. Even more recent arrivals, during historic times, are the Turks, Magyars, Huns and Finns (including the Estonians and Saami, formerly called Lapps), all Mongolic peoples, at least by language. The Bulgars are recent, although no one can identify their bloodline, as are the Jews, a Semitic people.
The only people we can name who were already there when the Indo-Europeans arrived are the Basques, who are still hanging on, the Etruscans, who are long extinct, and the Picts, who were once the people of what is now Scotland but were culturally overrun by Celts. We can fathom nothing about the origins of these people. Same goes for whoever built Stonehenge.
However, from archeological digs we do know that there were several waves of migration into Europe, mostly through the Caucasus region but possibly to some extent also across the Bosporus and even across the Mediterranean. The Basques etc. are almost surely not the original Homo sapiens who encountered the Neanderthals.
Notwithstanding all that, each wave of migrants intermarried with the previous settlers, so there are still Neanderthal genes in modern Europeans.
Jean Auel's series of novels beginning with Clan of the Cave Bear is set at the end of the last Ice Age when Homo sapiens immigrants first encountered Neanderthals in Europe. The story is pure fiction but it's as good a guess as any as to what it was like when the two species finally met. She did a lot of research, including living alone as a Stone Age human in a remote Alaskan winter to see what it felt like. So her anthropological and scientific details tend to be very accurate and it's interesting just for that. Although science marches on: when she wrote the stories it appeared that the Neanderthal brain had no speech center, so her Neanderthals speak in sign language, which is a major plot device. It turns out that was wrong and they could have developed speech.
How about ranges for heidelberg and erectus? Did heidelberg originate in Africa or Europe?
Re: 1996 family tree. I am in the middle of reading a book entitled "The First Human" by Ann Gibbons, published in 2006. The family tree has several major differences from the 1996 tree. Ergaster is gone with erectus going further back in time. Rudolfensis is no longer in the homo family, but in a separate dead end. The main line seems to be afarensis-habilis-erectus-sapiens.
Re: 1996 family tree. I am in the middle of reading a book entitled "The First Human" by Ann Gibbons, published in 2006. The family tree has several major differences from the 1996 tree. Ergaster is gone with erectus going further back in time. Rudolfensis is no longer in the homo family, but in a separate dead end. The main line seems to be afarensis-habilis-erectus-sapiens.
Dragon, that's an excellent chart. I'll follow up on the source. Makes me wonder why there is no controversy about H. heidelbergensis interbreeding with Neanderthals and Sapiens or what about Ergaster with Erectus?
Lucy was a chimp, "Lucy to Language," oh brother.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
There seems to be abundant evidence, but the interpretation is controversial. I'm not a geneticist or paleoanthropologist, so I'm not qualitifed to weigh in with my own opinion. From what I can gather, the issue has not been settled yet.
Chimpanzees are genus Pan. Lucy was genus Australopithecus. I don't know whether DNA analysis is complete (or if it's even been attempted) but Lucy's species has been referred to as the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans. Therefore, she is neither.
I don't understand your reference. Somewhere between Australopithecus afarensis three million years ago and the diaspora of Homo sapiens out of Africa 70,000 years ago, the technology of language was invented. That's not exactly one of the more controversial tidbits of prehistory.
Billions of people worldwide would find that laughable.
Yes, they would. So ban the fool. The solution to his/her trolling is so simple and obvious.
Actually, if you check the literature, you will find research that indicates that neanderthals and sapiens did interbreed, and you will find research that shows just the opposite.
So, basically it's all up in the air still. To be determined.
Which would you put your money on inverto, and did "homo erectus" mate with humans?
What? The Young Earth Theory? AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
What, no emoticon too?
Fraggle Rocker: Can you provide a link or a citation for the following?
I agree that Lucy was neither a Chimp nor a Homo Sapiens, but I am sure that she was not the common ancestor. I think Lucy was a descendent of the common ancestor of chimps & us.
Lucy had the bow legs of chimps, no indication that she was anything other.
It must be wonderful to be able to support your position by simply making things up. On the other hand, I would prefer to have some integrity.
You would, but it ain't happening.