"Archaic Sapiens" Shows Us How Much We Don't Know About Human Evolution

Scientists have found fossil remains of quite a few human species, with the caveat that "species" is still not quite defined. How different from modern humans does a hominid have to be to get a different species designation? A type of human fossil found in Israel 100 years ago is called Homo sapiens, but these people were different from modern humans in several ways. They used tools, wore jewelry, and buried their dead in graveyards. They may have traded with other communities. But anatomically, they seemed to be a transitional species or a missing link between modern humans and earlier species. Were they an ancestor of Homo sapiens in the evolutionary tree? No, because they arose and died out long after Homo sapiens was already flourishing elsewhere. They were more like a cousin to modern humans. Some now call them an archaic version of humans.

Later, these archaic Homo sapiens were found in far-flung parts of Africa, but the remains still dated to after the debut of modern humans. Research on these archaic humans highlights how many holes there are in the fossil record when it comes to the human family tree. Read about the skulls of archaic Homo sapiens at Aeon.  -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Wapondaponda)


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