Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of H. erectus in 1950 as H. e. heidelbergensis, but towards the end of the century, it was more widely classified as its own species. It is debated whether or not to constrain H. heidelbergensis to only Europe or to also include African and Asian specimens, and this is further confounded by the type specimen being a jawbone, because jawbones feature few diagnostic traits and are generally missing among Middle Pleistocene specimens. Thus, it is debated if some of these specimens could be split off into their own species or a subspecies of H. erectus. Because the classification is so disputed, the Middle Pleistocene is often called the "muddle in the middle."
The Mousterian is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latter part of the Middle Paleolithic, the middle of the West Eurasian Old Stone Age. It lasted roughly from 160,000 to 40,000 BP. If its predecessor, known as Levallois or Levallois-Mousterian, is included, the range is extended to as early as c. 300,000–200,000 BP. The main following period is the Aurignacian of Homo sapiens.
The Châtelperronian is a proposed industry of the Upper Palaeolithic, the existence of which is debated. It represents both the only Upper Palaeolithic industry made by Neanderthals and the earliest Upper Palaeolithic industry in Central and Southwestern France, as well as in Northern Spain. It derives its name from Châtelperron, Allier, France.
Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000 years ago. This timing, based on research published in Nature in 2014, is much earlier than previous estimates, and derives from improved radiocarbon-dating methods analyzing 40 sites from Spain to Russia. Evidence for continued Neanderthal presence in the Iberian Peninsula 37,000 years ago was published in 2017.
The prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula begins with the arrival of the first hominins 1.2 million years ago and ends with the Punic Wars, when the territory enters the domains of written history. In this long period, some of its most significant landmarks were to host the last stand of the Neanderthal people, to develop some of the most impressive Paleolithic art, alongside Southern France, to be the seat of the earliest civilizations of Western Europe and finally to become a most desired colonial objective due to its strategic position and its many mineral riches.
The Schöningen spears are a set of ten wooden weapons from the Palaeolithic Age that were excavated between 1994 and 1999 from the 'Spear Horizon' in the open-cast lignite mine in Schöningen, Helmstedt district, Germany. They were found together with animal bones and stone and bone tools. The excavations took place under the management of Hartmut Thieme of the Lower Saxony State Service for Cultural Heritage (NLD).
Neanderthals are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the cause of their extinction remains “highly contested,” demographic factors like small population size, inbreeding, and random fluctuations are considered likely factors. Other scholars have proposed competitive replacement, assimilation into the modern human genome, great climatic change, disease, or a combination of these factors.
Roca dels Bous is an archaeological site located in Sant Llorenç de Montgai, in the Catalan Pyrenees, Spain. Since 1988 the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the UCL Institute of Archaeology study and record the fossil sequence of southern European Neanderthals who inhabited the area during the Middle Paleolithic approximately 50,000 years ago. The excavation team utilizes a worldwide unique digital system and various innovative technologies, that significantly improve the quality of the classification of the recovered objects. Roca dels Bous has as one of the first Paleolithic excavation sites in Spain established a visitor centre, that focuses on displaying the Prehistory research of the prepyrenees area.
Scladina, or Sclayn Cave, is an archaeological site located in Wallonia in the town of Sclayn, in the Andenne hills in Belgium, where excavations since 1978 have provided the material for an exhaustive collection of over thirteen thousand Mousterian stone artifacts and the fossilized remains of an especially ancient Neanderthal, called the Scladina child were discovered in 1993.
Trou de l’Abîme also known as La caverne de l'Abîme and Couvin Cave is a karst cave located in Wallonia on the right bank of the Eau Noire river in the center of Couvin, Belgium, in Namur province. During various archaeological excavations of sediment deposits, Mousterian artefacts and a Neanderthal molar were discovered.
Southwest Asian Neanderthals were Neanderthals who lived in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, and Iran - the southernmost expanse of the known Neanderthal range. Although their arrival in Asia is not well-dated, early Neanderthals occupied the region apparently until about 100,000 years ago. At this time, Homo sapiens immigrants seem to have replaced them in one of the first anatomically-modern expansions out of Africa. In their turn, starting around 80,000 years ago, Neanderthals seem to have returned and replaced Homo sapiens in Southwest Asia. They inhabited the region until about 55,000 years ago.
The diet of known human ancestors varies dramatically over time. Strictly speaking, according to evolutionary anthropologists and archaeologists, there is not a single hominin Paleolithic diet. The Paleolithic covers roughly 2.8 million years, concurrent with the Pleistocene, and includes multiple human ancestors with their own evolutionary and technological adaptations living in a wide variety of environments. This fact with the difficulty of finding conclusive of evidence often makes broad generalizations of the earlier human diets very difficult. Our pre-hominin primate ancestors were broadly herbivorous, relying on either foliage or fruits and nuts and the shift in dietary breadth during the Paleolithic is often considered a critical point in hominin evolution. A generalization between Paleolithic diets of the various human ancestors that many anthropologists do make is that they are all to one degree or another omnivorous and are inextricably linked with tool use and new technologies.
Cueva Antón is a paleoanthropological and archeological site in the Region of Murcia of southeast Spain. The cave is located about 60 kilometers from the Mediterranean port city of Cartagena inland in the territory of the municipality of Mula. It was eroded by the Río Mula and served as a cave in the Middle Palaeolithic inhabited by Neanderthals. The cave became internationally known in 2010, after a shell at least 43,000 years old with adhering orange pigment was discovered there. The pigment found was interpreted as evidence that the shell was used "in an aesthetic and probably symbolic" way. The find from the Cueva Antón was published together with similar finds from the Cave of Los Aviones; they were named as the first such Neanderthal jewelry found in Europe. The colonization of the Iberian Peninsula by modern man took place only several thousand years after the creation of the jewelry from the Cueva Antón. This site is the last known place where Neanderthal people resided.
Thomas Higham is an archaeological scientist and radiocarbon dating specialist. He has worked as Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Oxford, UK, where he was the Director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU) in the Research Lab for Archaeology and the History of Art. He is best known for his work in dating the Neanderthal extinction and the arrival of modern humans in Europe. He took up a post of Professor of Scientific Archaeology at the University of Vienna in August 2021.
Rachel Wood is a specialist in the radiocarbon dating of Pleistocene archaeological sites. She is a Research Scientist in the Research School for Earth Sciences at The Australian National University.
Carolina Mallol was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1973, and is a professor and researcher of archaeological science at the University of La Laguna in Tenerife, Spain.
The Apidima Cave is a complex of four small caves located on the western shore of Mani Peninsula in Southern Greece. A systematic investigation of the cave has yielded Neanderthal and Homo sapiens fossils from the Palaeolithic era.
The Abrigo de la Quebrada is an archaeological site in the municipality of Chelva, in the Spanish Province of Valencia, ca. 65 km northwest of the city of Valencia. It shows evidence of frequent occupation by Neanderthals.
Cova Negra is an archaeological site near the town of Xàtiva in the Province of Valencia, Spain, with remains that show sporadic and short-term occupation by Neanderthals in the Mousterian period.
This article records new taxa of fossil primates of every kind are scheduled to be described during the year 2019, as well as other significant discoveries and events related to paleontology of primates that are scheduled to occur in the year 2019.
