Homo ergaster is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Africa in the Early Pleistocene. Whether H. ergaster constitutes a species of its own or should be subsumed into H. erectus is an ongoing and unresolved dispute within palaeoanthropology. Proponents of synonymisation typically designate H. ergaster as "African Homo erectus" or "Homo erectus ergaster". The name Homo ergaster roughly translates to "working man", a reference to the more advanced tools used by the species in comparison to those of their ancestors. The fossil range of H. ergaster mainly covers the period of 1.7 to 1.4 million years ago, though a broader time range is possible. Though fossils are known from across East and Southern Africa, most H. ergaster fossils have been found along the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya. There are later African fossils, some younger than 1 million years ago, that indicate long-term anatomical continuity, though it is unclear if they can be formally regarded as H. ergaster specimens. As a chronospecies, H. ergaster may have persisted to as late as 600,000 years ago, when new lineages of Homo arose in Africa.
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".
Herto Man refers to the 160,000- to 154,000-year-old human remains discovered in 1997 from the Upper Herto Member of the Bouri Formation in the Afar Triangle, Ethiopia. The discovery of Herto Man was especially significant at the time as it fell within a long gap in the fossil record between 300 and 100 thousand years ago, and at its description in 2003, it represented the oldest dated H. sapiens remains. In the original description paper, these 12 individuals were described as falling just outside the umbrella of "anatomically modern human". Thus, Herto Man was classified into a new subspecies as "H. s. idaltu". It supposedly represented a transitional morph between the more archaic "H. (s.?) rhodesiensis and H. s. sapiens. Subsequent researchers have rejected this classification. The validity of such subspecies is difficult to justify because of the vague definitions of "species" and "subspecies", especially when discussing a chronospecies, as the exact end-morphology and start-morphology of the ancestor and descendant species are inherently unresolvable.
Homo is the genus that emerged in the genus Australopithecus that encompasses the extant species Homo sapiens, plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely related to modern humans, most notably Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. The genus emerged with the appearance of Homo habilis just over 2 million years ago. Homo, together with the genus Paranthropus, is probably sister to Australopithecus africanus, which itself had previously split from the lineage of Pan, the chimpanzees.
Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship lines within the family Hominidae, working from biological evidence and cultural evidence.
Australopithecus africanus is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived from 3.67 to 2 million years ago in the Middle Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of South Africa. The species has been recovered from Taung and the Cradle of Humankind at Sterkfontein, Makapansgat, and Gladysvale. The first specimen, the Taung child, was described by anatomist Raymond Dart in 1924, and was the first early hominin found. However, its closer relations to humans than to other apes would not become widely accepted until the middle of the century because most had believed humans evolved outside of Africa principally due to the hoax transitional fossil Piltdown Man from Britain. It is unclear how A. africanus relates to other hominins, being variously placed as ancestral to Homo and Paranthropus, to just Paranthropus, or to just P. robustus. The specimen "Little Foot" is the most completely preserved early hominin, with 90% of the skeleton intact, and the oldest South African australopith. However, it is controversially suggested that it and similar specimens be split off into "A. prometheus".
Homo rhodesiensis is the species name proposed by Arthur Smith Woodward (1921) to classify Kabwe 1, a Middle Stone Age fossil recovered from a cave at Broken Hill, or Kabwe, Northern Rhodesia .. In 2020, the skull was dated to 324,000 to 274,000 years ago. Other similar older specimens also exist.
Kabwe is the capital of the Zambian Central Province with a population estimated at 202,914 at the 2010 census. Named Broken Hill until 1966, it was founded when lead and zinc deposits were discovered in 1902. Kabwe also has a claim to being the birthplace of Zambian politics as it was an important political centre during the colonial period. It is an important transportation, farming and Universities. Kabwe is becoming a major Agricultural hub for the country is the head quarters for Zambia Railways and prison services.
Ceprano Man, Argil, and Ceprano Calvarium, refers to a Middle Pleistocene archaic human fossil, a single skull cap (calvaria), accidentally unearthed in a highway construction project in 1994 near Ceprano in the province of Frosinone, Italy. Although damaged by a bulldozer it was recognized, documented and described by archeologist Italo Biddittu, who happened to be present when the fossil came to light. and Mallegni et al. (2003) proposed the introduction of a new human species, dubbed Homo cepranensis, based on the fossil. although other paleontologists have classified it as belonging to Homo heidelbergensis. Mounier et al. (2011) have identified the fossil as "an appropriate ancestral stock" of H. heidelbergensis, "preceding the appearance of regional autapomorphic features".
Human taxonomy is the classification of the human species within zoological taxonomy. The systematic genus, Homo, is designed to include both anatomically modern humans and extinct varieties of archaic humans. Current humans have been designated as subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, differentiated according to some from the direct ancestor, Homo sapiens idaltu.
A number of varieties of Homo are grouped into the broad category of archaic humans in the period that precedes and is contemporary to the emergence of the earliest early modern humans around 300 ka. Omo-Kibish I from southern Ethiopia and the remains from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco and Florisbad in South Africa are among the earliest remains of Homo sapiens. The term typically includes Homo neanderthalensis, Denisovans, Homo rhodesiensis (300–125 ka), Homo heidelbergensis (600–200 ka), Homo naledi, Homo ergaster, and Homo antecessor.
The Boskop Man is an anatomically modern human fossil of the Middle Stone Age discovered in 1913 in South Africa. The fossil was at first described as Homo capensis and considered a separate human species by Broom (1918), but by the 1970s this "Boskopoid" type was widely recognized as representative of the modern Khoisan populations.
Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago, and its specimens are among the first recognisable members of the genus Homo. H. erectus was the first human ancestor to spread throughout Eurasia, with a continental range extending from the Iberian Peninsula to Java. African populations of H. erectus are likely to be the ancestors to several human species, such as H. heidelbergensis and H. antecessor, with the former generally considered to have been the ancestor to Neanderthals and Denisovans, and sometimes also modern humans. Asian populations of H. erectus may be ancestral to H. floresiensis and possibly to H. luzonensis. As a chronospecies, the time of the disappearance of H. erectus is a matter of contention. There are also several proposed subspecies with varying levels of recognition. The last known population of H. erectus is H. e. soloensis from Java, around 117,000–108,000 years ago.
The Florisbad Skull is an important human fossil of the early Middle Stone Age, representing either late Homo heidelbergensis or early Homo sapiens. It was discovered in 1932 by T. F. Dreyer at the Florisbad site, Free State Province, South Africa.
The Bodo cranium is a fossil of an extinct type of hominin species. It was found by members of an expedition led by Jon Kalb in 1976. The Rift Valley Research Mission conducted a number of surveys that led to the findings of Acheulean tools and animal fossils, as well as the Bodo Cranium. The initial discovery was by Alemayhew Asfaw and Charles Smart, who found a lower face. Two weeks later, Paul Whitehead and Craig Wood found the upper portion of the face. Pieces of the cranium were discovered along the surface of one of the dry branches of the Awash River in Ethiopia. The cranium, artifacts, and other animal fossils were found over a relatively large area of medium sand, and only a few of the tools were found near the cranium. The skull is 600,000 years old and is classified as Homo heidelbergensis.
The Ndutu skull is the partial cranium of a hominin that has been assigned variously to late Homo erectusHomo rhodesiensis, and early Homo sapiens, from the Middle Pleistocene, found at Lake Ndutu in northern Tanzania.
Engis 2 refers to part of an assemblage, discovered in 1829 by Dutch physician and naturalist Philippe-Charles Schmerling in the lower of the Schmerling Caves. The pieces that make up Engis 2 are a partially preserved calvaria (cranium) and associated fragments of an upper and a lower jaw, a maxillary bone and an upper incisor tooth of a two to three year old Neanderthal child. The Schmerling Caves are situated just north of the Belgian municipality Engis, whence the name of this group. In 1833 Schmerling described and publicized the find, which included animal bones and stone tools. Recognizing their old age, he associated them with the "Ethiopian Type" of the diluvial period. Although it was not recognized as such until 1936, the publication represents the first scientific description of a Neanderthal fossil.
The Cave of Aroeira is an archaeological and paleoanthropological site in the Portuguese Estremadura Limestone Massif. The cave is located in the village of Almonda, in the civil parish of Zibreira, in the municipality of Torres Novas in the district of Santarém. The cave contained stones from the Paleolithic Acheulean culture, and the skull of Homo heidelbergensis, circa 400,000 years old. The discovery of Aroeira 3 was announced in spring 2017 - the earliest human trace in Portugal.
Kabwe 1 is a Middle Paleolithic fossil assigned by Arthur Smith Woodward in 1921 as the type specimen for Homo rhodesiensis, now mostly considered a synonym of Homo heidelbergensis.
