Meganthropus is an extinct genus of non-hominin hominid ape, known from the Pleistocene of Indonesia. It is known from a series of large jaw and skull fragments found at the Sangiran site near Surakarta in Central Java, Indonesia, alongside several isolated teeth. The genus has a long and convoluted taxonomic history. The original fossils were ascribed to a new species, Meganthropus palaeojavanicus, and for a long time was considered invalid, with the genus name being used as an informal name for the fossils.
Anagenesis is the gradual evolution of a species that continues to exist as an interbreeding population. This contrasts with cladogenesis, which occurs when there is branching or splitting, leading to two or more lineages and resulting in separate species. Anagenesis does not always lead to the formation of a new species from an ancestral species. When speciation does occur as different lineages branch off and cease to interbreed, a core group may continue to be defined as the original species. The evolution of this group, without extinction or species selection, is anagenesis.
Homo rhodesiensis is the species name proposed by Arthur Smith Woodward (1921) to classify Kabwe 1, a Middle Stone Age fossil recovered from Broken Hill mine in Kabwe, Northern Rhodesia. In 2020, the skull was dated to 324,000 to 274,000 years ago. Other similar older specimens also exist.
Ceprano Man, Argil, and Ceprano Calvarium, is a Middle Pleistocene archaic human fossil, a single skull cap (calvarium), accidentally unearthed in a highway construction project in 1994 near Ceprano in the Province of Frosinone, Italy. It was initially considered Homo cepranensis, Homo erectus, or possibly Homo antecessor; but in recent studies, most regard it either as a form of Homo heidelbergensis sharing affinities with African forms, or an early morph of Neanderthal.
Yuanmou Man is a subspecies of H. erectus which inhabited the Yuanmou Basin in Yunnan Province, southwestern China, roughly 1.7 million years ago. It is the first fossil evidence of humans in China, though they probably reached the region by at least 2 million years ago. Yuanmou Man is known only from two upper first incisors presumed to have belonged to a male, and a partial tibia presumed to have belonged to a female. The female may have stood about 123.6–130.4 cm in life. These remains are anatomically quite similar to those contemporary early Homo in Africa, namely H. habilis and H. (e?) ergaster.
OH 7, also nicknamed "Johnny's Child", is the type specimen of Homo habilis. The fossils were discovered on November 4, 1960 in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, by Jonathan and Mary Leakey. The remains are dated to approximately 1.75 million years, and consist of fragmented parts of a lower mandible, an isolated maxillary molar, two parietal bones, and twenty-one finger, hand, and wrist bones.
David Pilbeam is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and curator of paleoanthropology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University.
Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Its specimens are among the first recognizable members of the genus Homo.
The Liujiang man is among the earliest modern humans found in East Asia. The remains were discovered in the Tongtianyan Cave (通天岩) in Liujiang, Guangxi, China.
The multiregional hypothesis, multiregional evolution (MRE), or polycentric hypothesis, is a scientific model that provides an alternative explanation to the more widely accepted "out of Africa" model of monogenesis for the pattern of human evolution.
The Skhul and Qafzeh hominins or Qafzeh–Skhul early modern humans are hominin fossils discovered in Es-Skhul and Qafzeh caves in Israel. They are today classified as Homo sapiens, among the earliest of their species in Eurasia. Skhul Cave is on the slopes of Mount Carmel; Qafzeh Cave is a rockshelter near Nazareth in Lower Galilee.
Gondolin Cave is a fossiliferous dolomitic paleocave system in the Northwest Province, South Africa. The paleocave formed in the Eccles Formation dolomites. Gondolin is currently the only described hominin-bearing fossil site in the Northwest Province-portion of the designated Cradle of Humankind UNESCO World Heritage Site. The cave is located on privately owned land and is not accessible to the public. As is the case with other South African Paleo-cave systems with Pliocene and/or Pleistocene fossil deposits, the system was mined for lime during the early 20th century. As a result, the system has been heavily disturbed and consists of only a small active cave, a series of in situ remnant cave deposits, and extensive dumpsites of ex situ calcified sediments produced during mining activities.
The Lake Mungo remains are three prominent sets of human remains that are possibly Aboriginal Australian: Lake Mungo 1, Lake Mungo 3, and Lake Mungo 2 (LM2). Lake Mungo is in New South Wales, Australia, specifically the World Heritage listed Willandra Lakes Region.
Olduvai Hominid number 9, known as the Chellean Man, is a fossilized skull cap of an early hominin, found in LLK II, Olduvai Gorge by Louis S. B. Leakey in 1960. It is believed to be around 1.4 million years old. Its cranial capacity is estimated at than 1067 cm3, the largest value among all known African Homo erectus specimens. OH 9 is significant because the features it carried and its correlation to the species classification it resides in.
The Dmanisi hominins, Dmanisi people, or Dmanisi man were a population of Early Pleistocene hominins whose fossils have been recovered at Dmanisi, Georgia. The fossils and stone tools recovered at Dmanisi range in age from 1.85 to 1.77 million years old, making the Dmanisi hominins the earliest well-dated hominin fossils in Eurasia and the best preserved fossils of early Homo from a single site so early in time, though earlier fossils and artifacts have been found in Asia. Though their precise classification is controversial and disputed, the Dmanisi fossils are highly significant within research on early hominin migrations out of Africa. The Dmanisi hominins are known from over a hundred postcranial fossils and five famous well-preserved skulls, referred to as Dmanisi Skulls 1–5.
Apidima Cave is a complex of five caves 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 hominin remains discovered at Sambungmacan are a series of four archaic human fossils assigned to Homo erectus and discovered in Java. The first is the calvarium is Sm 1, the second is a tibial fragment Sm 2, and the third and fourth are calvaria Sm 3 and Sm 4. Laitman and Tattersall (2001) suggested naming Sm 3, the second calvarium in the series, Homo erectus newyorkensis, but later sources do not agree with this taxonomic scheme.
The Narmada Human, originally the Narmada Man, is a species of extinct human that lived in central India during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. From a skull cup discovered from the bank of the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh in 1982, the discoverer, Arun Sonakia classified it was an archaic human and gave the name Narmada Man, with the scientific name H. erectus narmadensis. Analysis of additional fossils from the same location in 1997 indicated that the individual could be a female, hence, a revised name, Narmada Human, was introduced. It remains the oldest human species in India.
