Homo Heidelbergensis
This chunky little ancestor has had a huge influence on modern humans, as well! Over a million years of hefty evolution is tough to slim down! From this point on we see some of the large – even gigantic human forms develop.
Homo Heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis lived in Europe and Western Asia from at least 600,000-200,000 years ago, and may date in Africa, as far back as 1.3 million years. Rhodesian or Broken Hill man, was a Zambian counterpart dated from 300,000 to 125,000 years ago.
H. heidelbergensis lived in families, communicated successfully with language, and practiced burial rituals with red ocher. Their stone tools resembled the Achulean toolkit of Homo erectus, with large bifacial, pear-shaped hand axes. They also used spears like H. erectus, and likely …show more content…
chosen to wear skin garments.
They survived until about 200,000 years ago, with cranial capacity and brains nearly as large as those of modern humans. These folks were huge and husky! They averaged over 6 feet, but many specimens towered well over 7 feet, and weighed several hundred pounds!
According to Lee R. Berger of the University of Witwatersrand, numerous fossils indicate some populations of heidelbergensis were "giants" routinely over 2.13 m (7 ft.) tall. They inhabited South Africa between 500,000 and 300,000 years ago.
Perspective
They gave rise to several branches on the family tree including Sima, Neanderthal, and Denisova. There are some who think that a version of this early human, or likely his large Denisovan descendants, are responsible for some of the current sightings of Yeti or Bigfoot in the woodlands of our present world. This would seem a good fit. Witnesses both recent and from tribal ancestors say it is not an animal, but a man.
It seems troubling that there is no noted use of fire! Any human form from the time of H. erectus has potentially, used and controlled fire.
Also, there are no weapons or tools outside of wood knockers, and throwing stones. They are, however, credited with tree twists – not only branch twists, stick and branch aggregated “sculptures”, and markers made from uprooted trees which are jammed upside down into the earth several feet.
Nests have been found in caves, abandoned dwellings, and in forest brush structures assembled in a way that reminds the observer of a wikiup.
One explorer pointed to the medicinal use of leaves. Willow leaves were stripped completely off overhead branches, presumably with grasping hands and fingers. The leaves and inner bark of willow contain salicylic acid which is commonly acknowledged as a headache and pain remedy. Salicylic acid acquired the name “Aspirin” in the 1890’s.
Perhaps most enigmatic, some believe they are capable in the use of telepathy, and can read the minds and agendas of those who seek them.
This gives them a non-verbal heads up when humans approach. On the flip side, there are several reports that conversations between individuals have been overheard, though no specific words were identifiable.
Homo Neanderthalensis
Neanderthals developed in Europe and Asia perhaps 300,000 years ago, and existed until 28,000 years ago. They were stocky like their ancestors, and shared with Homo erectus certain skull features like a prominent brow, receding chin, sloping skull and large nose, which helped them warm, and breathe frigid air.
Early anthropologists depicted the Neanderthals as primitive brutish, cave men. A few decades ago, they were thought to be mute hunter-scavengers who made clubs and crude tools. Frustratingly, they were seen as incapable of real language and symbolic communication, or thought.
Actually, they were highly intelligent, and able to adapt to a variety of climates stretching from present-day England and Doggerland, to other parts of Europe, and even East to Uzbekistan, and south to the Red Sea. Some actually crossed back into
Africa.
Living through two separate glacial advances, they mastered the harshest of climates. When plants were scarce they relied heavily on meat, especially hooved animals like horses and reindeer which grazed the Steppe and Tundra.
Neanderthals lived in family groups of about 15 people judging from the size of modest rock shelters. Occasionally they built larger structures, rather than relying solely on natural rock shelters or caves. In France, Molodova, and eastern Ukraine holes in limestone rock remain where shelter poles made of trees or mammoth long bones, tusks and skulls, had once stood.
They were adept at communicating ideas and planning hunts. Communication between groups was necessary for gatherings, where they could trade products and materials, socialize, and find mates.
Strong collaboration skills allowed Neanders to encircle and hunt difficult prey like reindeer, and even much larger Pleistocene prey. Collaboration and skill were critically important because they had to get up close enough to bash with clubs, poke with spears, and heave large rocks. This task would be difficult or possibly fatal, with only one or two people. They lived in dangerous times.
Neanders sustained a great number of injuries of the head and long bones, hazards of hunting and fighting gigantic Pleistocene fauna. Injuries also occurred from living in limestone rock shelters and caves, whose layers slough off crushing anything or anyone below.
Perspective
Erik Trinkhaus, who worked with Neander skeletons 35,000 to 65,000 years old, from Shanidar Cave, stated, “I have yet to see an adult Neanderthal skeleton that doesn’t have at least one fracture. In adults in their 30’s… It is common to see multiple healed fractures.” We know that these people suffered also, from pneumonia, predation and starvation.
“They did practice healing and burial rituals… They must have cared for the infirm as shown by a specimen from Shanidar cave in Iraq, a 40-45 year old man with a variety of fractures… (he) had a blow to the left side of the head which crushed an eye socket and partially blinded him. The bones of his right shoulder and upper arm appeared shriveled as if his forearm had been amputated or severed. The right foot and lower right leg were broken while he was alive and the right knee ankle and foot show that he struggled with injury-induced arthritis that would have made walking painful, if not impossible. He would not have survived without caring help from others.” – Trinkhaus (http://archaeology.about.com/od/archaeologistst/g/trinkhause.htm)
Besides their Mousterian weaponry, they used refined tools similar to modern hunter-gatherers. They worked bone into awls or needles and wood into dishes and pegs. Flake tools whacked off rock such as chert or obsidian were employed for slicing meat off bones and scraping hides to make clothing, blankets or shelters.
Wood hafted knives or saws were embedded with rock chips. Large spear points were hammered from rock and attached securely to wooden shafts with tree pitch which had been brewed into a paste, in a bowl possibly made from a skull cap, which was nested in the ashes or coals. This was a complex process which required planning. Pitch was used heavily in the Middle Stone Age, but Neander used it, 40,000 years ago in Syria and Romania; and over 200,000 years ago in Italy. According to Dutch Archaeologist, Wil Roebroeks (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/defy-stereotypes.html)
A wide array of Neander arts have surfaced, suggesting a rich spiritual culture. They made physical adornments and ornaments of painted shells, bone, ivory and animal teeth; some of which are perforated or marked with grooves. They may have used face paints or tattoos. Surely they plied other crafts using feathers, twigs, hide, and rushes. These material would not usually survive the ages, unless their castings were buried.
In Europe, Neanderthals were using red ocher as paint 250,000 years ago – least! They used yellow, brown and red ocher pigments, and even black manganese dioxide for paints and “crayons” to decorate skin, hides, statues and rocks. They probably gathered flowers and made pendants of feathers, shell and beads. Some of these items found their way into burials.
A nearly complete skeleton found in a cave pit inside a at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, in southwestern France, raised the possibility that these relatives of ours intentionally buried their dead — at least 50,000 years ago. These and at least 40 subsequent discoveries, from Europe, Israel and Iraq, suggest that Neanderthals actually had complex funeral practices.
They left behind beautiful funerary gifts. Several flutes like the Divja Babe flute, have been found. This one was drilled from a cave bear leg bone around 55,000 years ago. Stones, and beautiful spear points - perhaps even flowers decorated a grave sites at a Shanidar Cave in Iraq 60-80,000 years ago. Another burial was bound in a precious bearskin 70,000 years ago in southwest France.
About the same time, a non-Neanderthal boy in southern Africa, was covered in red ochre, and buried with a seashell pendant. In Blombos Cave at the tip of South Africa Our Primitive ancestors worked red ochre as far back as 300,000 years ago! All this care suggests friends and family members practiced respect for the living and the dead, as well as love and artistry in their rather rugged existences.
In Malaga Spain painted stalactites depict helix-like chains of swimming seals. These are among the animals that local Neanders would have eaten said, says José Luis Sanchidrián at the University of Cordoba, Spain. They have “no parallel in Paleolithic art”. Charcoal remains found beside six of the paintings preserved in Spain’s Nerja caves have been radiocarbon dated to between 43,500 and 42,300 years old.
The next dated paintings, 33,000-30,000 years ago, have been thought to be the work of Modern man. Pictures in Chavet cave in France reflect beautiful horses, aurochs, rhinos, bears and large cats, as well as other land and water creatures. These are not generally thought to be the work of our Neanderthal brethren, even though they did live in France at that time! They just had not been given credit for producing beautiful art until now. The Malaga seals may cause us to rethink the possibility of other Neander paintings in France.
At times ancestral peoples were overrun by competitive modern neighbors who had more cunning technology and better hunting strategies. The newer arrivals had developed spear throwers and could attack from a safe distance. Neanderthals had to face their enemies or their prey, in much closer quarters to be successful. It seems the paths of these two human groups intertwined for at least 5,000 years before the noted disappearance of the Neanderthals.
Toward the end of their era, Neanderthals of pure lineage these people retreated to Spain, France and Croatia. They disappeared from the Iberian Peninsula 28, 000 years ago. Yet there is evidence that Neanderthals may not all have been wiped out from conflict with more advanced neighbors, disease and starvation. Some have successfully interbred with their competitors. Recent DNA tests confirm that Neander blood is carried by a fair percentage of modern humans.
“Analysis of the skeletal remains of a four-year–old boy buried in a Portuguese rock-shelter 25,000-24,000 years ago shows a prominent chin, tooth size, and pelvic measurements that mark him as a Cro-Magnon, or fully modern human. His stocky body and short legs indicate Neanderthal heritage”, says
Homo Heidelbergensis
Homo heidelbergensis lived in Europe and Western Asia from at least 600,000-200,000 years ago, and may date in Africa, as far back as 1.3 million years. Rhodesian or Broken Hill man, was a Zambian counterpart dated from 300,000 to 125,000 years ago.
H. heidelbergensis lived in families, communicated successfully with language, and practiced burial rituals with red ocher. Their stone tools resembled the Achulean toolkit of Homo erectus, with large bifacial, pear-shaped hand axes. They also used spears like H. erectus, and likely …show more content…
chosen to wear skin garments.
They survived until about 200,000 years ago, with cranial capacity and brains nearly as large as those of modern humans. These folks were huge and husky! They averaged over 6 feet, but many specimens towered well over 7 feet, and weighed several hundred pounds!
According to Lee R. Berger of the University of Witwatersrand, numerous fossils indicate some populations of heidelbergensis were "giants" routinely over 2.13 m (7 ft.) tall. They inhabited South Africa between 500,000 and 300,000 years ago.
Perspective
They gave rise to several branches on the family tree including Sima, Neanderthal, and Denisova. There are some who think that a version of this early human, or likely his large Denisovan descendants, are responsible for some of the current sightings of Yeti or Bigfoot in the woodlands of our present world. This would seem a good fit. Witnesses both recent and from tribal ancestors say it is not an animal, but a man.
It seems troubling that there is no noted use of fire! Any human form from the time of H. erectus has potentially, used and controlled fire.
Also, there are no weapons or tools outside of wood knockers, and throwing stones. They are, however, credited with tree twists – not only branch twists, stick and branch aggregated “sculptures”, and markers made from uprooted trees which are jammed upside down into the earth several feet.
Nests have been found in caves, abandoned dwellings, and in forest brush structures assembled in a way that reminds the observer of a wikiup.
One explorer pointed to the medicinal use of leaves. Willow leaves were stripped completely off overhead branches, presumably with grasping hands and fingers. The leaves and inner bark of willow contain salicylic acid which is commonly acknowledged as a headache and pain remedy. Salicylic acid acquired the name “Aspirin” in the 1890’s.
Perhaps most enigmatic, some believe they are capable in the use of telepathy, and can read the minds and agendas of those who seek them.
This gives them a non-verbal heads up when humans approach. On the flip side, there are several reports that conversations between individuals have been overheard, though no specific words were identifiable.
Homo Neanderthalensis
Neanderthals developed in Europe and Asia perhaps 300,000 years ago, and existed until 28,000 years ago. They were stocky like their ancestors, and shared with Homo erectus certain skull features like a prominent brow, receding chin, sloping skull and large nose, which helped them warm, and breathe frigid air.
Early anthropologists depicted the Neanderthals as primitive brutish, cave men. A few decades ago, they were thought to be mute hunter-scavengers who made clubs and crude tools. Frustratingly, they were seen as incapable of real language and symbolic communication, or thought.
Actually, they were highly intelligent, and able to adapt to a variety of climates stretching from present-day England and Doggerland, to other parts of Europe, and even East to Uzbekistan, and south to the Red Sea. Some actually crossed back into
Africa.
Living through two separate glacial advances, they mastered the harshest of climates. When plants were scarce they relied heavily on meat, especially hooved animals like horses and reindeer which grazed the Steppe and Tundra.
Neanderthals lived in family groups of about 15 people judging from the size of modest rock shelters. Occasionally they built larger structures, rather than relying solely on natural rock shelters or caves. In France, Molodova, and eastern Ukraine holes in limestone rock remain where shelter poles made of trees or mammoth long bones, tusks and skulls, had once stood.
They were adept at communicating ideas and planning hunts. Communication between groups was necessary for gatherings, where they could trade products and materials, socialize, and find mates.
Strong collaboration skills allowed Neanders to encircle and hunt difficult prey like reindeer, and even much larger Pleistocene prey. Collaboration and skill were critically important because they had to get up close enough to bash with clubs, poke with spears, and heave large rocks. This task would be difficult or possibly fatal, with only one or two people. They lived in dangerous times.
Neanders sustained a great number of injuries of the head and long bones, hazards of hunting and fighting gigantic Pleistocene fauna. Injuries also occurred from living in limestone rock shelters and caves, whose layers slough off crushing anything or anyone below.
Perspective
Erik Trinkhaus, who worked with Neander skeletons 35,000 to 65,000 years old, from Shanidar Cave, stated, “I have yet to see an adult Neanderthal skeleton that doesn’t have at least one fracture. In adults in their 30’s… It is common to see multiple healed fractures.” We know that these people suffered also, from pneumonia, predation and starvation.
“They did practice healing and burial rituals… They must have cared for the infirm as shown by a specimen from Shanidar cave in Iraq, a 40-45 year old man with a variety of fractures… (he) had a blow to the left side of the head which crushed an eye socket and partially blinded him. The bones of his right shoulder and upper arm appeared shriveled as if his forearm had been amputated or severed. The right foot and lower right leg were broken while he was alive and the right knee ankle and foot show that he struggled with injury-induced arthritis that would have made walking painful, if not impossible. He would not have survived without caring help from others.” – Trinkhaus (http://archaeology.about.com/od/archaeologistst/g/trinkhause.htm)
Besides their Mousterian weaponry, they used refined tools similar to modern hunter-gatherers. They worked bone into awls or needles and wood into dishes and pegs. Flake tools whacked off rock such as chert or obsidian were employed for slicing meat off bones and scraping hides to make clothing, blankets or shelters.
Wood hafted knives or saws were embedded with rock chips. Large spear points were hammered from rock and attached securely to wooden shafts with tree pitch which had been brewed into a paste, in a bowl possibly made from a skull cap, which was nested in the ashes or coals. This was a complex process which required planning. Pitch was used heavily in the Middle Stone Age, but Neander used it, 40,000 years ago in Syria and Romania; and over 200,000 years ago in Italy. According to Dutch Archaeologist, Wil Roebroeks (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/defy-stereotypes.html)
A wide array of Neander arts have surfaced, suggesting a rich spiritual culture. They made physical adornments and ornaments of painted shells, bone, ivory and animal teeth; some of which are perforated or marked with grooves. They may have used face paints or tattoos. Surely they plied other crafts using feathers, twigs, hide, and rushes. These material would not usually survive the ages, unless their castings were buried.
In Europe, Neanderthals were using red ocher as paint 250,000 years ago – least! They used yellow, brown and red ocher pigments, and even black manganese dioxide for paints and “crayons” to decorate skin, hides, statues and rocks. They probably gathered flowers and made pendants of feathers, shell and beads. Some of these items found their way into burials.
A nearly complete skeleton found in a cave pit inside a at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, in southwestern France, raised the possibility that these relatives of ours intentionally buried their dead — at least 50,000 years ago. These and at least 40 subsequent discoveries, from Europe, Israel and Iraq, suggest that Neanderthals actually had complex funeral practices.
They left behind beautiful funerary gifts. Several flutes like the Divja Babe flute, have been found. This one was drilled from a cave bear leg bone around 55,000 years ago. Stones, and beautiful spear points - perhaps even flowers decorated a grave sites at a Shanidar Cave in Iraq 60-80,000 years ago. Another burial was bound in a precious bearskin 70,000 years ago in southwest France.
About the same time, a non-Neanderthal boy in southern Africa, was covered in red ochre, and buried with a seashell pendant. In Blombos Cave at the tip of South Africa Our Primitive ancestors worked red ochre as far back as 300,000 years ago! All this care suggests friends and family members practiced respect for the living and the dead, as well as love and artistry in their rather rugged existences.
In Malaga Spain painted stalactites depict helix-like chains of swimming seals. These are among the animals that local Neanders would have eaten said, says José Luis Sanchidrián at the University of Cordoba, Spain. They have “no parallel in Paleolithic art”. Charcoal remains found beside six of the paintings preserved in Spain’s Nerja caves have been radiocarbon dated to between 43,500 and 42,300 years old.
The next dated paintings, 33,000-30,000 years ago, have been thought to be the work of Modern man. Pictures in Chavet cave in France reflect beautiful horses, aurochs, rhinos, bears and large cats, as well as other land and water creatures. These are not generally thought to be the work of our Neanderthal brethren, even though they did live in France at that time! They just had not been given credit for producing beautiful art until now. The Malaga seals may cause us to rethink the possibility of other Neander paintings in France.
At times ancestral peoples were overrun by competitive modern neighbors who had more cunning technology and better hunting strategies. The newer arrivals had developed spear throwers and could attack from a safe distance. Neanderthals had to face their enemies or their prey, in much closer quarters to be successful. It seems the paths of these two human groups intertwined for at least 5,000 years before the noted disappearance of the Neanderthals.
Toward the end of their era, Neanderthals of pure lineage these people retreated to Spain, France and Croatia. They disappeared from the Iberian Peninsula 28, 000 years ago. Yet there is evidence that Neanderthals may not all have been wiped out from conflict with more advanced neighbors, disease and starvation. Some have successfully interbred with their competitors. Recent DNA tests confirm that Neander blood is carried by a fair percentage of modern humans.
“Analysis of the skeletal remains of a four-year–old boy buried in a Portuguese rock-shelter 25,000-24,000 years ago shows a prominent chin, tooth size, and pelvic measurements that mark him as a Cro-Magnon, or fully modern human. His stocky body and short legs indicate Neanderthal heritage”, says