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Neandertal
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the "causes of Neanderthal disappearance about 40,000 years ago remain highly contested," demographic factors such as small population size, inbreeding and genetic drift, are considered probable factors. Other scholars have proposed competitive replacement, assimilation into the modern human genome (bred into extinction), great climatic change, disease, or a combination of these factors. It is unclear when the line of Neanderthals split from that of modern humans; studies have produced various intervals ranging from 315,000 to more than 800,000 years ago. The date of divergence of Neanderthals from their ancestor ''H. heidelbergensis'' is also unclear. The oldest potential Neanderthal bones date to 430,000 years ago, but the classificat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neanderthal 1
Feldhofer 1 or Neanderthal 1 is the scientific name of the 40,000-year-old type specimen fossil of the species ''Homo neanderthalensis'', found in August 1856 in a German cave, the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte in the Neandertal valley, east of Düsseldorf. In 1864 the fossil's description was first published in a scientific magazine and officially named.William King: ''The Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal''. In: ''Quarterly Journal of Science''. Band 1, 1864, S. 88–97Volltext (PDF; 356 kB)/ref> However, the find was not the first Neanderthal fossil discovery. Other Neanderthal fossils had been discovered earlier, but their true nature and significance had not been recognized, and therefore no separate species' name was assigned. The discovery was made by limestone quarry miners. Neanderthal 1 consists of a skullcap, two femora, the three right arm bones, two of the left arm bones, ilium, and fragments of a scapula and ribs. The fossils were given to Johann Carl Fu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neander Valley
The Neandertal (, also , ; sometimes called "the Neander Valley" in English) is a small valley of the river Düssel in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located about east of Düsseldorf, the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia. The valley lies within the limits of the towns of Erkrath and Mettmann. In August 1856, the area became famous for the discovery of Neanderthal 1, one of the first specimens of '' Homo neanderthalensis'' to be found. The Neandertal was originally a limestone canyon widely known for its rugged scenery, waterfalls and caves. However, industrial quarrying during the 19th and 20th centuries removed most of the limestone and dramatically changed the shape of the valley. It was during such a quarrying operation that the bones of the original Neanderthal man were found in a cave known as Kleine Feldhofer Grotte. Neither the cave nor the cliff in which the bones were located still exist. During the 19th century, the valley was called (Neande ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Modern Human
Early modern human (EMH) or anatomically modern human (AMH) are terms used to distinguish ''Homo sapiens'' (the only extant Hominina species) that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans from extinct archaic human species. This distinction is useful especially for times and regions where anatomically modern and archaic humans co-existed, for example, in Paleolithic Europe. Among the oldest known remains of ''Homo sapiens'' are those found at the Omo-Kibish I archaeological site in south-western Ethiopia, dating to about 233,000 to 196,000 years ago, the Florisbad site in South Africa, dating to about 259,000 years ago, and the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco, dated about 315,000 years ago. Extinct species of the genus ''Homo'' include '' Homo erectus'' (extant from roughly 2 to 0.1 million years ago) and a number of other species (by some authors considered subspecies of either ''H. sapiens'' or ''H. erectus''). The divergen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. Comprising the westernmost peninsulas of Eurasia, it shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe ... is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Blac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neanderthals In Southwest Asia
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. In Southwest Asia Neanderthals have left well-preserved skeletal remains in present-day Israel, Syria, and Iraq. Remains in Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran are fragmentary. No Neanderthal skeletal remains have ever been found to the south of Jerusalem, and although there are Middle Palaeolithic Levallois points in Jordan and in the Arabian peninsula, it is uncle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William King (geologist)
William King (22 April 1809 – 24 June 1886), was an Anglo-Irish geologist at Queen's College Galway. He was the first (in 1864) to propose that the bones found in the German valley of Neanderthal in 1856 were not of ''Homo sapiens'', but of a distinct species: ''Homo neanderthalensis''. He proposed the name of this new species at a meeting of the British Association in 1863, with the written version published in 1864. Life King was born to William King, a coal worker, and his wife Eleanor née Armstrong who was a confectioner and shop owner. He grew up in Durham and went to study in Sunderland and apprenticed at various times with an ironmonger, book-seller and a librarian. He took an early interest in collecting fossils. He worked at the Newcastle museum in 1841 but left it after six years after conflict with the employers. In 1849 he joined Queen's College Galway and during his long career there published nearly 70 papers and established a museum. He developed a course ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaic Humans
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 (''Homo sapiens'') around 300 ka. Omo-Kibish I (Omo I) from southern Ethiopia ( 195 or 233 ka), the remains from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco (about 315 ka) and Florisbad in South Africa (259 ka) are among the earliest remains of ''Homo sapiens''. The term typically includes '' Homo neanderthalensis'' (430 ± 25 ka), Denisovans, '' Homo rhodesiensis'' (300–125 ka), '' Homo heidelbergensis'' (600–200 ka), '' Homo naledi'', '' Homo ergaster'', '' Homo antecessor'', and ''Homo habilis''. There is no universal consensus on this terminology, and varieties of "archaic humans" are included under the binomial name of either ''Homo sapiens'' or ''Homo erectus'' by some authors. Archaic humans had a brain size averaging 1,200 to 1,400 cubic centimeters, which overlaps with the range ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homo Heidelbergensis
''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, 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 (Mauer 1) 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." ''H. heidelbergensis'' is regarded as a chronospecies, evolving from an A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetic Drift
Genetic drift, also known as allelic drift or the Wright effect, is the change in the frequency of an existing gene variant (allele) in a population due to random chance. Genetic drift may cause gene variants to disappear completely and thereby reduce genetic variation. It can also cause initially rare alleles to become much more frequent and even fixed. When few copies of an allele exist, the effect of genetic drift is more notable, and when many copies exist, the effect is less notable. In the middle of the 20th century, vigorous debates occurred over the relative importance of natural selection versus neutral processes, including genetic drift. Ronald Fisher, who explained natural selection using Mendelian genetics, held the view that genetic drift plays at most a minor role in evolution, and this remained the dominant view for several decades. In 1968, population geneticist Motoo Kimura rekindled the debate with his neutral theory of molecular evolution, which claims ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago and the Russian Far East to the east. The continental landmass is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and Africa to the west, the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and by Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean to the south. The division between Europe and Asia as two continents is a historical social construct, as many of their borders are over land; thus, in some parts of the world, Eurasia is recognized as the largest of the six, five, or four continents on Earth. In geology, Eurasia is often considered as a single rigid megablock. However, the rigidity of Eurasia is debated based on paleomagnetic data. Eurasia covers around , or around 36.2% of the Earth's total land area. It is also home to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Pleistocene
The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale or a Stage (stratigraphy), stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. The Chibanian name was officially ratified in January 2020. It is currently estimated to span the time between 0.770 annum, Ma (770,000 years ago) and 0.126 Ma (126,000 years ago), also expressed as 770–126 ka. It includes the transition in palaeoanthropology from the Lower Palaeolithic, Lower to the Middle Palaeolithic over 300 ka. The Chibanian is preceded by the Calabrian (stage), Calabrian and succeeded by the proposed Tarantian. The beginning of the Chibanian is the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, when the Earth's magnetic field last underwent reversal. It ends with the onset of the Eemian interglacial period (Marine Isotope Stage 5). The term Middle Pleistocene was in use as a provisional or "quasi-fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Genome
The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the nuclear genome and the mitochondrial genome. Human genomes include both protein-coding DNA sequences and various types of DNA that does not encode proteins. The latter is a diverse category that includes DNA coding for non-translated RNA, such as that for ribosomal RNA, transfer RNA, ribozymes, small nuclear RNAs, and several types of regulatory RNAs. It also includes promoters and their associated gene-regulatory elements, DNA playing structural and replicatory roles, such as scaffolding regions, telomeres, centromeres, and origins of replication, plus large numbers of transposable elements, inserted viral DNA, non-functional pseudogenes and simple, highly-repetitive sequences. Introns make up a large percentage of non-coding DN ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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