Is it correct that Cro-Magnon man, which follows Neanderthal man, IS modern man? Or, is modern man (as we know man today) yet a third major stage in the development of the species of homo sapien? (Note: Sometimes, Cro-Magnon man is referred to as homo sapiens sapiens)
Going out to invent some fire…
JFTR Neanderthal man is not thought to have been part of our lineage - it was a different but closely related branch.
Well, I’ve read that the term Cro-Magnon refers to a cultural stage, not to a physically different kind of human.
Hmm…maybe, maybe not. Would you have a link, to help support this? It’d be a great help to me.
My source, “Biological Science” by Keeton, William T. © 1980, is a bit unclear in its presentation of this subject matter. First, it mentions three “stages” of prehistoric man: Java Man, Neanderthal Man, and Cro-Magnon Man. While it does not give more detail about Java Man, it does say Neanderthal Man made tools and buried their dead. Then, Neanderthal Man disappeared once Cro-Magnon man appeared. It subtly suggests that Cro-Magnon man may have been a different “breed” or “tribe” of man.
Also, adding to the confusion, the book then shows a branch of man stemming from Early and Late Ramapithecus to Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens. However, another branch of man off of Late Ramapithecus is two divisions of Australopithecus, however both divisions are believed to be a dead-end not leading us back to find early ancestors of modern man, or so it is believed.
Note: Words in quotes above are my words for lack of more correct or proper terminology.
Some theorized that whilst Neanderthals died out they may have contributed genetically to modern humand via crossbreeding. The last article I saw referring to this effectively ruled out any passing on of Neanderthal genes after a mitochondrial DNA analysis.
By this, I meant the text fails to show how the above stages of man relate to the divisions of man (previously mentioned by Jinx in this thread) as Java Man, Neanderthal Man, and Cro-Magnon Man.
Very confusing!
IANAA, but, as I understand it, much has happened in anthropology since then and it probably is somewhat outdated.
To be more precise there have now been four (IIRC) (different) sets of tests on dna extracted from Neandertal bones over the past several years, all of which have placed Neandertal outside of the range of modern human genetic diversity.
It appears then that Neandertal was a side branch. Certainly it seems fairly clear that Neandertal did not contribute to modern extent humanity.
Cro Magnon btw is the name applied to early modern humans that first entered Europe, homo sapiens. African migrants.
Archaelogy. Badly dated actually.
Human Evolution has a handsome timeline which may be useful.
H. sapiens sapiens is US. Sapiens-sapiens has been banging around for about a couple of hundred thousand years, existing simultaneously with the neanderthals for most of that time before makng it big in the last 40 thou.
OTOH, let’s remember that H. sapiens sapiens shows an extremely wide range of phenotypical variation today (compare Shaquille O’Neal with Kim Jong-Il) so indeed the folks hanging out during the last Ice Age may have looked and acted quite characteristically. But genetically that was you and me. Oh, sure, we are a more “domesticated” version, but that’s due to 20K+ years of refinements in quality-of-life technology.
Jinx:
“Java Man” = Homo erectus; Neanderthal = H. neanderthalensis; C-M = H. sapiens; and you’re right that the book would be unclear, if it was using the “______ Man” terminology which is inexact at best and was outdated already by that time. Sounds like someone putting together that edition tried to force-fit the older “divisions of man” version with a newer evolutionary-cladogram version.
No, I mean anthropology as in the definition “the science of human beings”. Palaeontologists and archaeologist use much the similar methods, though.
Jinx:
Sorry, that one’s the MISSING LINK! 
(someone had to say it)
Looks like Coll was the only one actually addressing the OP, but no one has actually given a yes/no answer. The answer is yes. Cro-Magnon man is named after that area of France where the fossils were found, just as Neanderthal man is named after the region in Germany where those fossils were first found. As has been said, Cro-Magnon is typically used to label the first H. sapiens in Europe, about 40k years ago. At that time, we were also in Africa (where we all came from), Asia, and Australia. Non-European sapiens are not usually called Cro-Magnon.
I could be wrong, but I think the tern H. sapiens sapiens is not much in use these days. It was commonly used when it was thought that Neanderthals were ancestral to us or more closely related to us than is thought today. At that time, they were often called H. sapiens neanderthlensis. Most anthropologists today put Neanderthals in a seperate species, not a subspecies, so the extra “sapiens” is not needed to distinguish us from our cousins, who are now referred to as simply H. neanderthalensis. From the mtDNA data that Coll mentioned, it appears that we last shared a common ancestor with the Neanderthals about 500k years ago.
The subject line cracked me up.
“Do you feel lucky, genome?”
As a general rule, any book on science that is more than 5 years old is worthless as current thinking. They may be very good for tracing the history of field and setting out the basics and context for what you need to know to understand current thinking, however.
For current thinking on humans almost any book is obsolete, because new discoveries have been turning up with amazing frequency. Both New Scientist and Scientific American have good web sites with articles from back issues easily searchable. A reference from 1980 is like a pop album from 1980 in its hipness factor.
I’ve read that Cro-Magnums were genetically identical, and had the same brain cavity sizes. The guess I read was that you could almost certainly teach one to fly a plane, just as an example of a pretty darn complicated human endeavor.
Novelty value.
Thanks, my writing yesterday was not the clearest by any standard.
This matches my understanding.
Also. I might amplify by noting that the 4 assays, latest one published just recently were also geographically (re their samples) and chronologically dispersed, and their results have all apparently ended up with data suggesting, as Mace notes, a relatively deep time split btw H.s. and H.n.
BTW on the last message in re Cro Magnon being genetically identical, they’re modern man (they’re us) – we’re largely quite genetically homogenous, so I believe this is what you refer to.
I don’t know about that.
I’ve been working my way thru “General Theory of Relativity” by Albert Einstein, from about 75 years ago. And as far as I can tell, it’s pretty much still accepted today.
Maybe there’s an exception for books by Noble Prize Laurates? Or maybe writing a science book that’s still valid decades later is something that indicates Noble-level thinking?
But your general idea is certainly true in my field: Computer Science. I can think of only a few books over 5 years old that are still valid. Even 3 years is pushing it. Heck, most computer languages over 5 years old are themselves defunct. The few that survive longer (like COBOL, approching age 50) are true classics, outstanding in their field.
On a related topic, I saw on the news this morning that some research team has been analysing chimp DNA and has discovered that they are even more closely related to humans than previously thought. The quoted figure was 99.4% and the team in question was calling for chimps to be reclassified and put in the same family as us.
The news article was shown on GMTV in the UK