Many readers may remember learning that human evolution took place in four stages: Ape-man (new hominid), Primitive Man, Early Man and Modern Man. These evolutionary stages still persist, but it is also true that such simple classification can no longer handle every detail.

Currently, Ape-man is subdivided into Australopithecus, Homo, and Paranthropus. Even in the year 2001, an Ape-man fossil of what may be a totally new lineage called Kenyanthropus platyops was recently discovered.

Furthermore, a distinction between Primitive Man and Early and Modern Man has become vague. Primitive Man is called Homo erectus, and it is thought that human ancestors left Africa during this stage to spread throughout the world.

Java men and Peking men are also classified as Homo erectus that had migrated to Asia.

Early Men originally indicated Neanderthals, and Modern Men, the Cro-Magnon men. They both were the ancient population of Europe but the Cro-Magnon were no doubt modern in an anatomical sense. Today they are often referred to as modern Homo sapiens. And Early Men, including the Neanderthals, were also found throughout the world. Such human beings of Early Man stage are collectively called archaic Homo sapiens.

In Europe, the Cro-Magnon appeared after the Neanderthal ceased to exist. So the classification of Early and Modern fits perfectly. But it has now become clear that such understanding was a big mistake.

Although it is known that in Europe, Cro-Magnon men took over the now extinct Neanderthals. But when we look at the Middle East, we realize that such was not the case.

The skeleton of modern Homo sapiens found in Qafzah Cave in Levanto were dated and proved itself to date back 90,000 years.

Such discovery overthrew the established evolutionary model. Many anthropologists supported the idea that archaic Homo sapiens had evolved into modern Homo sapiens in Middle West, somewhere near Levanto. But the fact that modern Homo sapiens were found from the layer dating back 90,000 years would mean that the Neanderthals of archaic Homo sapiens and modern Homo sapiens had lived together for more than 60,000 years.

Apart from the above, the discovery in Levanto proved that Neanderthals moved in after the modern Homo sapiens did.

As this signifies, the relationship between archaic Homo sapiens and modern Homo sapiens is not as simple as old- to-new linear time line. Recently, an older type of archaic Homo sapiens, classified as Proto Neanderthal, were found from several locations through out the world. It would be more appropriate to think that Proto Neanderthal is archaic Homo sapiens, and Neanderthals are another lineage of Homo sapiens with different appearance that is quite unique. In fact, although Neanderthals possess rather old characteristics, the average volume of its head was 1400 cc, exceeding the average of the modern men that is 1350cc.

Translated by Rie Ishida