4. How they are related to Modern humans?

Today, all the Homo sapiens found throughout the world, including Neanderthals, are generally termed as Archaic Homo sapiens, whereas modern humans after Cro-Magnons are called Modern Homo sapiens.

There was a reason for this change in terms. Previous terms such as "Early-man" and "Modern-Man" did make sense because in Europe, the last Neanderthals had ceased to exist some 28,000 years ago and were replaced by the Cro-Magnons. But now, it became apparent that situation was somewhat different in the Middle East.

The skeleton of Modern Homo sapiens found in Qafzah Cave, Levant, after going through the latest dating process, 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 the Middle East, somewhere near Levant. But the fact that Modern Homo sapiens were found from the layer dating back 90,000 years would signify that the Neanderthals of Archaic Homo sapiens and Modern Homo sapiens had lived together for more than 60,000 years. Regarding Levant, in particular, it is now clear that Neanderthals moved into the location after the Modern Homo sapiens.

On this particular finding, Boule was right in stating that Neanderthals were merely a broken branch of the human evolution and that they are of different lineage from the modern men.

The fossils recovered in Levant forced the academic world to reconsider the already established view on the cultural aspects of each hominids.

The Modern Homo-sapiens recovered in Levant revealed that they had utilized the Mousterian stone culture that was thought to be peculiar to Neanderthals. Furthermore, Aurignacian stone artifacts thought to be peculiar to Cro-Magnons, and belonging to a more developed stone culture were recently found alongside with the Neanderthals in Europe.

Up to now, it was thought that Neanderthals had the Mousterian stone culture and Cro-Magnons had the more developed Aurignacian stone culture. But difference between the two was merely a matter of time, one being old and another being new. Both hominids shared the same culture during the same era. Aurignacian stone tools had not been discovered along with the Neanderthals until recently only because Neanderthals were already on its decline when Aurignacian stone culture became widespread.

As one could assume from the above, the relations between Archaic Homo-sapiens and Modern Homo sapiens cannot be defined in linear terms of time, such as old and new. Hominids categorized as Proto-Neanderthals, an older type of Archaic Homo sapiens, are now being discovered throughout the world. It seems more appropriate to regard these Proto-Neanderthals as the original Archaic Homo sapiens and regard Neanderthals as Homo sapiens of another lineage with unique characteristics. But, they were not the far inferior hominids compared with the modern men as Boule claimed them to be.

Translated by Rie Ishida