| anatomically modern Homo sapiens | Human beings
anatomically indistinguishable from those living
today. They are found in the paleoanthropological
record dating to about 100,000 years ago.
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| archaic Homo sapiens | Extinct varieties of humanity
that share much in common with modern Homo
sapiens or anatomically modern Homo sapiens but
that commonly retain primitive skeletal features
and possess a somewhat smaller mean cranial capacity
than do modern people. The Neandertals are
the best-known archaic variety of the human race.
Also called premodern Homo sapiens.
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| basicranium | The bones of the base of the cranium.
Because the soft parts of hominid anatomy involved
in the production of sound are connected
to the base of the skull, the basicranium is a crucial
part of the anatomy when assessing the ability of
human ancestors to produce human speech.
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| enamel hypoplasia | A medical condition affecting
the outside layers of teeth. Horizontal imperfections
develop on the enamel in individuals who
have experienced malnutrition during their early
years.
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| ethnoarchaeology | The archaeological study of a living
group of people that often focuses on the
processes by which human behavior becomes
translated into the archaeological record.
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| Harris lines | Longitudinal cracks located at the ends
of long bones; indicative of dietary stress during
physical development.
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| impact wear | Distinctive damage scars on stone
tools that can be experimentally shown to have resulted
from the tool’s use as a projectile.
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| Levallois | Stone tool technology involving the production
of consistently shaped flakes from carefully
prepared cores. Levallois technology is associated
with archaic forms of Homo sapiens.
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| Lower Paleolithic | Period from 2.5 million years ago
to 250,000 years ago that encompasses the stone
tool industries of Homo habilis and Homo erectus.
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| Middle Paleolithic | The Middle Stone Age, the period
after the Lower Paleolithic and before the
Upper Paleolithic. Covers the span from 250,000
to 40,000 years ago and includes the cultures of premodern
and modern varieties of human beings.
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| Mousterian | The stone-tool tradition of the Neandertals
and early anatomically modern human beings.
A core-and-flake technology in which a series
of different, standardized tool types were
produced from stone flakes struck from cores.
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| musculoskeletal hypertrophy | Great size and associated
strength in the muscles and bones of a
species or individual. Among recent human ancestors,
the Neandertals exhibit an extreme level of
musculoskeletal hypertrophy.
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| pre-modern Homo sapiens | Extinct varieties of humanity
that share much in common with modern
Homo sapiens or anatomically modern Homo
sapiens but that commonly retain primitive skeletal
features and possess a smaller mean cranial capacity
than modern people. The Neandertals are
the best-known archaic variety or subspecies of the
human race. Also called archaic Homo sapiens.
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| tool kit | A set of tools used together in performing a
single task (for example, a butchering tool kit for
dismembering an animal carcass). A tool kit can
also refer to the entire range of tools used at a particular
site or during a given time period or produced
by a particular group of hominids.
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| Upper Paleolithic | The final phase of the Paleolithic,
dating to after 40,000 years ago and associated with
anatomically modern human beings in Europe.
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2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education