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The Status of Homo Heidelbergensis (Schoetensack 1908)

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The Status of Homo Heidelbergensis (Schoetensack 1908) See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227710322 The status of Homo heidelbergensis (Schoetensack 1908) Article in Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and Reviews · May 2012 DOI: 10.1002/evan.21311 · Source: PubMed CITATIONS READS 121 866 1 author: Christopher Brian Stringer Natural History Museum, London 331 PUBLICATIONS 12,575 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Prehistoric Human behaviour in 3D View project Gibraltar Caves Project – Palaeoenvironmental record of the Late Neanderthals refuge View project All content following this page was uploaded by Christopher Brian Stringer on 13 October 2014. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately. Evolutionary Anthropology 21:101–107 (2012) ISSUES The Status of Homo heidelbergensis (Schoetensack 1908) Chris Stringer The species Homo heidelbergensis is central to many discussions about two clearly do not articulate well. In recent human evolution. For some workers, it was the last common ancestor for the early 1980s, with a shift to cladis- the subsequent species Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis; others tic thinking and influences, I began regard it as only a European form, giving rise to the Neanderthals. Following the to gravitate toward the idea that impact of recent genomic studies indicating hybridization between modern Neanderthals were, after all, a dis- humans and both Neanderthals and ‘‘Denisovans’’, the status of these as sepa- tinct species from Homo sapiens rate taxa is now under discussion. Accordingly, clarifying the status of Homo sensu stricto, and that this implied heidelbergensis is fundamental to the debate about modern human origins. the existence of a distinct ancestral species, if neanderthalensis and sapi- ens were sister taxa, and erectus did not represent the last common THE SPECIES HOMO was little used during the earlier part ancestor. Through linking Mauer HEIDELBERGENSIS of the twentieth century and, by the with Petralona and Petralona with 1960s the lumping together of taxa Broken Hill, the concept of a Eura- In 1907, the robustly built mandi- often treated the fossil as a European frican stem species named Homo hei- ble that was to become the holotype 2 form of Homo erectus. However, delbergensis began to develop.9 The of Homo heidelbergensis was discov- 3 Howell took exception to that, argu- following extract and accompanying ered in the Grafenrain sandpit at ing that the fossil probably was mor- figure (Fig. 1) summarize the cau- Mauer, near Heidelberg, Germany, phologically distinct enough to repre- tious arguments made at that time: associated with what is now termed sent a separate species. ‘‘Because at present they cannot be a Galerian or Cromerian (early Mid- In 1974, I completed my doctoral defined satisfactorily by their own dle Pleistocene) fauna. The species thesis, which concentrated on cranial distinctive within-group characteris- name was bestowed a year later by shape comparisons of Neanderthal tics, it is difficult to justify creating a Otto Schoetensack,1 who noted in and modern humans but, along the separate taxon for the Petralona and the Mauer mandible the combination way, I noted clear phenetic resem- Broken Hill fossils on the basis of of primitive features (for example, blances between the Broken Hill characters they lack, or ones they high corpus thickness, very wide (Zambia) and Petralona (Greece) fos- share with other taxa. Nevertheless, ramus, and receding symphysis) and sils, and considered both of these to given the need to recognize their more recent human features, such as be clearly distinct from Neander- similarities to each other, and to small dentition, particularly the can- thals.4,5 Rather than allocate either other Middle Pleistocene fossils, they ines and anterior teeth. The name of these specimens to Homo erectus, could be placed in a separate species, I preferred, at that time, to regard H. rhodesiensis or H. heidelbergensis them as related primitive forms of (if the Mauer mandible is also Homo sapiens sensu lato, eventually included), provided the distinctive- Chris Stringer has worked at The Natural History Museum London since 1973, and assigning them to Homo sapiens ness of the Neanderthals from is now Research Leader in Human Ori- grade 1 in a gradistic scheme.6 ‘modern’ H. sapiens is also consid- gins and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has excavated at sites in Britain and Following discussions with Bjorn ered worthy of specific recognition abroad, and is currently leading the Kurte´n, I became aware of biostrati- (Fig. 1a). Alternatively their possible Ancient Human Occupation of Britain graphic evidence that elements of the position as a ‘stem group’ for the project. Email: [email protected] Petralona mammalian faunas were Upper Pleistocene hominids could be of Cromerian age, potentially compa- recognized by the use of a subspe- 7 ?? rable to those from Mauer. Both cific name for the evolutionary grade Kurte´n and I considered the possibil- they are supposed to represent VC 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. ity that the Petralona cranium could within H. sapiens (Fig. 1b). However, DOI 10.1002/evan.21311 Published online in Wiley Online Library represent a counterpart for the the other possibility that must (wileyonlinelibrary.com). Mauer mandible,6,8 even though the be considered (Fig. 1c) is that we 102 Stringer ISSUES blance to the Elandsfontein calva- ria,11 and the possibility that Middle Pleistocene Chinese and Indian fos- sils might also belong in this group (Table 2) was raised.12,13 Rightmire has adopted a comparable Eurafri- can concept of heidelbergensis,14,15 while some have preferred to retain a more gradistic concept of Homo sapiens, arguing that fossils such as Broken Hill and Bodo are primitive examples of the modern human spe- cies.16 Other workers have used the informal term ante- or preneander- thal for earlier European fossils, including Mauer and Arago, some- times with a purely chronological meaning, and in other cases imply- ing an evolutionary relationship.17 This latter option has become increasingly popular with the recog- nition that the Sima de los Huesos (SH) material displays a mosaic of heidelbergensis and neanderthalensis features. For such workers, H. heidel- bergensis could represent an early stage in the accretion model of Ne- anderthal evolution,17,18,35 forming a heidelbergensis-neanderthalensis con- tinuum. I briefly considered this argument, going so far as to suggest that all heidelbergensis material might be lumped into Homo neander- 19 Figure 1. Illustration of the possible phylogenetic relationships of the Petralona and Broken thalensis, but I did not persist in Hill fossils. Redrawn, with permission, from Stringer.9 that view. However, if the European- only model of heidelbergensis is cannot at present resolve the exact heidelbergensis hypodigm. A separate correct, then the non-European com- phylogenetic position of these homi- study of the first Bilzingsleben cra- ponents assigned to heidelbergensis nids because they are close to the nial finds reinforced their resem- by workers such as Rightmire and point of divergence between Nean- derthals and ‘modern’ H. sapiens TABLE 1. Some Traits Observed in H. heidelbergensis Fossils (assuming that the Neanderthals are Endocranial volumes overlap those of H. erectus and H. sapiens/H. not directly ancestral to ‘modern’ neanderthalensis Torus often highly pneumatized laterally, and superiorly into frontal squama humans). At present I believe this to Vault shape parallel-sided in posterior view be quite likely, and that these fossils Strong and continuous supraorbital torus* are close to the morphotype expected Occipital bone strongly angled* in the common ancestor of Neander- Strong continuous occipital torus* thals and ‘modern’ H. sapiens. If this Wide interorbital breadth* is so, only further careful analysis Iliac pillar* will allow a decision about the clad- Elongated superior pubic ramus*# Femoral platymeria*# istic affinities, and thus the classifica- High arched temporal squama1# tion, of fossils such as Arago 21, Pet- Gracile tympanic1# ralona and Broken Hill.’’ Increased midfacial projection expressed through measures of midline nasal I began to develop a suite of traits prominence1# (Table 1; Fig. 2) for grouping Broken In large-faced specimens there may be lack of both canine fossa and Hill and Petralona.10 European and infraorbital retraction# African fossils such as Bilzingsleben, Reduced total facial prognathism1# Vertesszo¨ llo¨ s, Bodo 1, and Elands- *Found in Homo erectus; þ potential synapomorphies with H. sapiens; # potential fontein were added to an enlarged synapomorphies with H. neanderthalensis. ISSUES The Status of Homo heidelbergensis 103 Figure 2. Facial (A) and lateral (B) views of crania. Clockwise from top left: Homo erectus (replica, Sangiran, Java), heidelbergensis (Broken Hill, Zambia), sapiens (recent, Indonesia), and neanderthalensis (replica, La Ferrassie, France). All pictures Ó The Natural Histroy Museum London. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.] me, which show few or no Neander- at all. In effect, the morphology of ples of heidelbergensis, such as thal apomorphies, would require a certain specimens does
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