archaic Homo sapiens

1. Relating to or being an early form or subspecies of Homo sapiens, anatomically distinct from modern humans. Neanderthals in Europe and Solo man in Asia are usually classed as archaic humans. Though archaic humans belong to the same species as modern humans, not all archaic groups or populations are necessarily ancestral to Homo sapiens sapiens. According to certain models of human evolution, modern humans replaced archaic populations throughout Asia and Europe after migrating out of Africa in comparatively recent times. In other models, widely separated but interbreeding archaic groups in different parts of the world evolved independently into today's physiologically distinct geographic populations.

Example Sentences

Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens probably also had a hard time talking behind each other’s backs—a much maligned ability which is in fact essential for cooperation in large numbers.

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Similar patterns probably dominated the social lives of early humans, including archaic Homo sapiens.

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They called it “archaic Homo sapiens.”

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Emboldened by claims that human ancestors reached Indonesian and Mediterranean islands by raft more than 100,000 years ago, the authors suggest that instead of walking to America, the humans, perhaps archaic Homo sapiens, arrived from east Asia on “watercraft” and followed south what is now the coastline of California.

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Pääbo and others consider them archaic Homo sapiens, but some researchers deem them separate species.

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