archaic Homo sapiens

American  

noun

1. relating to or being an early subspecies of Homo sapiens, some of whose anatomical features differ from those of modern humans.

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archaic Homo sapiens Scientific  

/ är-kā′ĭk /

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.

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Example Sentences

A number of species, sometimes called archaic Homo sapiens, apparently evolved from H. erectus starting about 500,000 years ago.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2015

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

From Scientific American • Aug. 30, 2012

Neanderthal man had not yet emerged, but intelligent beings already roamed the savanna, upright creatures known today as archaic Homo sapiens, who could fashion crude axes, picks and cleavers out of stone.

From Time Magazine Archive

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.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

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

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari