Posted by Amanda on January 01, 1997 at 16:14:12:
Yet another subject I'm not "up" on.... I've been reading a dated book which mentions that our closest ancestor in the "Homo Sapiens" department is the Cro-Magnon Man and he was the fella responsible for the great cave art in France and surrouding areas. It also goes on to tell that in the "Homo" category but not "sapiens" there lies the Neanderthal Man and Heidelberg Man and it is obvious from common structures that we are related but the fossil evidence is not there and so that's where the "missing link" comes into the picture in this case. I thought I had read however in a more recent article that either the Cro-Magnon was no longer thought to be included in the "sapiens" species or that the Neanderthal was. According to this book Neanderthal came before Cro-Magnon but I also thought I remembered reading they are now though to have existed at the same time. I'm aware that the lines of descent aren't as straight or stop and go as what was once believed and that even in our existing species there are memebers who have "odd" ancestoral relics that the general population doesn't have but still I'm not up on the latest findings so thought someone here might clear the matter up for me. Also, does anyone know which of our closest ancestors was around during the dinosaur age - 60 million years ago I believe?