Homo habilis to sapiens, Neanderthals, origins debate

Culture (tools, fire, meat, sharing) and biology (brain, body, birth) move together.

• Habilis: Olduvai OH 7, Koobi Fora; ~600–800 cc in larger skulls; Bernard Wood’s rudolfensis split for the big-brained set.
• Teaching phylogeny: afarensis → habilis → erectus → sapiens is a ladder for exams; the bush is truer.
• Erectus: ~1.9 mya–200 kya, longest-lived Homo; Acheulean, fire, out of Africa.
• Narmada (Hathnora): ~250–150 kya debate; between erectus and archaic sapiens in teaching.
• Gran Dolina, Terra Amata, Ceprano: European erectus-grade sites; Terra Amata huts and hearths.

• Eurasia, ~400–40 kya; Ice Age bodies; brains often 1400–1600 cc.
• Classic Europe vs ‘progressive’ West Asia (Tabun and related) — less robust, closer to sapiens looks.
• Mousterian, Levallois prepared cores, points, denticulates; hunting; care of the disabled (La Chapelle teaching).
• Interbreeding with sapiens is now genetic fact, not a romance.

• Kabwe, Bodo (cut marks), Swanscombe: heidelbergensis / rhodesiensis teaching names; often last common ancestor talk for Neanderthals and sapiens.
• Regional continuity (Wolpoff): erectus stays, gene flow, regional traits.
• Recent African origin: African speciation, then replace — with known admixture.
• Early sapiens pegs: Herto (~160 kya), Florisbad (~130 kya); Upper Palaeolithic Europe: Cro-Magnon, Grimaldi, Chancelade.

• Châtelperronian as Mousterian–UP transition; then Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean, Magdalenian in SW France notes.
• Microliths later; marine resources; burials with ochre and kits (Dordogne orientation teaching).