Human Genome Project
In Europe Neanderthals evolve into their classic form: extremely strong, stocky, and robust, with large eyes and noses and jutting faces; their bodies seem well adapted to the cold Pleistocene. Their tool kit was more elaborate, including stone-tipped spears, and archeological and isotopic evidence indicates a great reliance on meat in the diet. Nonetheless, except in a very few instances when Neanderthals were contemporary with modern humans, there is little to no evidence for art. For this reason, many anthropologists believe Neanderthals did not have modern language.
Anatomically Modern Humans Meanwhile, archaic Homo evolved into anatomically modern humans in Africa. Throughout this time range (between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago) there are increasing bits of evidence for art and symbolism in the form of red ochre, beads, and composite tools in Africa while they are still absent in Europe, and it is during this period that genetic evidence from modern humans suggests that anatomically modern humans evolved. Indeed, the earliest anatomically modern humans fossils come from Africa and the Near East, just over 100,000 years ago. Anatomically modern humans are characterized by a reduction in skeletal robustness and strength, probably related to greater reliance on technology and culture rather than brute strength. Cranial capacity remains about the same as in the more robust predecessors, but the face and teeth are smaller, the forehead becomes high and the chin juts out. Cultural elaboration is evident in increased number of tools types, regional variation in style, more composite tools, and notably, art. There is a minority of anthropologists who consider all the Homo specimens to be from one diverse species. In the early twenty-first century, the majority of anthropologists believe that the fossil, archaeological, and genetic evidence concur that anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa about 200,000 to 150,000 years ago, and spread out from there to Europe and Asia as recently 100,000 to 25,000 years ago (depending on where), replacing the archaic Homo species, for example, Neanderthals and Homo erectus, and these later species may have contributed relatively little genetic diversity to the human gene pool. The information scientists have thus suggests that all humans across the globe today are very closely related to one another. S E E A L S O Biology of Race; Evolution; Grassland; Leakey Family; Natural Selection; Population Genetics; Primate Martha Tappen Bibliography Jones, S., R. Martin, and D. Pilbeam. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Klein, Richard. The Human Career, 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. McBrearty, S., and A. S. Brooks. “The Revolution That Wasn’t: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Modern Human Behavior.” Journal of Human Evolution 39 (2000): 453–563. nucleotide the building block of RNA or DNA base pair two nucleotides (either DNA or RNA) linked by weak bonds
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Human Genome Project The Human Genome Project (HGP), the determination of the complete nucleotide sequence of all of the more than three billion base pairs of de-