#cro magnon

Cro Magnon

The Cro Magnon humans were the earliest modern humans to settle in Europe. They are thus not a seperate extinct species of human but they are our earliest European ancestors. It is however not fully certain when modern humans, homo sapiens, entered Europe. Some historians agree on a date somewhere around 50,000BC while others suggest that the Cro Magnon entered Europe 210,000 years ago. This theory is based on skull fragments found in Greece.

Even though the Cro Magnon were modern humans, they did not look exactly the same as present day humans. The evolutionary path of our species is always moving, adapting to our current living situations. Our species and the Neanderthals have a common ancestor whose features were quite visible in the Cro Magnon human. The brow ridges were more prominent, the teeth were larger, they did not yet have the slight overbite of our upper jaw which enables us to make the ‘W’ sound. They were build much more robust compared to present day modern humans, it is clear that they were well adapted to the cold.

It was the Cro Magnon who encountered the then still present Neanderthals in Europe. We do not fully understand why the Neanderthals disappeared while we continued to evolve and develop our technologies. It is unlikely that a long lasting conflict between the two species is the cause of the Neanderthal’s demise. A possible theory is that modern humans are much more fertile. Their population was much bigger than that of the Neanderthals and they eventually started to have children with the Neanderthals as well.

If real love existed between both species is unknown but it is an interesting concept to think about. It is possible that through these factors, the Neanderthals were slowly pushed out of existence, since Neanderthal women weren’t as fertile as modern day female humans are, it is likely that Neanderthals started having relationships with modern day humans until eventually the last pure Neanderthal disappeared. They are not completely gone from this world, we all carry parts of Neanderthal genes inside of us.

The Cro Magnon are also the earliest humans with a distinct taste for art, the most famous example is perhaps the 'Venus’ statue. These statues have been found throughout Europe but we still do not know for which purpose they were created, a topic for a post in the future. They wore jewelry, most likely piercings and tattoos and other body art like painting the body with a dye.

These early humans also made music by using instruments such as bone flutes and whistles. Unfortunately wood and skin decays pretty rapidly so we do not know if they used other prehistoric instruments such as drums and bullroarers but if we compare the Cro Magnon with still existing tribes, it is very likely that they did play on such instruments.

Eventually the Cro Magnon developed distinct cultures throughout Europe and these in turn developed into the mesolithic cultures. Their bodies slowly evolved into the bodies that we have today, although evolution is an ever continuing process so who knows how the homo sapiens species will look like in another 100,000 years. When will we have changed so much that we can call it an another human species?

Here are images of:
Reconstruction of a Cro Magnon male (Lascaux III) by Élisabeth Daynès.
A skull of a Cro Magnon.
Venus statue found in Kostenki, Russia.