Original Synthetic Article: The modern man: a revision of his definition and a new estimation of his emergence date

Abstract

In spite of important anthropological data stored up to date, the recent human evolution is still a subject of great controversy. Here I present a revision of the definition of modern man and an attempt to estimate the date of his emergence. The anatomical feature criterion cannot be considered as a rigorous criterion for identified modern human fossils from those of earlier Homo peoples. This identification could be carried out indirectly from analysis of cultural products and, if possible, directly by ancient DNA analysis. During the last 20,000 years period, Homo peoples have shown a first real cultural progress, which reflects their possession of the superior level of potential intellectual aptitude that marks the definition of modern man. On the basis of this definition, in agreement with several anthropological basic data, I consider that the real modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens, emerged at about 20,000 years ago.Key words : Definition of our genus and species, Timing of our species and sub-speciesdivergence, Human evolutionary history.