Cro-Magnon Man
Hombre de Cromañón
- Date
- 1868 · confidence high
- Place
- Cro-Magnon rock shelter, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, France
- Credited to
- Louis Lartet
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Railway works exposed a rock shelter at Les Eyzies; Lartet excavated the remains of five fully anatomically modern Upper Palaeolithic individuals, which became the type fossils for modern European humans.
'Cro-Magnon man' is now an obsolete popular name: the individuals are Homo sapiens, with no formal taxonomic distinction.
What it led to
- 'Cro-Magnon man' as a popular synonym for Upper Palaeolithic modern humans
- Comparative palaeoanthropology between Neanderthals and modern humans
- Les Eyzies as a world reference site for prehistory (later a World Heritage site)
Built on
Made possible
- Radiocarbon dating of fossil human remains