Multiregional model of modern human origins = 1930s by Franz Weidenreich - As species dispersed around the Old World, it developed the regional variation that lies atthe roots of modern “racial” differentiation. Biological Species Concept - To justify their belief that H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens must have belonged to the same species and would have been fully interfertile - Species consists of the largest community of a group of plants or animals that breeds among itself, but not with any other community Homo sapiens – large brain volume, neurocranial globularity (curvature and doming of the bonesof the braincase, and its increased height), in rear view a braincase that is wider at the top and narrower at the base; a higher and more evenly arched temporal bone at the side of the braincase;decreased height of the face and its tucking in under the braincase; small and divided brow ridge;a narrow area of bone between the eye sockets; increased projection of the middle of the face andnose; bony chin on the lower jaw, present even in infants; simplification and shrinkage of tooth crowns; lightly built tympanic bone; a short public ramus that is nearly circular in cross election; no ilia pillar; thighbones that are oval in cross section and thickened most at the front and back Neanderthals – elongated superior pubic ramus; rounder femora; large brain volume; high and arched temporal bone; reduced interorbital breadth; reduced total facial projection; lightly built tympanic; simplification and shrinkage of tooth crowns; weak or absent iliac pillar Distinguish  Skull: double arched brow ridge with central sinuses; double arched but small occipital torus with a central pit; spherical vault shape in rear view; distinctive shape of semicircular canals of the inner ear; high but relatively narrow face; enlarged front teeth, which are hallowed on the inside surfaces of the upper centrals One group migrated into western Asia and Europe, now known as Neanderthals. CHAPTER 2.By contrast, modern humans, from sunny Africa, had no need for this adaptation and instead theyevolved frontal lobes, which are associated with high-level processing. “More of the Neanderthalbrain appears to have been dedicated to vision and body control, leaving less brain to deal with other functions like social networking,” Pearce told BBC News.Neanderthal brains were as big as modern humans' but the former had bigger bodies. More of their brain cells would have been needed to control these larger bodies, on top of the added bits of cortex needed for their enhanced vision. That means they had less brain power available to them compared with modern humans. "There may not have been a single cause of Neanderthal extinction," said Stringer. "They may have disappeared in different regions for different reasons, but the background cause is clear. They didn't have the numbers."Competitive pressure from those early Europeans, who hunted many of the same prey species, may have helped isolate Neanderthals, hastening the extinction of a branch of humankind that had previously weathered ice ages and what geneticists call "population bottlenecks."What is clear from the European fossil record is the anatomy characteristic of Homo neanderthalensis disappeared rather rapidly between 50 and 30 ka and that this disappearance coincides with the migration of Homo sapiens into Europe from Africa. Thus, questions about what exactly caused that disappearance are crucially important and stridently contended. Many scholars believe that the sophisticated symbolic and cognitive capabilities of Homo sapiens combined with their adaptation for hunting a large range of diverse prey allowed them to outcompete Homo neanderthalensis. That is, Homo sapiens’ broad subsistence strategy and ability to cognitively adapt to difficult environments may have allowed them to spread quickly and widely during times when the climate shifted dramatically. Homo neanderthalensis, on the other hand, may have had difficulty dealing with these drastic shifts in climate, due to their focuson hunting large game animals.Both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons at this time could make fire, both made flaked stone tools, and both made clothing from fur and animal skins. These skills alone did not enable either to cope with the increasingly stressful environment, but the Cro-Magnons adapted, and the Neanderthals did not. Stringer speculates that, although its brain was larger than H. sapiens, the Neanderthal brain was optimized for controlling their greater physicality, including a bigger occipital lobe to process the visual data from their larger eyes. This left comparatively less roomin the cerebrum for the frontal lobe, important for planning, and the parietal lobe, involved in communication.Meanwhile, H. sapiens was adapting, stitching their clothing to retain more warmth while still preserving freedom of movement. Weapons like the throwing spear enabled them to hunt their prey from a distance. They learned to make fishing nets and snares to trap small mammals, and developed a diet that included fish, birds, and plants, rather than the meat of large and dangerous herd animals. This is the era when cave paintings, flutes, figurines and decorated artifacts of ivory and clay, some of exquisite beauty, first began to appear.These adaptations were a leap to modern cognitive abilities. This new cognition provided Cro-Magnons with the advantages of more complex social organization. Large Cro-Magnon occupation sites have been discovered, and there is evidence they engaged in long-distance trade.Even though Neanderthal abilities have perhaps been underestimated, still they left no evidence of comparable talents or achievements.CHAPTER 3. Perhaps the most intriguing features found in Homo sapiens are behavioral traits. These traits represent behavioral strategies that are not seen in any other hominin species. For instance, Homo sapiens is the first hominin species to hunt a large range of prey animals. Unlike earlier species, Homo sapiens developed hunting strategies that allowed them to hunt large, medium, and small mammals, as well as fish and shellfish. The stone tools that were made by Homo sapiens reflect this broader range of prey. In particular, Homo sapiens produced tools that ranged greatly in size and included very small artifacts used for hunting smaller game. The stonetools were also more diverse, reflecting a subsistence strategy that