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| anthropologist: | a social scientist who studies humankind and human cultures; physical anthropologists specialize in the origins and classifications of humans; cultural anthropologists study the societies and cultures of humans, often by living among the people they are studying. |
| archaeologist: | a social scientist who studies objects such as fossils, bones, tools, weapons, pottery, and remains of structures to learn about past human life and activity. |
| Cro-Magnon: | Homo sapiens of about 40,000 B.C.; the ancestor of modern humans who was no different anatomically from people today; named for the cave in southern France where skeletal remains were found. |
| cultural diffusion: | the spread of beliefs, institutions, or skills of one society to another; usually spread by trade or conquest. |
| hominids: | primate mammals that stand on two feet; modern humans, their prehistoric ancestors, and related life-forms. |
| Homo erectus: | Latin for "upright man," a now extinct early form of human that lived in East Africa; believed to have lived 1.5 million years ago; homo erectus spread from Africa to other continents. |
| Homo habilis: | Latin for "handy man," a now extinct very early form of human that lived in East Africa 1.5 to 2.5 million years ago; called "handy" because the remains of homo habilis have been found with very simple stone tools. |
| Homo sapiens: | Latin for "thinking man," the direct ancestor of modern humans; prehistoric homo sapiens had a brain capacity about the same as modern humans; early forms of homo sapiens are believed to have emerged in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago and spread from there to all regions of the globe by 10,000 B.C. |
| Ice Age: | a time when thick glaciers covered much of Europe, Asia, North America, South America, and all of Antarctica; a period of time called the Pleistocene Epoch from 2,000,000 B.C. to 9000 B.C. when glaciers expanded and retreated a number of times; the last of the glacial periods ended in 9000 B.C. |
| Iron Age: | the period after the Stone Age and the Bronze Age when early humans learned to smelt and forge iron; a period in human history when humans made tools and weapons of iron that were superior to earlier bronze implements; spread throughout Southwest Asia and Egypt by 1200 B.C.; signaled the end of the Neolithic period. |
| Mesopotamia: | Greek for "the land between the rivers"; refers to the region in ancient times between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where civilization first developed between 4000 B.C. and 3500 B.C.; now in Iraq, Mesopotamia was the homeland in ancient times of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Akkadians, and Assyrians. |
| Neanderthals: | hominids, possibly evolved from Homo erectus, that lived from c. 240,000 B.C. until c. 30,000 B.C. in Europe and southern Russia; a different species of humans that evolved parallel with Homo sapiens, but became extinct. |
| Neolithic period: | the technical term for the New Stone Age (see New Stone Age). |
| nomads: | members of a social group that regularly migrates over a traditional range in search of pastures for their flocks. |
| nuclear family: | a family made up only of a male, female, and their children. |
| New Stone Age: | the period over 10,000 years ago when people began farming and domesticating animals; a period in human cultural and economic development that began at different times in different parts of the world. |
| Paleolithic period: | the technical term for Old Stone Age (see Old Stone Age). |
| Sumerians: | Semitic people of lower Mesopotamia who created the first civilization in human history between 4000 B.C. and 3500 B.C. |
