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protohuman

protohuman

9.3
A human ancestor from before modern humans
  • noun
  • /ˈproʊtoʊˌhjuːmən/
  • Specialized
translation icon : protohumano
  • Who can forget how the weapons stored on the Moon in 3001: The Final Odyssey provide the means to combat the monoliths, or how learning to use bones as weapons gives one band of protohumans an advantage over a competing group in 20017?

Examples

  • Occipital bone: Large, protohuman

    Academic text (2009)
  • ...a protohuman.

  • I feel like the protohuman, coming out of the forest primeval... ...and seeing the moon for the first time and throwing rocks at it.

  • ...a protohuman.

  • You do not have to believe that language developed because a protohuman spoke a word that increased the person's fitness, and that this word gene then flourished in the population.

    Academic text (1999)
  • I am all about listening to your argument in support of the possibility that protohumans could have developed out of instinctual responses into language and cohesive culture without religion, but the fact is that you don't have a single example of it happening.

    Blog text (24)
  • Namely, we were discussing the notion that if it were possible to come up with an experiment to determine whether or not it would be possible for protohuman-type populations to develop without religious inclinations, would it be ethical to perform any experiments that would help make that determination?

    Blog text (24)
  • The discovery of a protohuman skull provided essential insight into the evolution of early humans.

  • Researchers found tools made by protohumans dating back thousands of years in the caves.

  • The protohuman species is believed to have lived alongside large prehistoric animals.

Synonyms

prehuman
vsprotohuman
  • Specialized
1 7.7

An early ancestor of people like us who lived long ago

is about ancestors not yet fully evolved into modern humans
Australopithecus
vsprotohuman
  • Specialized
9.9

An extinct early human ancestor from Africa that lived long ago

is a general term for early ancestors not yet modern humans
pithecanthrope
vsprotohuman
  • Archaic
9.9

An extinct early human relative with ape features

focuses on early ancestors without stressing ape like appearance
ape-man
vsprotohuman
  • Archaic
9.1

An early human with features between apes and people today

refers to real early ancestors rather than a speculative intermediate form

How Human

human
1.0
protohuman
  • Specialized
9.3
ape
118 1.0

Surface Forms

protohuman singular
protohumans plural

Morphology

protohuman = human (transparent) = proto + human

The noun sense is still built transparently from 'proto-' plus 'human', referring to an early human being or ancestor.

Etymology

Protohuman is made of proto- meaning 'first' and human meaning 'person', like prototype where proto- shows the 'first' model. A protohuman as a noun is an early human ancestor, a 'first' kind of person not yet fully modern.