page_title: Homo heidelbergensis
section_title: Behavior
hierarchical_section_title: Homo heidelbergensis / Behavior
caption_attribution_description: English: One of the hundreds of handaxes discovered by archaeological excavation at Boxgrove; this one found in 2011.
context_page_description: Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus Homo, which radiated in the Middle Pleistocene from about 700,000 to 300,000 years ago. The derivation of H. sapiens from H. rhodesiensis has often been proposed, but is obscured by a fossil gap from 400–260 kya. The species was originally named Homo heidelbergensis due to the skeleton's first discovery near Heidelberg, Germany.
  The first discovery—a mandible—was made in 1907 by Otto Schoetensack. The skulls of this species share features with both H. erectus and modern humans; its brain was nearly as large as that of modern humans. The Sima de los Huesos cave at Atapuerca in northern Spain holds particularly rich layers of deposits where excavations were still in progress as of 2018.
  H. heidelbergensis was dispersed throughout Eastern and Southern Africa as well as Europe. Its exact relation both to the earlier H. antecessor and H. ergaster, and to the later species Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans is unclear.
  Modern humans have been proposed to derive from H. heidelbergensis via H. rhodesiensis, present in East and North Africa from around 400 kya.
context_section_description: A biface nicknamed Excalibur from Sima de los Huesos is hypothesised to have been a grave good, which, if correct, would be the oldest evidence of funerary practices.
  The morphology of the outer and middle ear suggests they had an auditory sensitivity similar to modern humans. They were probably able to differentiate between many different sounds. Dental wear analysis suggests they were as likely to be right-handed as modern people.
  An archaeological site in Schöningen, Germany contained eight exceptionally well-preserved roughly 400,000-year-old spears for hunting, and various other wooden tools.
  Five-hundred-thousand-year-old hafted stone points used for hunting are reported from Kathu Pan 1 in South Africa, tested by way of use-wear replication. This find could mean that modern humans and Neanderthals inherited the stone-tipped spear, rather than developing the technology independently.
  No forms of art have been uncovered. Red ochre, a mineral that can be used to mix a red pigment which is useful as a paint, has been found at Terra Amata in France and Bečov in the Czech Republic, but the dating of these pigments to the Middle Pleistocene is contested.
  The Schöningen spears are eight wooden throwing spears, dated to before 300,000 years ago, discovered between 1994 and 1998 in the open-cast lignite mine, in Schöningen, county Helmstedt, Germany, together with thousands of animal bones. They are regarded as the first direct evidence for active hunting by H. heidelbergensis (pre-Neanderthals).
caption: One of hundreds of handaxes found at Boxgrove
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