1. collectively, the very robust, regionally differentiated human populations that lived in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa from 35,000 to 200,000 years ago.
2. any physically robust, premodern form of the genus Homo , including Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man) or Homo erectus , and their intermediate forms and regional variants.
See illus. under hominid .