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• The human fossil record
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• Neanderthal man

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Western scientific thought has stated that all present-day species on Earth, including man, have arisen from earlier, simpler forms of life. This theory means that the story of human evolution begins with a creature most people today would not consider human.

In 1859, the view of man's history and his place on Earth was changed forever by the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, written by English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). In this revolutionary book, Darwin stated that all living things achieved their present form through a long period of natural changes. In his 1871 book, The Descent of Man, Darwin further argued that man descended from subhuman forms of...