Sidi Abderrahman

Sidi Abderrahman

 

(also Sidi Abd al-Rahman), a group of Lower Paleolithic sites located on the Atlantic coast near Casablanca, Morocco. At one of the sites, two fragments of the lower jaw of a fossil man were discovered in 1955, as well as bones of a rhinoceros, horse, gazelle, and other fossil animals and stone implements belonging to the middle period of the Acheulean stage, such as hand-axes carefully flaked on both surfaces of the blade. The finds have been dated to the late Min-del-Riss interglacial stage and the beginning of the Riss glacial stage in Europe. Some researchers consider that the man from Sidi Abderrahman was an example of Archanthropus, related to the Atlanthropus found in Ternifine, Algeria. Others regard him as Palaeoanthropus (Neanderthal man). Geological dating tends to support the latter hypothesis. [23–1041 –4]