Paleo Core

Nomina Documentation

The names are presented as they were first published. In practice, these names may appear differently in modern usage depending on the taxonomic opinions of various authors. For example, the nomen Zinjanthropus boisei Leakey, 1959 is listed under this name as it was first published, but modern publications would now give the name as Paranthropus boisei (Leakey, 1959) or perhaps as Australopithecus boisei (Leakey, 1959), because there is near consensus among paleoanthropologists that Zinjanthropus is a subjective junior synonym to Paranthropus (or Australopithecus). 

Each nomen is listed with its type specimen (if a species) or its type taxon (if a genus), its nomenclatural status under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), and the citation for the publication containing the nomenclatural act that established the name.

The nomenclatural status is given as "Unavailable" if the nomen does not meet the relevant criteria under the ICZN for available names. 
It is given as " Invalid" if it is available but is objectively invalid, e.g. a junior homonym or an objective junior synonym.
It is given as "Suppressed" if the name has been affected by an opinion or action of the ICZN to suppress a name that would otherwise have priority (e.g. Meganthropus africanus Weinert, 1950)
It is given as "Potentially valid" if it does not fall under any of the other categories and is thus potentially available as a valid name.

The default listing presents a searchable table of all nomina. Further details, including extended comments, can be found by following the link to the nomen's full page. The alphabetical tab provides the same view as the default index listing with some additional details, and the listing by site and type groups the names geographically according to their type locality. 

The following is a listing of the scientific names (nomina, singular nomen) of fossil taxa that have been proposed over the history of human origins studies going back to Linnaeus (1758). The listing aims to be comprehensive and contains over 200 nomina. Currently, taxonomists recognize one extant taxon, Homo sapiens, and another 25-30 fossil taxa as valid. The remaining names in this list were not properly proposed, and thus unavailable for nomenclature, or names that were properly proposed but that are no longer considered valid. 

The names are presented as they were first published. In practice, these names may appear differently in modern usage depending on the taxonomic opinions of various authors. For example, the nomen Zinjanthropus boisei Leakey, 1959 is listed under this name as it was first published, but modern publications would now give the name as Paranthropus boisei (Leakey, 1959) or perhaps as Australopithecus boisei (Leakey, 1959), because there is near consensus among paleoanthropologists that Zinjanthropus is a subjective junior synonym to Paranthropus (or Australopithecus). 

Each nomen is listed with its type specimen (if a species) or its type taxon (if a genus), its nomenclatural status under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), and the citation for the publication containing the nomenclatural act that established the name.

The nomenclatural status is given as "Unavailable" if the nomen does not meet the relevant criteria under the ICZN for available names. 
It is given as " Invalid" if it is available but is objectively invalid, e.g. a junior homonym or an objective junior synonym.
It is given as "Suppressed" if the name has been affected by an opinion or action of the ICZN to suppress a name that would otherwise have priority (e.g. Meganthropus africanus Weinert, 1950)
It is given as "Potentially valid" if it does not fall under any of the other categories and is thus potentially available as a valid name.

The default listing presents a searchable table of all nomina. Further details, including extended comments, can be found by following the link to the nomen's full page. The alphabetical tab provides the same view as the default index listing with some additional details, and the listing by site and type groups the names geographically according to their type locality. 

Further details on the methods for compiling this list and its uses can be found in Reed et al. (2023).

References Cited

Linnaeus, C, 1758. Systema naturae per regna tria naturae: secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus 1. Iditio decima, reformata. Laurentii Salvii, Holmiae.

Reed, D, et al., 2023. Hominin nomenclature and the importance of information systems for managing complexity in paleoanthropology. Journal of Human Evolution. 175, 103308, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103308. 

API Usage

The nomina listing is also accessible through an API at https://paleocore.org/origins/api/nomina/, which facilitates bringing the data directly into analytical platforms such as R or Jupyter Notebooks.

In Jupyter notebooks for example,
import pandas as pd
nomina_df = pd.read_json('https://paleocore.org/origins/api/nomina/')

Or in R,
library(“jsonlite”)
nomina_df <- as.data.frame(fromJSON("https://paleocore.org/origins/api/nomina/"))