Cro-Magnon

1. The rock shelter in Les Eyzies, France, where the first Cro-Magnon Man specimens were found.

plural Cro-Magnons

1. archaeologyThe earliest known form of modern human (Homo sapiens) in Europe, dating from the late Paleolithic.

   In addition, the latest evidence suggests that the "agricultural revolution" occurred sometime during the second half of the Cro-Magnon era. Anatomically, the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon brains were approximately the same overall size.

   2009, Anthony Scioli, Henry B. Biller, Hope in the Age of Anxiety, Oxford University Press, page 44

   2 more examples

   The Cro-Magnons may have been one important step beyond the Neanderthals in social organization.[…]That the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals encountered each other is probable. There seems to be no more than a five-thousand-year interval between the general occupation of home sites by the Neanderthals and their replacement by Cro-Magnon tools and fossils.

   1994, Seymour W. Itzkoff, The Decline of Intelligence in America: A Strategy for National Renewal, Greenwood Publishing Group (Praeger Publishers), page 14

   The Cro Magnon came to live in Europe around forty thousand years ago and most educated people have heard of them. The Cro Magnon are the ones who created the remarkable cave paintings found in southern France and Spain at Lascaux and Altamira.

   2006, Lyndall Baker Landauer, The Learning Pool: Basic Science Everyone Needs to Know, Xlibris, page 85

   Synonyms: Cro-Magnon Man, European early modern human

2. derogatoryA backward and stupid person, a knuckle-dragger or troglodyte.