Cro-Magnon

European early modern humans (EEMH) is a term for the earliest populations of anatomically modern humans in Europe, during the Upper Paleolithic. It is taken to include fossils from throughout the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), covering the period of roughly 48,000 to 15,000 years ago (48–15 ka), spanning the Bohunician, Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian periods.

EEMH were formerly known as Cro-Magnon Man, a term derived from the Cro-Magnon rock shelter in southwestern France, where the first EEMH were found in 1868. In literature published since the late 1990s, the term EEMH is generally preferred over the common name Cro-Magnon, which has no formal taxonomic status, as it refers neither to a species or subspecies nor to an archaeological phase or culture. Use of "Cro-Magnon" is mostly restricted to times after the beginning of the Aurignacian proper, c. 37 to 35 ka.

Cro-Magnon in Earthgrip
When Jennifer Logan and her team breached the Great Unknown, they found perfectly preserved specimens of a Cro-Magnon man and woman. The Cro-Magnons were in fact alive, being cloned repeatedly from their originals for 28,000 years. Logan's team's breach into the base caused the revival of the dormant test subjects, whose originals had been taken from Earth during the Last Glacial Period.

Literary comment
Given the 1991 publication date of "The Great Unknown," Harry Turtledove was probably using the term Cro-Magnon in its older, broader sense.