Arambourg (1954) described two mandibles from the Tighennif Quarry (Algeria) also known as Ternifine or Palikao. In this publication he established the name Atlanthropus mauritanicus, though he does not explicitly fix either mandible as the holotype. He writes, "Toutefois l'hominien de Ternifine ne paraît rigoureusement identique, ne aux Pithécanthropes, ni au Sinanthrope; il présente, dans certains détails de son corps mandibulaire, quelques traits qui lui paraissent propres, mais qui évoquent, dans une certain mesure, une tendance vers un stade plus progressif. Pour cette raison, et en attendant de le connaître plus complètement, je proposerai de désigner cet Hominien sous le nom provisoire de 'Atlanthropus mauritanicus'. " (p. 895). Note that Article 15.1 governing the conditional assignment of names only applies to names published after 1960.
In all, there are three mandibular specimens recovered from Tighennif. Dolinar-Osole (1956) divided them into two taxa Homo (Pithecanthropus) atlanticus and Homo (Pithecanthropus) ternifinus.
Campbell (1965) listed Atlanthropus mauritanicus as available and valid. Note that the genus name is correctly spelled in the 1965 publication but misspelled as "Atlanthroprus" in the 1994 reprinting in Meikle and Taylor (p. 217).
Szalay and Delson (1979) listed Atlanthropus mauritanicus Arambourg, 1954 as a junior synonym to Homo erectus (Dubois, 1892).
Groves (1989) listed the species as available (p. 284) and asserted that the Ternifine 1 mandible is the type of this taxon, but offers no additional evidence for when a lectotype may have been established.
