Homo sapiens is currently the only member of the genus Homo alive. There's only one species of human—but it wasn't always so.
Nine human species walked the Earth 300,000 years ago. Now there is just one. The Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were stocky hunters adapted to Europe's cold steppes. The related Denisovans inhabited Asia, while the more primitive Homo erectus lived in Indonesia, and Homo rhodesiensis in central Africa.
If we decide that humans are everything that arrived after our split from ancient chimpanzees about 6 million to 7 million years ago, then it's likely to be a diverse group. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has listed at least 21 human species that are recognized by most scientists.
Some human populations alive in Europe and Asia today have as much as 3% Neanderthal DNA. At the time of the Neanderthals, there were several human species and suddenly 40 000 years ago, all disappeared but one.
Denisovans are close relatives of both modern humans and Neanderthals, and likely diverged from these lineages around 300,000 to 400,000 years ago; they are more closely related to Neanderthals than to modern humans.
One model postulates that habitat degradation and fragmentation occurred in the Neanderthal territory long before the arrival of modern humans, and that it led to the decimation and eventual disappearance of Neanderthal populations.
How the Neanderthals died out remains one of the biggest mysteries in human evolution. A new paper proposes that Homo sapiens may have been responsible for the extinction of Neanderthals not by violence, but through sex instead. Making love, not war, might have put the Neanderthals on a path to extinction.
Broadly speaking, evolution simply means the gradual change in the genetics of a population over time. From that standpoint, human beings are constantly evolving and will continue to do so long as we continue to successfully reproduce.
Research shows that Neanderthals had a similar capacity to modern humans to talk and hear. They could produce the sounds of human speech and had a hearing range necessary to process human speech. “Neandertals could have produced all the sounds in that frequency range, like we can,” co-author Rolf M.
The First Humans
One of the earliest known humans is Homo habilis, or “handy man,” who lived about 2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Our species almost didn't make it. Around 70,000 years ago, humanity's global population dropped down to only a few thousand individuals, and it had major effects on our species.
The spread of modern humans across Europe is associated with the demise and ultimate extinction of Neanderthal populations 40,000 years ago, likely due to competition for resources.
Neandertals and anatomically modern humans overlapped geographically for a period of over 30,000 years following human migration out of Africa. During this period, Neandertals and humans interbred, as evidenced by Neandertal portions of the genome carried by non-African individuals today.
The Proto-Human language (also Proto-Sapiens, Proto-World) is the hypothetical direct genetic predecessor of all the world's spoken languages. It would not be ancestral to sign languages. The concept is speculative and not amenable to analysis in historical linguistics.
The model, called Mindy, provides a terrifying glimpse at what people could look like in 800 years if our love of technology continues. According to the company, humans in the year 3000 could have a hunched back, wide neck, clawed hand from texting and a second set of eyelids.
In theory, yes—but it would take millions of years and involve several evolutionary steps before we could even begin to think about flying. Therefore, it is safe to say that humans will not be able to evolve wings through natural selection anytime soon.
In 100 years, the world's population will probably be around 10 – 12 billion people, the rainforests will be largely cleared and the world would not be or look peaceful. We would have a shortage of resources such as water, food and habitation which would lead to conflicts and wars.
It's well-established that modern humans mingled with Neanderthals and Denisovans. DNA convincingly shows the three lineages interbred in every combo: modern human/Neanderthal, modern human/Denisovan and Neanderthal/Denisovan.
Neanderthal hunters may themselves have been prey for big cats and other carnivores. According to a recent study, some punctures on Neanderthal fossils are likely bite marks from large carnivore attacks.
We also think Homo sapiens had a competitive edge over Neanderthals. There is evidence that early Homo sapiens had long-distance trade networks, possibly buffering them against times of climate change when their preferred foods were not available; Neanderthals did not.
The 'Big Five' mass extinctions
There have been five mass extinction events in Earth's history. At least, since 500 million years ago; we know very little about extinction events in the Precambrian and early Cambrian earlier which predates this.
But how long can humans last? Eventually humans will go extinct. At the most wildly optimistic estimate, our species will last perhaps another billion years but end when the expanding envelope of the sun swells outward and heats the planet to a Venus-like state. But a billion years is a long time.
In a physiological sense, it might indeed be a creature from another age, but whatever culture or language it develops would depend on its surroundings. An extinct culture of early hominids isn't something you can recreate. Plus, there are no shortage of ethical concerns.
PALEOLITHIC STAGE ENCOUNTERS
The first encounters began about 8000 generations ago in the Paleolithic era when approximately 75% of deaths were caused by infection, including diarrheal diseases that resulted in dehydration and starvation. Life expectancy was approximately 33 years of age.