When I drew up a family tree covering the last one million years of human evolution in 2003, it contained only four species: Homo sapiens (us, modern humans), H. neanderthalensis (the Neanderthals), H. heidelbergensis (a supposedly ancestral species), and H. erectus (an even more ancient and primitive species).
around 2 million years ago. A team of scientists, led by Prof Andy Herries, recently discovered three different hominin species — Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and the earliest-known Homo erectus — lived in the same place at the same time.
Apart from our species, the gallery features eight other kinds of human: Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus, Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo floresiensis (nicknamed 'the hobbit'), Homo neanderthalensis (the Neanderthals) and the recently discovered Homo naledi.
The Major Divisions of the Human Race
Most anthropologists recognize 3 or 4 basic races of man in existence today. These races can be further subdivided into as many as 30 subgroups.
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.
By the time Homo sapiens arrived on the scene some 300,000 years ago, we were the ninth Homo species, joining habilis, erectus, rudolfensis, heidelbergensis, floresiensis, neanderthalensis, naledi, and luzonensis.
Modern humans originated in Africa within the past 200,000 years and evolved from their most likely recent common ancestor, Homo erectus, which means 'upright man' in Latin. Homo erectus is an extinct species of human that lived between 1.9 million and 135,000 years ago.
When did Neanderthals live? The Neanderthals have a long evolutionary history. The earliest known examples of Neanderthal-like fossils are around 430,000 years old. The best-known Neanderthals lived between about 130,000 and 40,000 years ago, after which all physical evidence of them vanishes.
With the exception of Neanderthals, they had smaller skulls than we did. And those skulls were often more of an oblong than a sphere like ours is, with broad noses and large nostrils. Most ancient humans had jaws that were considerably more robust than ours, too, likely a reflection of their hardy diets.
Genetic studies have demonstrated that humans are still evolving. To investigate which genes are undergoing natural selection, researchers looked into the data produced by the International HapMap Project and the 1000 Genomes Project.
The Neanderthal hyoid bone
Its similarity to those of modern humans was seen as evidence by some scientists that Neanderthals possessed a modern vocal tract and were therefore capable of fully modern speech.
Our scientific name indicates that we are in the genus and species homo and sapiens. Our family is the hominid, within the order primate, within the class mammal, within the phylum chordate, within the kingdom animalia, within the domain Eukarya.
Scientists have recently named a new species of human ancestor, Homo bodoensis. Dr. Mirjana Roksandic of the University of Winnipeg in Canada, led a team of researchers in reanalyzing fossils from Africa and Eurasia to precisely define the new species of ancestor.
A new genetic study suggests all modern humans trace our ancestry to a single spot in southern Africa 200,000 years ago.
The billions of human beings living today all belong to one species: Homo sapiens. As in all species, there is variation among individual human beings, from size and shape to skin tone and eye color. But we are much more alike than we are different.
New research suggests some of our species' closest relatives died out because of significant changes in climate, findings that may offer a warning for humanity today. Several close relatives of our species, Homo sapiens, have walked this Earth since the genus Homo evolved more than 2 million years ago.
From about 1.2 million years ago to less than 100,000 years ago, archaic humans, including archaic Homo sapiens, were dark-skinned.
Adam was the first human being, the father of humanity, and the first of prophets. The Glorious Qur'an did not mention an explicit provision that he was granted prophethood as other prophets and messengers were given. However, Allah said that He chose Adam “Allah did choose Adam and Noah.” [Surat Ali `Imran: 33].
Many scientists believe that RNA, or something similar to RNA, was the first molecule on Earth to self-replicate and begin the process of evolution that led to more advanced forms of life, including human beings.
An individual can report as White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, or some other race. Survey respondents may report multiple races.
The world's largest ethnic group is Han Chinese, with Mandarin being the world's most spoken language in terms of native speakers.
The main human races are Caucasoid, Mongoloids (including Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and American Indians, etc.), and Negroid. Khoisanoids or Capoids (Bushmen and Hottentots) and Pacific races (Australian aborigines, Polynesians, Melanesians, and Indonesians) may also be distinguished.