01/06/24 13:56 Filed in:
History | Animal KingdomMost of us do not realize that there have been around 21 human species that have lived on this planet Earth. I came across this article that gives an introduction to the past history of humans.
| "Each one of the billions of people living on Earth today belongs to the same species: |
Homo sapiens.
But we weren't always the only humans. The Smithsonian Institute estimates that some 21 different human species have roamed the Earth (though the number varies due to conflicting definitions of what is “human&rdquo
. Many of those species are in the genus
Homo
, which has only one surviving species today (that’s us). The
list of hominids
also includes other species considered by most scientists to be early humans, such as the
Australopithecus afarensis
, a member of the genus
Australopithecus
.
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| The first humans in the same genus as |
Homo sapiens
were
Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis,
and
Homo erectus
, and evidence suggests they coexisted in East Africa some 1.9 million years ago. This kind of cohabitation was a familiar fixture of human evolution. When
Homo sapiens
first appeared around 300,000 years ago, our ancestors lived among many other now-extinct human cousins. Modern humans famously fraternized with Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other populations.
Homo sapiens
also shared the planet with lesser-known species such as
Homo floresiensis, Homo naledi, Homo luzonensis,
and the straggling survivors of
Homo erectus.
But because some of these groups lived in remote communities, it’s possible that modern humans never even laid eyes on them. Scientists theorize that our ancestors wiped out many of these human species (Neanderthals were the last to fall, beginning to go extinct around 40,000 years ago) by demonstrating superior strategizing and cooperation skills. Our ancestors’ social intelligence helped them rise to the top of the food chain, and the population grew exponentially. Today, modern humans stand alone in the genus
Homo
, but we only have ourselves to blame. "
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Tags: Humans, Homo Sapiens, History
