Smithsonian Institution
In the history of humanity, there were 9 human species. 7 lived at the same time
Our evolutionary journey began 6 million years ago, when a branch of monkeys evolved to become the first species of the genre Homo – Giving rise to Homo sapiens and the other 8 known human species. And then… there are all the other hominids that you never talk about.
Like those of the hominini tribe, we, Homo sapienswe are a responsibility to join the pieces of our family tree, documenting all extinct human species upon whose hairy shoulders we support ourselves.
However, the more hominid fossils we find out, the more confusing the picture and the more difficult becomes finding exactly who we are and where we came from, the.
The current cast of characters that make up our story includes a series of surprising and highly controversial creaturessimilar to humans, but anthropologists cannot agree on which one deserves to be classified as a unique species.
Ardipithecus ramidus
What we know is that our history begins in Africa with a group of monkeys, known as basal hominids. The oldest was the Sahelanthropus tchadensiswhich emerged when our lineage diverged from the chimpanzees, about 7 million years ago.
Followed by the Orrorin Tugengensisbut only in 2009 did scientists confirm the existence of a third basal hominid, the Ardipithecus ramidus.
This species lived in Ethiopia about 4.5 million years and may have been one of the first of our ancestors to walk on two feet. Despite its relatively recent discovery, this species is currently represented by more than 100 fossils in East Africa.
Homo gautengensis
After basal hominids, a series of other primitive species belonging to the genres emerged Australopithecus e Paranthropusbefore the first member of the genre Homo Finally entered the scene for about 2 million years.
However, in 2010, the anthropologist Darren Curnoe stirred the waves by suggesting that a partial skull found in South Africa in 1977 actually represented first species Homo.
Calling this primordial human Homo gautengensisCurnoe argues that his morphology is sufficiently different from all other hominids archaic to be classified as a separate species.
However, most academics are not convinced and think that o Homo gautengensis It is probably only an initial variant of Man alert.
Homo Georgicus
Another very controversial input in our family tree, o Homo Georgicus It is the name given to a specimen of 1.85 million years of Dmanisi, Georgia, which holds the distinction of being the oldest human fossil known outside Africa.
Since its discovery in 1991, the H. Georgicus has been at the center of a lit debate, with some experts arguing that it is only otherwise H. erectuswhile others insist it is a separate species.
Interestingly, a recent genetic study suggested that the Dmani set can, in fact, include two distinct human speciesnone of which related to the H. erectus.
The authors of this article, not yet published, conclude that one of them is in fact o H. Georgicuswhile the other represents a “nameless species.”
Homo Helmei
Described from a single South African skull, known as the Florisbad skull, the contested species Homo Helmei It will have lived about 350,000 years ago, precisely when our species began to spread through Africa.
Originally classified in 1935, o H. Helmei has since been revisited by numerous anthropologists, most of which now believe that the skull of Florisbad has indeed belonged to a individual Homo sapiens very early.
However, although it is of the same species as us, the morphology of this prehistoric fossil is quite different from modern human skulls, probably because this particular specimen has lived many millennia before our ancestors were crossed with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Man long, Juluensis … ou Denisovano?
All this leads us to our sister lineage, the. So far, we have only discovered some bones belonging to this enigmatic species in sites in Siberia, Tibet and ,.
However, there is A series of other specimens from all over Asia who are thought to belong to the line of Denisovana descent.
For example,-which means “dragon man”-is the classification given to a bulky human fossil from northern China.
With huge teeth and a series of strange facial characteristics, this 150,000 -year -old individual is considered by many experts as a Denisovan, although We cannot confirm this fact until we find more fossils of this mysterious hominid.
However, by the end of 2024, the investigators announced another species from the same region.
Known as, it is also speculated that this new addition to the human family could be a denisovano – which highlights how little we know about the old hominids that came before us.
