• Question: How many human species were there?

    Asked by to James, Ed, Anthony on 8 Jan 2019. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: James Cole

      James Cole answered on 8 Jan 2019:


      This is a really good question and in all honestly we don’t know as there are new fossil discoveries and advances in genetics that seems to increase the number every year. However, as of today there are around 29 human species that we have fossilised evidence for. The Smithsonian have a good website showing many of these species here: http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species and the Natural History Museum in London also have a good website (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-origin-of-our-species.html) and a great gallery you can visit for free.

    • Photo: Ed Morrison

      Ed Morrison answered on 8 Jan 2019:


      And at one point in time, about 100-200k years ago, several hominid sub-species lived in the same places at the same times: Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalis, and Homo sapiens. THey were not true species as they interbred.

      Possibly other sub species coexisted too. It must have been weird to live in a time with other “humans” who were quite different to you.

Comments