How old is the homo sapiens species?
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
200,000 years ago, "Homo sapiens" evolves in East Africa. At the time, "Homo sapiens" was one of many human species, such as Neanderthals. Since 13,000 years ago, "Homo sapiens" has been the only surviving human species. Harari suggests that one of the key reasons why Sapiens is able to take control of the world is Sapiens' advanced language.
Homo sapiens
A significant dispersal event, within Africa and to West Asia, is associated with the African "megadroughts" during MIS 5, beginning 130,000 years ago.
A 2011 study located the origin of basal population of contemporary human populations at 130,000 years ago, with the Khoi-San representing an "ancestral population cluster" located in southwestern Africa (near the coastal border of Namibia and Angola).
Homo sapiens
"H. heidelbergensis", dated 600,000 to 300,000 years ago, has long been thought to be a likely candidate for the last common ancestor of the Neanderthal and modern human lineages.
However, genetic evidence from the Sima de los Huesos fossils published in 2016 seems to suggest that "H. heidelbergensis" in its entirety should be included in the Neanderthal lineage, as "pre-Neanderthal" or "early Neanderthal", while the divergence time between the Neanderthal and modern lineages has been pushed back to before the emergence of "H. heidelbergensis", to close to 800,000 years ago, the approximate time of disappearance of "H. antecessor".
Kenya
Fossils found in Kenya suggest that primates roamed the area more than 20 million years ago. Recent findings near Lake Turkana indicate that hominids such as "Homo habilis" (1.8 and 2.5 million years ago) and "Homo erectus" (1.9 million to 350,000 years ago) are possible direct ancestors of modern "Homo sapiens", and lived in Kenya in the Pleistocene epoch.
Paleogenetics
Using the thigh bone of a Neanderthal female, 63% of the Neanderthal genome was uncovered and 3.7 billion bases of DNA were decoded. It showed that "Homo neanderthalensis" was the closest living relative of "Homo sapiens," until the former lineage died out 30,000 years ago. The Neanderthal genome was shown to be within the range of variation of those of anatomically modern humans, although at the far periphery of that range of variation. Paleogenetic analysis also suggests that Neanderthals shared more DNA with chimpanzees than "homo sapiens". It was also found that Neanderthals were less genetically diverse than modern humans are, which indicates that "Homo neanderthalensis" grew from a group composed of relatively few individuals. DNA sequences suggest that "Homo sapiens" first appeared between about 130,000 and 250,000 years ago in Africa.
Common chimpanzee
DNA evidence suggests the bonobo and common chimpanzee species separated from each other less than one million years ago (similar in relation between "Homo sapiens" and Neanderthals). A 2017 genetic study suggests ancient gene flow (introgression) between 200 and 550 thousand years ago from the bonobo into the ancestors of central and eastern chimpanzees. The chimpanzee line split from the last common ancestor of the human line around six million years ago. Because no species other than "Homo sapiens" has survived from the human line of that branching, both chimpanzee species are the closest living relatives of humans; the lineage of humans and chimpanzees diverged from genus "Gorilla" about seven million years ago. A 2003 study argues the common chimpanzee should be included in the human branch as "Homo troglodytes", and notes "experts say many scientists are likely to resist the reclassification, especially in the emotionally-charged and often disputed field of anthropology".
Human evolution
"H. heidelbergensis" ("Heidelberg Man") lived from about 800,000 to about 300,000 years ago. Also proposed as "Homo sapiens heidelbergensis" or "Homo sapiens paleohungaricus"."Homo neanderthalensis", alternatively designated as "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis", lived in Europe and Asia from 400,000 to about 28,000 years ago.
There are a number of clear anatomical differences between anatomically modern humans (AMH) and Neanderthal populations. Many of these relate to the superior adaptation to cold environments possessed by the Neanderthal populations. Their surface to volume ratio is an extreme version of that found amongst Inuit populations, indicating that they were less inclined to lose body heat than were AMH. From brain Endocasts, Neanderthals also had significantly larger brains. This would seem to indicate that the intellectual superiority of AMH populations may be questionable. More recent research by Eiluned Pearce, Chris Stringer, R.I.M. Dunbar, however, have shown important differences in Brain architecture. For example, in both the orbital chamber size and in the size of the occipital lobe, the larger size suggests that the Neanderthal had a better visual acuity than modern humans. This would give a superior vision in the inferior light conditions found in Glacial Europe. It also seems that the higher body mass of Neanderthals had a correspondingly larger brain mass required for body care and control.
Human evolution
"H. sapiens" (the adjective "sapiens" is Latin for "wise" or "intelligent") emerged around 300,000 years ago, likely derived from "Homo heidelbergensis". Between 400,000 years ago and the second interglacial period in the Middle Pleistocene, around 250,000 years ago, the trend in intra-cranial volume expansion and the elaboration of stone tool technologies developed, providing evidence for a transition from "H. erectus" to "H. sapiens". The direct evidence suggests there was a migration of "H. erectus" out of Africa, then a further speciation of "H. sapiens" from "H. erectus" in Africa. A subsequent migration (both within and out of Africa) eventually replaced the earlier dispersed "H. erectus". This migration and origin theory is usually referred to as the "recent single-origin hypothesis" or "out of Africa" theory.
"H. sapiens" interbred with archaic humans both in Africa and in Eurasia, in Eurasia notably with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Homo ergaster
"H. erectus/ergaster" ("H. erectus" sensu lato) is the predecessor of "Homo heidelbergensis" (in Africa also known as "Homo rhodesiensis"), which arose after about 0.8 million years ago. Late populations of morphological "H. erectus" were mostly replaced by "H. heidelbergensis" by 0.5 million years ago.
"Homo neanderthalensis" and "Homo sapiens" are in turn derived from "H. heidelbergensis" at about 0.3 million years ago.
American anthropology
Chimpanzees ("Pan troglodytes" and "Pan paniscus") are humans' ("Homo sapiens") closest living relatives; both are descended from a common ancestor which lived around seven million years ago. Human evolution has been rapid with modern humans appearing about 340,000 years ago. During this time humanity evolved three distinctive features:
Prehistoric technology
"Homo sapiens", the only living species in the genus "Homo", originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago. As compared to their predecessors, "Homo sapiens" had greater mental capability and ability to walk erect, which provided freed hands for manipulating objects and far greater use of tools. There was art created during this period. Intentional burial, particularly with grave goods, may be one of the earliest detectable forms of religious practice since it may signify a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life." The earliest undisputed human burial so far dates back 130,000 years. Human skeletal remains stained with red ochre were discovered in the Skhul cave at Qafzeh, Israel with a variety of grave goods.
Horn of Africa
According to both genetic and fossil evidence, archaic Homo sapiens evolved into anatomically modern humans solely in the Horn of Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago and have dispersed from the Horn of Africa. The recognition of "Homo sapien idaltu" as a valid subspecies of the anatomically modern human lineage would justify the description of contemporary humans with the subspecies name "H. s. sapiens". Because of their early dating and unique physical characteristics, they represent the immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans, as suggested by the Out-of-Africa theory.
Homo sapiens
Extant human populations have historically been divided into subspecies, but since around the 1980s all extant groups have tended to be subsumed into a single species, "H. sapiens", avoiding division into subspecies altogether.
Some sources show Neanderthals ("H. neanderthalensis") as a subspecies ("H. sapiens neanderthalensis"). Similarly, the discovered specimens of the "H. rhodesiensis" species have been classified by some as a subspecies ("H. sapiens rhodesiensis"), although it remains more common to treat these last two as separate species within the genus "Homo" rather than as subspecies within "H. sapiens".
Most recent common ancestor
The concept of the last common ancestor from the perspective of human evolution is described for a popular audience in "The Ancestor's Tale" by Richard Dawkins (2004). Dawkins lists "concestors" of the human lineage in order of increasing age, including hominin (human-chimpanzee), hominine (human-gorilla), hominid (human-orangutan), hominoid (human-gibbon), and so on in 40 stages in total, down to the last universal ancestor (human-bacteria).
Africa
After the evolution of "Homo sapiens sapiens" approximately 150,000 to 100,000 years BP in Africa, the continent was mainly populated by groups of hunter-gatherers. These first modern humans left Africa and populated the rest of the globe during the Out of Africa II migration dated to approximately 50,000 years BP, exiting the continent either across Bab-el-Mandeb over the Red Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar in Morocco, or the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt.
Human taxonomy
Since the introduction of systematic names in the 18th century, knowledge of human evolution has increased drastically, and a number of intermediate taxa have been proposed in the 20th to early 21st century. The most widely accepted taxonomy groups takes the genus "Homo" as originating between two and three million years ago, divided into at least two species, archaic "Homo erectus" and modern "Homo sapiens", with about a dozen further suggestions for species without universal recognition.
Human taxonomy
Since the 2000s, the extinct "Homo sapiens idaltu" (White "et al.", 2003) has gained wide recognition as a subspecies of "Homo sapiens", but even in this case there is a dissenting view arguing that "the skulls may not be distinctive enough to warrant a new subspecies name". "H. s. neanderthalensis" and "H. s. rhodesiensis" continue to be considered separate species by some authorities, but the genetic evidence of archaic human admixture with modern humans discovered in the 2010s has re-opened the details of taxonomy of archaic humans.
Mauer 1
However, there is agreement among all paleo-anthropologists that the lower jaw of Mauer does not belong to the immediate ancestral line of modern man. He is regarded rather as a descendant of an early migration to Europe and Asia (depending on the terminology - of "Homo erectus" or "Homo heidelbergensis"), whose oldest fossils outside of Africa are about 1.8 million years old. The last descendant of this first migration to Europe was Neanderthal, who became extinct about 30,000 years ago. Members of the species "Homo sapiens" arrived in Europe only in a second migratory wave of the genus "Homo" at around 40,000 to 30,000 years ago, whose descendants include modern man.
List of human evolution fossils
Most of the early fossils shown are not considered direct ancestors to "Homo sapiens" but are closely related to direct ancestors and are therefore important to the study of the lineage. After 1.5 million years ago (extinction of "Paranthropus"), all fossils shown are human (genus "Homo"). After 11,500 years ago (11.5 ka, beginning of the Holocene), all fossils shown are "Homo sapiens" (anatomically modern humans), illustrating recent divergence in the formation of modern human sub-populations.
Pleistocene human diet
Recents estimates of the last common ancestors of humans and chimpanzees are around 12 million years ago. After this split the first bipedal hominins appeared around 4 million years ago in the genus "Australopithecus".The first appearance of genus "Homo" takes place around 2.8 million years ago with "Homo habilis", followed by "Homo erectus" at around 1.8 million years ago, "Homo neanderthalensis" by 400,000 years ago and finally the first appearance of "Homo sapiens" by 200,000 years ago. In each new species of hominin, particularly genus "Homo" there is a general trend of increasing brain size and decreasing dentition, these patterns are inextricably linked with an evolving diet.
Early human migrations
Within Africa, "Homo sapiens" dispersed around the time of its speciation, roughly 300,000 years ago.
The "recent African origin" paradigm suggests that the anatomically modern humans outside of Africa descend from a population of "Homo sapiens" migrating from East Africa roughly 70,000 years ago and spreading along the southern coast of Asia and to Oceania before 50,000 years ago. Modern humans spread across Europe about 40,000 years ago.
Homo erectus
Homo erectus (meaning 'upright man') is a species of archaic humans that lived throughout most of the Pleistocene geological epoch.
Its earliest fossil evidence dates to 1.8 million years ago (discovered 1991 in Dmanisi, Georgia). However, a 2017 analyses points to these specific fossils being more archaic, being related to H. naledi, which was considered one of the first homo species.
Prehistoric Asia
Between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago, "Homo sapiens" came to Southeast Asia by migrating from Africa, known as the "Out of Africa" model. "Homo sapiens" are believed to have migrated through the Middle East on their way out of Africa about 100,000 years ago. Near Nazareth, remains of skeletons, including a double grave of a mother and child, dating to about 93,000 years ago were found in a Jebel Qafzeh cave. Included among the remains was a skeleton of another species which was not "Homo sapiens"; it had a "distinct and undivided browridge that is continuous across the eye sockets" and other discrepancies.
History of Earth
Throughout more than 90% of its history, "Homo sapiens" lived in small bands as nomadic hunter-gatherers. As language became more complex, the ability to remember and communicate information resulted, according to a theory proposed by Richard Dawkins, in a new replicator: the meme. Ideas could be exchanged quickly and passed down the generations. Cultural evolution quickly outpaced biological evolution, and history proper began. Between 8500 and 7000 BC, humans in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East began the systematic husbandry of plants and animals: agriculture. This spread to neighboring regions, and developed independently elsewhere, until most "Homo sapiens" lived sedentary lives in permanent settlements as farmers. Not all societies abandoned nomadism, especially those in isolated areas of the globe poor in domesticable plant species, such as Australia. However, among those civilizations that did adopt agriculture, the relative stability and increased productivity provided by farming allowed the population to expand.
Avi Gopher
Gopher's work at Qesem with Ran Barkai and Israel Hershkowitz received considerable press coverage. The team claimed to have discovered the oldest homo sapiens remains ever found at the cave near Rosh HaAyin in central Israel. Their paper, published in the "American Journal of Physical Anthropology", states that the human teeth they discovered are between 400,000 and 200,000 years old although it was impossible to definitely identify the particular species of human. In an interview, Gopher said "they definitely leave all options open. There's been a tendency for people to get so accustomed to the "out of Africa" hypothesis that they use it exclusively and explain any finding that doesn't fit it as evidence of yet another wave of migration out of Africa."
Homo erectus
Stringer ("see" upper graph-model) depicts the presence of "H. erectus" as dominating the temporal and geographic development of human evolution; and as persisting broadly throughout Africa and Eurasia for nearly 2 million years, eventually evolving into "H. heidelbergensis / H. rhodesiensis", which in turn evolved into "H. sapiens". Reed, et al. shows "Homo ergaster" as the ancestor of "Homo erectus"; then it is "ergaster", or a variety of "ergaster", or perhaps a hybrid of "ergaster" and "erectus", which develops into species that evolve into archaic and then modern humans and then out of Africa.
List of first human settlements
Human "settlement" does not necessarily have to be continuous; settled areas in some cases become depopulated due to environmental conditions, such as glacial periods or the Toba volcanic eruption. Early "Homo sapiens" migrated out of Africa from as early as 270,000 years ago, although permanent presence outside of Africa may not have been established until after about 70,000 years ago.
Before "Homo sapiens", "Homo erectus" had already spread throughout Africa and non-Arctic Eurasia by about one million years ago (see Out of Africa I).
The oldest known evidence for anatomically modern humans () are fossils found at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, dated about 300,000 years old.
Homo heidelbergensis
"H. heidelbergensis" is thought to be derived from "Homo antecessor", around 800,000 to 700,000 years ago.
The oldest known fossil classified as "H. heidelbergensis" dates to around 600,000 years ago, but the 
flint tools found in 2005 at Pakefield near Lowestoft in Suffolk with teeth from the water vole "Mimomys savini", a key dating species, suggest human presence in England at 700,000 years ago, assumed to correspond to a transitional form between "H. antecessor" and "H. heidelbergensis".
Human evolution
"Homo habilis" lived from about 2.8 to 1.4 Ma. The species evolved in South and East Africa in the Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene, 2.5–2 Ma, when it diverged from the australopithecines. "Homo habilis" had smaller molars and larger brains than the australopithecines, and made tools from stone and perhaps animal bones. One of the first known hominins was nicknamed 'handy man' by discoverer Louis Leakey due to its association with stone tools. Some scientists have proposed moving this species out of "Homo" and into "Australopithecus" due to the morphology of its skeleton being more adapted to living on trees rather than to moving on two legs like "Homo sapiens".
Asteroid laser ablation
Modern humans, or Homo sapiens, have existed for approximately 200,000 years. By comparison, the dinosaurs survived on Earth for over 100 million years before the Chixculub asteroid wiped them out. Despite the advancements in technology made by humans over the past hundred years there are still no viable defense mechanisms against an asteroid impact. Asteroids could still potentially pose a serious threat to every major city on earth and even to our whole species.
Homo floresiensis
The species was formerly thought to have survived on Flores at least until 12,000 years before present, which would have made it the longest lasting known non-"Homo sapiens" human (unless the Red Deer Cave people belonged to its own species), surviving long past the Neanderthals ("H. neanderthalensis"), which became extinct between 39,000 and 41,000 years ago. However, subsequent and detailed study of the Liang Bua cave where "Homo floresiensis" was found show that its youngest osteological remains date to 60,000 years ago, and youngest associated stone tools to 50,000 years ago. Previous younger estimates resulted from the presence of an undetected unconformity in the cave stratigraphy.
Homo sapiens
The speciation of "H. sapiens" out of archaic human varieties derived from "H. erectus" is estimated as having taken place over 350,000 years ago, as the Khoisan split from other populations is dated between 260,000 and 350,000 years ago and West-Central Africans have partial ancestry from an archaic "H. sapiens" population (termed "Basal Human" in the study) whose divergence predates even Khoisan to a significant extent and did not share much genetic drift with other Africans before admixing into them.
Early expansions of hominins out of Africa
"Australopithecina" emerge about 5.6 million years ago, in East Africa (Afar Depression).
Gracile australopithecines ("Australopithecus afarensis") emerge in the same region, around 4 million years ago.
The earliest known retouched tools were found in Lomekwi, Kenya, and date back to 3.3 Ma, in the late Pliocene. They might be the product of "Australopithecus garhi" or "Paranthropus aethiopicus", the two known hominins contemporary with the tools.
"Homo" is assumed to have emerged by around 2 million years ago, "Homo habilis" being 
found at about 2.1 million years ago at Lake Turkana, Kenya. The delineation of the "human" genus, "Homo", from Australopithecus is somewhat contentious, for which reason the superordinate term "hominin" is often used to include both. 
"Hominin" technically includes chimpanzees as well as pre-human species as old as 10 million years ago (the separation of Homininae into Hominini and Gorillini).
Prehistoric Asia
About 1.8 million years ago, some hominids left the African continent. "Homo erectus" ("upright man") is believed to have lived in East and Southeast Asia from 1.8 million to 40,000 years ago. Their regional distinction is classified as "Homo erectus sensu stricto". The females weighed an average of and were on average tall. The males weighed an average of and were on average tall. They are believed to have had a vegetarian diet with some meat. They had small brains, when compared to the later "Homo sapiens" and used simple tools.
Homo sapiens idaltu
These specimens represent the direct ancestors of modern "Homo sapiens sapiens" which, according to the "recent African origin (RAO)" or "out of Africa" model, developed shortly after this period (Khoisan mitochondrial divergence dated not later than 110,000 BCE) in Eastern Africa. "The many morphological features shared by the Herto crania and AMHS, to the exclusion of penecontemporaneous Neanderthals, provide additional fossil data excluding Neanderthals from a significant contribution to the ancestry of modern humans."
Homo sapiens
The term "anatomically modern humans" (AMH) is used with varying scope depending on context, to distinguish "anatomically modern" "Homo sapiens" from 
archaic humans such as Neanderthals and Middle and Lower Paleolithic hominins with transitional features intermediate between "H. erectus", Neanderthals and early AMH called "archaic Homo Sapiens".
In a convention popular in the 1990s, Neanderthals were classified as a subspecies of "H. sapiens", as "H. s. neanderthalensis", while AMH (or European early modern humans, EEMH) was taken to refer to "Cro-Magnon" or "H. s. sapiens".
Under this nomenclature (Neanderthals considered "H. sapiens"), the term "anatomically modern "Homo sapiens"" (AMHS) has also been used to refer to EEMH ("Cro-Magnons"). 
It has since become more common to designate Neanderthals as a separate species, "H. neanderthalensis", so that AMH in the European context refers to "H. sapiens" (but the question is by no means resolved).
South Asian Stone Age
Analysis of mitochondrial DNA dates the immigration of "Homo sapiens" to South Asia to 75,000 to 50,000 years ago. An analysis of Y chromosome haplogroups found one man in a village west of Madurai to be a direct descendant of these migrators. Cave sites in Sri Lanka have yielded the earliest non-mitochondrial record of modern "Homo sapiens" in South Asia. They were dated to 34,000 years ago. (Kennedy 2000: 180). For finds from the Belan in southern Uttar Pradesh, India radiocarbon data have indicated an age of 18,000-17,000 years.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Harari surveys the history of humankind from the evolution of archaic human species in the Stone Age up to the twenty-first century, focusing on "Homo sapiens". He divides the history of Sapiens into four major parts:
Olduvai Gorge
"Homo habilis", probably the first early human species, occupied Olduvai Gorge approximately 1.9 million years ago (mya); then came a contemporary australopithecine, "Paranthropus boisei", 1.8 mya, followed by "Homo erectus", 1.2 mya. Our species "Homo sapiens", which is estimated to have emerged roughly 300,000 years ago, is dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago.
Neanderthal
"Homo heidelbergensis", dated 600,000 to 300,000 years ago, has long been thought to be a likely candidate for the last common ancestor of the Neanderthal and modern human lineages.
However, genetic evidence from the Sima de los Huesos fossils published in 2016 seems to suggest that "H. heidelbergensis" in its entirety should be included in the Neanderthal lineage, as "pre-Neanderthal" or "early Neanderthal", while the divergence time between the Neanderthal and modern lineages has been pushed back to before the emergence of "H. heidelbergensis", to about 600,000 to 800,000 years ago, the approximate age of "Homo antecessor".
Homo floresiensis
The specimens were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 by a joint Australian-Indonesian team of archaeologists looking for evidence of the original human migration of "Homo sapiens" from Asia to Australia. They were not expecting to find a new species, and were surprised at the recovery of a nearly complete skeleton of a hominin they dubbed LB1 because it was unearthed inside the Liang Bua Cave. Subsequent excavations recovered seven additional skeletons, initially dated from 38,000 to 13,000 years ago. An arm bone provisionally assigned to "H. floresiensis" is about 74,000 years old. The specimens are not fossilized and have been described as having "...the consistency of wet blotting paper." Once exposed, the bones had to be left to dry before they could be dug up.
Homo sapiens
In November 2018, scientists reported that nearly all extant populations of animals, including humans, may be a result of a population expansion that began between one and two hundred thousand years ago, based on genetic mitochondrial DNA studies.
Names for the human species
The binomial name "Homo sapiens" was coined by Carl Linnaeus (1758).
Names for other human species were introduced beginning in the second half of the 19th century ("Homo neanderthalensis" 1864, "Homo erectus" 1892).
History of Earth
It is more difficult to establish the origin of language; it is unclear whether "Homo erectus" could speak or if that capability had not begun until "Homo sapiens". As brain size increased, babies were born earlier, before their heads grew too large to pass through the pelvis. As a result, they exhibited more plasticity, and thus possessed an increased capacity to learn and required a longer period of dependence. Social skills became more complex, language became more sophisticated, and tools became more elaborate. This contributed to further cooperation and intellectual development. Modern humans ("Homo sapiens") are believed to have originated around 200,000 years ago or earlier in Africa; the oldest fossils date back to around 160,000 years ago.
Engis 2
Originally misclassified as "modern", the fossil received little attention after its publication in the 19th century as it was compared to Engis 1 - the very good and almost perfectly preserved skull of an adult "Homo sapiens". In 1758 Carl Linnaeus had published the 10th edition of his work Systema Naturae in which "Homo sapiens" as a species name was introduced to the public, yet without a thorough diagnosis and without a precise description of the species-specific characteristics.
As a result, any criteria by which a fossil of the species "Homo sapiens" could be classified into and distinguished from the genus "Homo" did not exist in the early 19th century.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (, [Ḳitsur toldot ha-enoshut]) is a book by Yuval Noah Harari first published in Hebrew in Israel in 2011, and in English in 2014. The book surveys the history of humankind from the evolution of archaic human species in the Stone Age up to the twenty-first century, focusing on "Homo sapiens". The account is situated within a framework provided by the natural sciences, particularly evolutionary biology.
Human
The earliest members of the genus "Homo" are "Homo habilis" which evolved around . "Homo habilis" has been considered the first species for which there is clear evidence of the use of stone tools. More recently, however, in 2015, stone tools, perhaps predating "Homo habilis", have been discovered in northwestern Kenya that have been dated to 3.3 million years old. Nonetheless, the brains of "Homo habilis" were about the same size as that of a chimpanzee, and their main adaptation was bipedalism as an adaptation to terrestrial living. During the next million years a process of encephalization began, and with the arrival of "Homo erectus" in the fossil record, cranial capacity had doubled. "Homo erectus" were the first of the hominina to leave Africa, and these species spread through Africa, Asia, and Europe between . One population of "H. erectus", also sometimes classified as a separate species "Homo ergaster", stayed in Africa and evolved into "Homo sapiens". It is believed that these species were the first to use fire and complex tools. The earliest transitional fossils between "H. ergaster/erectus" and archaic humans are from Africa such as "Homo rhodesiensis", but seemingly transitional forms are also found at Dmanisi, Georgia. These descendants of African "H. erectus" spread through Eurasia from c. 500,000 years ago evolving into "H. antecessor", "H. heidelbergensis" and "H. neanderthalensis". The earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans are from the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago such as the Omo remains of Ethiopia and the fossils of Herto sometimes classified as "Homo sapiens idaltu". Later fossils of archaic "Homo sapiens" from Skhul in Israel and Southern Europe begin around 90,000 years ago.
History of South Africa
Many more species of early hominid have come to light in recent decades. The oldest is Little Foot, a collection of footbones of an unknown hominid between 2.2 and 3.3 million years old, discovered at Sterkfontein by Ronald J. Clarke. An important recent find was that of 1.9 million year old "Australopithecus sediba", discovered in 2008. In 2015, the discovery near Johannesburg of a previously unknown species of "Homo" was announced, named "Homo naledi". It has been described as one of the most important paleontological discoveries in modern times.
Homo sapiens
Following the peopling of Africa some 130,000 years ago, and the recent Out-of-Africa expansion some 70,000 to 50,000 years ago, some sub-populations of "H. sapiens" have been essentially isolated for tens of thousands of years prior to the early modern Age of Discovery.
Combined with archaic admixture this has resulted in significant genetic variation, which in some instances has been shown to be the result of directional selection taking place over the past 15,000 years, i.e. significantly later than possible archaic admixture events.
Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup
The Y-chromosomal most recent common ancestor (Y-MRCA, informally known as Y-chromosomal Adam) is the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) from whom all currently living men are descended patrilineally. Y-chromosomal Adam is estimated to have lived roughly 236,000 years ago in Africa. By examining other bottlenecks most Eurasian men are descended from a man who lived 69,000 years ago. Other major bottlenecks occurred about 5,000 years ago and subsequently most Eurasian men can trace their ancestry back to a dozen ancestors who lived 5,000 years ago.
Human evolution
"H. floresiensis", which lived from approximately 190,000 to 50,000 years before present (BP), has been nicknamed "hobbit" for its small size, possibly a result of insular dwarfism. "H. floresiensis" is intriguing both for its size and its age, being an example of a recent species of the genus "Homo" that exhibits derived traits not shared with modern humans. In other words, "H. floresiensis" shares a common ancestor with modern humans, but split from the modern human lineage and followed a distinct evolutionary path. The main find was a skeleton believed to be a woman of about 30 years of age. Found in 2003, it has been dated to approximately 18,000 years old. The living woman was estimated to be one meter in height, with a brain volume of just 380 cm (considered small for a chimpanzee and less than a third of the "H. sapiens" average of 1400 cm).
Human
In scientific terms, the meanings of "hominid" and "hominin" have changed during the recent decades with advances in the discovery and study of the fossil ancestors of modern humans. The previously clear boundary between humans and apes has blurred, resulting in now acknowledging the hominids as encompassing multiple species, and "Homo" and close relatives since the split from chimpanzees as the only hominins. There is also a distinction between "anatomically modern humans" and "Archaic Homo sapiens", the earliest fossil members of the species.
Combe-Capelle
The famous "Homo sapiens" fossil from Combe-Capelle, discovered in 1909 and sold to the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, in 1910, was for a long time considered to be a Upper Paleolithic Cro-Magnon man and one of the oldest finds of modern humans in Europe, formerly classified as "Homo aurignaciensis hauseri". 
This was revised in a 2011 study, which dated collagen from a tooth of the skull in Berlin with accelerator mass spectrometry. The fossil was found to date to the early Holocene (Mesolithic Europe), at 9,500 years old.
Homo sapiens
In this more narrow definition of "H. sapiens", the subspecies "H. s. idaltu", discovered in 2003, also falls under the umbrella of "anatomically modern".
The recognition of "H. s. idaltu" as a valid subspecies of the anatomically modern human lineage would justify the description of contemporary humans with the subspecies name "H. s. sapiens".
Archaic humans
The category archaic human lacks a single, agreed upon definition. According to one definition, "Homo sapiens" is a single species comprising several subspecies that include the archaics and modern humans. Under this definition, modern humans are referred to as "Homo sapiens sapiens" and archaics are also designated with the prefix ""Homo" "sapiens"". For example, the Neanderthals are "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis", and "Homo heidelbergensis" is "Homo sapiens heidelbergensis". Other taxonomists prefer not to consider archaics and modern humans as a single species but as several different species. In this case the standard taxonomy is used, i.e. "Homo rhodesiensis", or "Homo neanderthalensis".
Human
The "out of Africa" migration of "Homo sapiens" took place in at least two waves, the first around 130,000 to 100,000 years ago, the second (Southern Dispersal) around 70,000 to 60,000 years ago,
resulting in the colonization of Australia around 65,000 years ago,
This recent out of Africa migration derived from East African populations, which had become separated from populations migrating to Southern, Central and Western Africa at least 100,000 years earlier. Modern humans subsequently spread globally, replacing archaic humans (either through competition or hybridization). They inhabited Eurasia and Oceania by 40,000 years ago, and the Americas at least 14,500 years ago.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia is also considered one of the earliest sites of the emergence of anatomically modern humans, "Homo sapiens". The oldest of these local fossil finds, the Omo remains, were excavated in the southwestern Omo Kibish area and have been dated to the Middle Paleolithic, around 200,000 years ago. Additionally, skeletons of "Homo sapiens idaltu" were found at a site in the Middle Awash valley. Dated to approximately 160,000 years ago, they may represent an extinct subspecies of "Homo sapiens", or the immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans. "Homo sapiens" fossils excavated at the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco have since been dated to an earlier period, about 300,000 years ago.
Homo sapiens idaltu
A 2005 potassium-argon dating of volcanic tuff associated with the Omo remains showed them to date from around 195,000 years ago. At the time of the dating, this made these fossils the earliest known remains of anatomically modern humans, older than the "idaltu" specimens. In 2013, comparative craniometric analysis of the Herto "Homo idaltu" skull with ancient and recent crania from other parts of Africa found that the specimen was morphologically closest to the Pleistocene Rabat fossil and Early Holocene Kef Oum Touiza skeleton. A later study found that Herto man and his contemporaries were cranially similar to Oceanians, with Northern Melenesians being the closest.
Homo sapiens
In taxonomy, Homo sapiens is the only extant human species. The name is Latin for "wise man" and was introduced in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus (who is himself also the type specimen).
Discovery of human antiquity
The genus "Homo" is now estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old, with the appearance of "H. habilis"; meaning that the existence of all types of men has been within the Quaternary.
Homo heidelbergensis
"Homo sapiens" has been proposed as derived from "H. heidelbergensis" via "Homo rhodesiensis", present in East and North Africa from around 400,000 years ago. 
The correct assignment of many fossils to a particular chronospecies is difficult and often differences in opinion ensue among paleoanthropologists due to the absence of universally accepted dividing lines (autapomorphies) between "Homo erectus", "Homo heidelbergensis", "Homo rhodesiensis" and Neanderthals.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Roughly 1.8 million years ago, "Homo ergaster" first appeared in the fossil record in Africa. From "Homo ergaster", "Homo erectus" (upright man) evolved 1.5 million years ago. Some of the earlier representatives of this species were small-brained and used primitive stone tools, much like "H. habilis". The brain later grew in size, and "H. erectus" eventually developed a more complex stone tool technology called the Acheulean. Potentially the first hominid to engage in hunting, "H. erectus" mastered the art of making fire. They were the first hominids to leave Africa, going on to colonize the entire Old World, and perhaps later on giving rise to "Homo floresiensis". Although some recent writers suggest that "H. georgicus", a "H. habilis" descendant, was the first and most primitive hominid to ever live outside Africa, many scientists consider "H. georgicus" to be an early and primitive member of the "H. erectus" species.
Homo
The genus "Homo" was given its taxonomic name to suggest that its member species can be classified as human. And, over the decades of the 20th century, fossil finds of pre-human and early human species from late Miocene and early Pliocene times produced a rich mix for debating classifications. There is continuing debate on delineating "Homo" from "Australopithecus"—or, indeed, delineating "Homo" from "Pan", as one body of scientists argue that the two species of chimpanzee should be classed with genus "Homo" rather than "Pan". Even so, classifying the fossils of "Homo" coincides with evidences of: 1) competent human bipedalism in "Homo habilis" inherited from the earlier "Australopithecus" of more than four million years ago, (see Laetoli); and 2) human tool culture having begun by 2.5 million years ago.
Early expansions of hominins out of Africa
"Homo erectus" emerges just after 2 million years ago. 
Early "H. erectus" would have lived face to face with "H. habilis" in East Africa for nearly half a million years.
The oldest "Homo erectus" fossils appear almost contemporaneously, shortly after two million years ago, both in Africa and in the Caucasus. 
The earliest well-dated Eurasian "H. erectus" site is Dmanisi in Georgia, securely dated to 1.8 Ma.1.85-1.78 Ma 95% CI.  A skull found at Dmanisi is evidence for caring for the old. The skull shows that this "Homo erectus" was advanced in age and had lost all but one tooth years before death, and it is perhaps unlikely that this hominid would have survived alone. It is not certain, however, that this is sufficient proof for caring – a partially paralysed chimpanzee at the Gombe reserve survived for years without help.
The earliest known evidence for African "H. erectus", dubbed "Homo ergaster", is a 
single occipital bone (KNM-ER 2598), described as "H. erectus-like", and dated to about 1.9 Ma (contemporary with "Homo rudolfensis"). This is followed by a fossil gap, the next available fossil being KNM-ER 3733, a skull dated to 1.6 Ma.
Early Pleistocene sites in North Africa, the geographical intermediate of East Africa and Georgia, are in poor stratigraphic context. The earliest of the dated is Ain Hanech in northern Algeria (c. 1.8 – 1.2 Ma), an Oldowan grade layer. These sites attest that early "Homo erectus" have crossed the North African tracts, which are usually hot and dry. 
There is little time between "Homo erectus"’ apparent arrival in South Caucasus around 1.8 Ma, and its probable arrival in East and Southeast Asia. There is evidence of "H. erectus" in Yuanmou, China, dating to 1.7 Ma and in Sangiran, on Java, Indonesia, from 1.66 Ma.
History of the world
Genetic measurements indicate that the ape lineage which would lead to "Homo sapiens" diverged from the lineage that would lead to chimpanzees and bonobos, the closest living relatives of modern humans, around 4.6 to 6.2 million years ago. Anatomically modern humans arose in Africa about 300,000 years ago, and reached behavioural modernity about 50,000 years ago.
Mike Morwood
Models for the early hominin dispersal out of Africa received considerable attention when the joint Australian-Indonesian research team headed by Morwood discovered Homo floresiensis in the Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia (Morwood & Oosterzee 2007). The finding of Homo floriensis, released on 28 October 2004, has implications for the dispersal of hominin and human dispersal out of Africa, and the colonisation of Asia. It has attracted substantial debate from, in part, supporters of the multi-regionalist theory of Homo sapiens evolution (Morwood). The continued study of Homo floriensis has taken a multidisciplinary approach including palaeanthropological, morphological (see Kaif et al. 2011), and pathological analysis combined with dentition study, ancient DNA extraction and tomographical techniques. Of additional interest to the find are the lithic tools associated with the discovery of Homo floriensis and the cognitive behaviours connected with their manufacture and use (Brumm et al. 2006). Recent research estimates the faunal sequence and minimum age for hominins on Flores at 1.1million years ago, ensuring the study covers the entire period of hominin habitation in the region. Excavations at Mata Menge, Flores, hope to provide greater evidence on the early hominin colonisation of the Indonesian area. The public interest in these hominin finds have sparked numerous documentaries and written works detailing all manner of scientific investigation and discussion on the subject.
Human evolution
On the basis of a separation from the orangutan between 10 and 20 million years ago, earlier studies of the molecular clock suggested that there were about 76 mutations per generation that were not inherited by human children from their parents; this evidence supported the divergence time between hominins and chimps noted above. However, a 2012 study in Iceland of 78 children and their parents suggests a mutation rate of only 36 mutations per generation; this datum extends the separation between humans and chimps to an earlier period greater than 7 million years ago (Ma). Additional research with 226 offspring of wild chimp populations in 8 locations suggests that chimps reproduce at age 26.5 years, on average; which suggests the human divergence from chimps occurred between 7 and 13 million years ago. And these data suggest that "Ardipithecus" (4.5 Ma), "Orrorin" (6 Ma) and "Sahelanthropus" (7 Ma) all may be on the hominid lineage, and even that the separation may have occurred outside the East African Rift region.
Paleodemography
The increasing availability of DNA sequencing since the late 1990s has allowed estimates on Paleolithic effective population sizes.
Such models suggest a human effective population size of the order of 10,000 individuals for the Late Pleistocene. This includes only the breeding population that produced descendants over the long term, and the actual population may have been substantially larger (in the six digits).
Sherry et al. (1997) based on Alu elements estimated a roughly constant effective population size of the order of 18,000 individuals for the population of "Homo" ancestral to modern humans over the past one to two million years. For the time of speciation of "Homo sapiens", ca. 130,000 years ago, 
Sjödin et al. (2012) estimate an effective population size of the order of 10,000 to 30,000 individuals, and infer an actual "census population" of early "Homo sapiens" of roughly 100,000 to 300,000 individuals.
The authors also note that their model disfavours the assumption of an early (pre-"Out-of-Africa") population bottleneck 
affecting all of "Homo sapiens".
Homo heidelbergensis
It is uncertain whether "H. heidelbergensis" is ancestral to "Homo sapiens", as a fossil gap in Africa between 400,000 and 260,000 years ago obscures the presumed derivation of "H. sapiens" from "H. rhodesiensis". 
Genetic analysis of the Sima de los Huesos fossils (Meyer et al. 2016) seems to suggest that "H. heidelbergensis" in its entirety should be included in the Neanderthal lineage, as "pre-Neanderthal" or "archaic Neanderthal" or "early Neanderthal", while the divergence time between the Neanderthal and modern lineages has been pushed back to before the emergence of "H. heidelbergensis", to about 600,000 to 800,000 years ago, the approximate time of disappearance of "Homo antecessor".
Human taxonomy
At least a dozen species of "Homo" other than "Homo sapiens" have been proposed, with varying degrees of consensus. "Homo erectus" is widely recognized as the species directly ancestral to "Homo sapiens". Most other proposed species are proposed as alternatively belonging to either "Homo erectus" or "Homo sapiens" as a subspecies. This concerns "Homo ergaster" in particular. One proposal divides "Homo erectus" into an African and an Asian variety; the African is "Homo ergaster," and the Asian is "Homo erectus sensu stricto." (Inclusion of "Homo ergaster" with Asian "Homo erectus" is "Homo erectus sensu lato.") There appears to be a recent trend, with the availability of ever more difficult-to-classify fossils such as the Dmanisi skulls (2013) or "Homo naledi" fossils (2015) to subsume all archaic varieties under "Homo erectus".
Human taxonomy
By the 1980s, the practice of dividing extant populations of "Homo sapiens" into subspecies declined. An early authority explicitly avoiding the division of "H. sapiens" into subspecies was "Grzimeks Tierleben", published 1967–1972.
A late example of an academic authority proposing that the human racial groups should be considered taxonomical subspecies is John Baker (1974). The trinomial nomenclature "Homo sapiens sapiens" became popular for "modern humans" in the context of Neanderthals being considered a subspecies of "H. sapiens" in the second half of the 20th century. Derived from the convention, widespread in the 1980s, of considering two subspecies, "H. s. neanderthalensis" and "H. s. sapiens", the explicit claim that ""H. s. sapiens" is the only extant human subspecies" appears in the early 1990s. This is only true if the nomenclature derived from Linnaeus is rejected. Based on Linnaeus (1758), there are at least six subspecies, with "H. s. sapiens" catching those specimens not included in any other.
Homo rudolfensis
The fossils were dated to about two million years ago, being contemporaneous with "H. habilis". According to Leakey "et al.", "the new fossils confirm the presence of two contemporary species of early "Homo" [that is, "habilis" and "rudolfensis"], in addition to "Homo erectus", in the early Pleistocene of eastern Africa". Lee Rogers Berger, however, called the argument "weak", and proposed the finds be compared to other possibilities, such as "Australopithecus africanus" and "Australopithecus sediba". Tim D. White of the University of California also challenged the findings, asking, "How can practitioners in this field possibly expect to be able to accurately identify fossil species based upon a few teeth, jaws, and lower faces in light of what we know about the great variation found among different individuals in a single living species?" Leakey replied, "I would challenge Tim to find any primate in which you would see the same degrees of variation as those that we are seeing between our new fossils and KNM-ER 1802". KNM-ER 1802 is a lower-jaw fossil that is thought to be of a "Homo rudolfensis". Given the difference between this fossil and the ones found in 2012, Leakey has proposed that the fossil is not of a "H. rudolfensis", but possibly, of a "H. habilis". Bernard Wood considers that it is "perfectly possible" that there were interactions between these different species.
Kents Cavern
In 1989 the fragment was radiocarbon dated to 36,400–34,700 years BP, but a 2011 study that dated fossils from neighbouring strata produced an estimate of 44,200–41,500 years BP. The same study analysed the dental structure of the fragment and determined it to be "Homo sapiens" rather than "Homo neanderthalensis", which would have made it the earliest anatomically modern human fossil yet discovered in northwestern Europe. In a response to this paper in 2012 the authors Mark White and Paul Pettitt wrote "We urge caution over using a small selected sample of fauna
from an old and poorly executed excavation in Kent’s Cavern to provide a radiocarbon stratigraphy and age for a human fossil that cannot be dated directly, and we suggest that the recent dating should be rejected."
Ape
Although the hominoid fossil record is still incomplete and fragmentary, there is now enough evidence to provide an outline of the evolutionary history of humans. Previously, the divergence between humans and other living hominoids was thought to have occurred 15 to 20 million years ago, and several species of that time period, such as "Ramapithecus", were once thought to be hominins and possible ancestors of humans. But, later fossil finds indicated that "Ramapithecus" was more closely related to the orangutan; and new biochemical evidence indicates that the last common ancestor of humans and non-hominins (that is, the chimpanzees) occurred between 5 and 10 million years ago, and probably nearer the lower end of that range; see Chimpanzee–human last common ancestor (CHLCA).
Homo floresiensis
This hominin had originally been considered remarkable for its survival until relatively recent times, only 12,000 years ago. However, more extensive stratigraphic and chronological work has pushed the dating of the most recent evidence of its existence back to 50,000 years ago. The "Homo floresiensis" skeletal material is now dated from 60,000 to 100,000 years ago; stone tools recovered alongside the skeletal remains were from archaeological horizons ranging from 50,000 to 190,000 years ago.
David Lordkipanidze
David Lordkipanidze is best known for his discovery of the hominin fossil, first named "Homo georgicus", but later reclassified as "Homo erectus". Conducting excavation at Dmanisi in Georgia, he found skulls of an early hominin thought to be a precursor of Homo erectus. Subsequently, four fossil skeletons were found, showing a species still with primitive features in its skull and upper body but with relatively advanced spines and lower limbs, providing greater mobility. They represent a stage soon after the transition from Homo habilis to Homo erectus, and have been dated at 1.8 million years before the present.
Homo
"Homo neanderthalensis" and "Homo sapiens" develop after about 300 kya. "Homo naledi" is present in Southern Africa by 300 kya.
History of Italy
The arrival of the first hominins was 850,000 years ago at Monte Poggiolo. The presence of the "Homo neanderthalensis" has been demonstrated in archaeological findings near Rome and Verona dating to c. 50,000 years ago (late Pleistocene). Homo sapiens sapiens appeared during the upper Palaeolithic: in November 2011 tests conducted at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit in England on what were previously thought to be Neanderthal baby teeth, which had been unearthed in 1964 dating from between 43,000 and 45,000 years ago. Remains of the later prehistoric age have been found in Liguria, Lombardy (stone carvings in Valcamonica) and in Sardinia (nuraghe). The most famous is perhaps that of Ötzi the Iceman, the mummy of a mountain hunter found in the Similaun glacier in South Tyrol, dating to c. 3000 BCE (Copper Age).
Homo sapiens
The term "behavioral modernity" is somewhat disputed. It is most often used for the set of characteristics marking the Upper Paleolithic, but 
some scholars use "behavioral modernity" for the emergence of "H. sapiens" around 200,000 years ago, while others use the term for the rapid developments occurring around 50,000 years ago. It has been proposed that the emergence of behavioral modernity was a gradual process.
Homo heidelbergensis
In Europe, "H. heidelbergensis" is taken to have given rise to "H. neanderthalensis" at 240,000 years ago (a conventional date dictated by a fossil gap; late "H. heidelbergensis" in Europe prior to 240 kya is also called "pre-Neanderthal" or "ante-Neanderthal").
"Homo sapiens" most likely derived from "H. rhodesiensis" (African "H. Heidelbergensis") after around 300,000 years ago.
Longitudinal fissure
It is thought that a majority of existing animals, including Homo sapiens, have evolved from a common wormlike ancestor that lived around 600 million years ago, called the urbilaterian. A bilaterian animal is one that has symmetrical left and right body halves. While it is still debated whether this species had a complex brain or not, development of similar species support the hypothesis that it had at least a simple anterior collection of nerve cells, called a cephalon. Furthermore, studies have shown that this cephalon was bilateral in nature, consisting of two or more connected sub-collections that are separated by the mid-sagittal plane, suggesting the first example of such a division.
Alan Thorne
The details of the theory contend that around two million years ago, "Homo sapiens" (not "Homo erectus") left Africa and dispersed across the Middle East, into Europe, North and South America and Asia, right down through to Australia. It was thus argued by Thorne that all humans have originated from this initial, single journey. The theory then explains that the sub-species of the hominids ("Homo erectus" and "Homo antecessor") are the basis for the different human physical attributes of the modern age, such as tall, slender southern traits and short, stocky northern characteristics. Fundamental to this argument is the ability of such hominids to sexually reproduce with a member of the opposite sex from any of the different hominid races (Thorne used learnings from his own extensive animal studies as substantiation here). As time progressed, this behaviour is likely to have migrated outwards and further reproduction with different hominids has, according to Thorne's theory, created the races found today.
Discovery of human antiquity
Once the question is reformulated as dating the transition of the evolution of "H. sapiens" from a precursor species, the issue can be refined into two further questions. These are: the analysis and dating of the evolution of Archaic Homo sapiens, and of the evolution from "archaic" forms of the species "H. sapiens sapiens". The second question is given an answer in two parts: anatomically modern humans are thought to be about 200,000 years old, with behavioral modernity dating back to 40,000 or 50,000 years ago. The first question is still subject to debates on its definition.
Homo sapiens
The subspecies name "H. sapiens sapiens" is sometimes used informally instead of "modern humans" or "anatomically modern humans". It has no formal authority associated with it.
By the early 2000s, it had become common to use "H. s. sapiens" for the ancestral population of all contemporary humans, and as such it is equivalent to the binomial "H. sapiens" in the more restrictive sense (considering "H. neanderthalensis" a separate species).
Human
Early hominins—particularly the australopithecines, whose brains and anatomy are in many ways more similar to ancestral non-human apes—are less often referred to as "human" than hominins of the genus "Homo". Several of these hominins used fire, occupied much of Eurasia, and gave rise to anatomically modern "Homo sapiens" in Africa about 315,000 years ago. Humans began to exhibit evidence of behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago, and in several waves of migration, they ventured out of Africa and populated most of the world.
Homo sapiens
In January 2018 it was announced that modern human finds at Misliya cave, Israel, in 2002, had been dated to around 185,000 years ago, the earliest evidence of their out of Africa migration.
Homo
Especially since the 2010s, the delineation of "Homo" from "Australopithecus" has become more contentious. Traditionally, the advent of "Homo" has been taken to coincide with the first use of stone tools (the Oldowan industry), and thus by definition with the beginning of the Lower Palaeolithic.
But in 2010, evidence was presented that seems to attribute the use of stone tools to "Australopithecus afarensis" around 3.3 million years ago, close to a million years before the first appearance of "Homo". 
LD 350-1, a fossil mandible fragment dated to 2.8 Mya, discovered in 2015 in Afar, Ethiopia, was described as combining "primitive traits seen in early "Australopithecus" with derived morphology observed in later "Homo". 
Some authors would push the development of "Homo" close to or even past 3 Mya.
Others have voiced doubt as to whether "Homo habilis" should be included in "Homo", proposing an origin of "Homo" with "Homo erectus" at roughly 1.9 Mya instead.
The most salient physiological development between the earlier australopithecine species and "Homo" is the increase in endocranial volume (ECV), from about in "A. garhi" to in "H. habilis" and further to in "H. erectus", in "H. heidelbergensis" and up to in "H. neanderthalensis".
However, a steady rise in cranial capacity is observed already in "Autralopithecina" and does not terminate after the emergence of "Homo", so that it does not serve as an objective criterion to define the emergence of the genus.
Middle Paleolithic
According to the theory of the recent African origin of modern humans, anatomically modern humans began migrating out of Africa during the Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic around 100,000 or 70,000 years ago and began to replace earlier pre-existent "Homo" species such as the Neanderthals and "Homo erectus". However, recent discoveries of fossils originating from what is now Israel indicate that our species (Homo sapiens) lived outside of Africa 185,000 years ago; some 85,000 years earlier than previous evidence suggests.
Bonobo
DNA evidence suggests the bonobo and common chimpanzee species effectively separated from each other fewer than one million years ago. The "Pan" line split from the last common ancestor shared with humans approximately six to seven million years ago. Because no species other than "Homo sapiens" has survived from the human line of that branching, both "Pan" species are the closest living relatives of humans and cladistically are equally close to humans. The recent genome data confirms the genetic equidistance.
Homo erectus
"Homo erectus" is the most, or one of the most, long-lived species of "Homo", having existed well over one million years and perhaps over two million years;
by contrast, "Homo sapiens" emerged about a quarter million years ago.
If considering "Homo erectus" in its strict sense (that is, as referring to only the Asian variety) no consensus has been reached as to whether it is ancestral to "H. sapiens" or any later human species."Wushan Man" was proposed as "Homo erectus wushanensis", but is now thought to be based upon fossilized fragments of an extinct non-hominin ape.
Homo
Homo (Latin "homō" "human being") is the genus that encompasses the extant species "Homo sapiens" (modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely related to modern humans (depending on a species), most notably "Homo erectus" and "Homo neanderthalensis. 
The genus is taken to emerge with the appearance of "Homo habilis", just over two million years ago. Genus "Homo", together with the genera "Paranthropus" and "Kenyanthropus", is probably sister to "A. africanus" and/or "A. sediba" in the genus "Australopithecus", which itself had previously split from the lineage of "Pan", the chimpanzees. Taxonomically, "Homo" is the only genus assigned to the subtribe "Hominina" which, with the subtribes Australopithecina and Panina, comprise the tribe Hominini.
Homo sapiens
Extinct species of the genus "Homo" include "Homo erectus", extant during roughly 1.9 to 0.4 million years ago, and a number of other species (by some authors considered subspecies of either "H. sapiens" or "H. erectus"). "H. sapiens idaltu" (2003) is a proposed extinct subspecies of "H. sapiens".
History of human migration
The pre-modern migration of human populations begins with the movement of "Homo erectus" out of Africa across Eurasia about 1.75 million years ago. "Homo sapiens" appears to have occupied all of Africa about 150,000 years ago; some members of this species moved out of Africa 70,000 years ago (or, according to more recent studies, as early as 125,000 years ago into Asia, and even as early as 270,000 years ago), and had spread across Australia, Asia and Europe by 40,000 BC.Migration to the Americas took place 20,000 to 15,000 years ago. By 2000 years ago humans had established settlements in most of the Pacific Islands. Major population-movements notably include those postulated as associated with the Neolithic Revolution and with Indo-European expansion. The Early Medieval Great Migrations including Turkic expansion have left significant traces. In some places, such as Turkey and Azerbaijan, there was a substantial cultural transformation after the migration of relatively small elite populations. Historians see elite-migration parallels in the Roman and Norman conquests of Britain, while "the most hotly debated of all the British cultural transitions is the role of migration in the relatively sudden and drastic change from Romano-Britain to Anglo-Saxon Britain", which may be explained by a possible "substantial migration of Anglo-Saxon Y chromosomes into Central England (contributing 50%–100% to the gene pool at that time)."
Ancient history
Prehistory is the period before written history. The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago. The controlled use of fire occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens (modern humans) emerged in Africa. 60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia. 50,000 years ago, modern humans spread from Asia to the Near East. Europe was first reached by modern humans 40,000 years ago. Humans migrated to the Americas about 15,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic.
Homo sapiens (novel)
Homo Sapiens (1895–96; tr. 1915) is a trilogy by Polish author Stanisław Przybyszewski. The novels were originally published in German as "Über Bord" (1896, "Overboard"), "Unterwegs" (1895, "By the Way") and "Im Malstrom" (1895, "In the Maelstrom"). It deals with the question of deviance and sexuality, and is counted among Przybyszewski's most important and best-known works. It was well received in Germany, but withdrawn from sale by its U.S. publisher after being labelled obscene. It is associated with the decadent movement of the late 19th century.
Y-chromosomal Adam
Estimates on the age of the Y-MRCA crucially depend on the most archaic known haplogroup extant in contemporary populations. , this is haplogroup A00 (discovered in 2013). Age estimates based on this published during 2014–2015 range between 160,000 and 300,000 years, compatible with the time of emergence and early dispersal of "Homo sapiens".
Homo sapiens
Among extant populations, the Khoi-San (or "Capoid") hunters-gatherers of Southern Africa may represent the human population with the from all others. Their separation time has been estimated in a 2017 study to be as long as between 260,000 and 350,000 years ago, compatible with the estimated age of "H. sapiens". "H. s. idaltu", found at site Middle Awash in Ethiopia, lived about 160,000 years ago.
Fossil evidence for modern human presence in West Asia is ascertained for 177,000 years ago,
Middle Stone Age
The earliest remains of Homo sapiens date back to approximately 195 thousand years ago in eastern Africa. In the archaeological record of both eastern Africa and southern Africa, there is immense variability associated with Homo sapiens sites, and it is during this time that we see evidence of the origins of modern human behavior. According to McBrearty and Brooks, there are four features that are characteristic of modern human behavior: abstract thinking, the ability to plan and strategize, "behavioral, economic and technological innovativeness," and symbolic behavior. Many of these aspects of modern human behavior can be broken down into more specific categories, including art, personal adornment, technological advancement, yet these four overarching categories allow for a thorough, albeit significantly overlapping, discussion of behavioral modernity.
Homo
The Latin noun "homō" (genitive "hominis") means "human being" or "man" in the generic sense of "human being, mankind". The binomial name "Homo sapiens" was coined by Carl Linnaeus (1758).
Names for other species of the genus were introduced beginning in the second half of the 19th century ("H. neanderthalensis" 1864, "H. erectus" 1892).
Homo sapiens
While early modern human expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa before 130 kya persisted, 
early expansion to North Africa and Asia appears to have mostly disappeared by the end of MIS5 (75,000 years ago), and is known only from fossil evidence and from archaic admixture.
Asia was re-populated by early modern humans in the so-called "recent out-of-Africa migration" post-dating MIS5, beginning around 70,000 years ago. 
In this expansion, bearers of mt-DNA haplogroup L3 left East Africa, likely reaching Arabia via the Bab-el-Mandeb, and in the "Great Coastal Migration" spread to South Asia, Maritime South Asia and Oceania by 65,000 years ago,
while Europe, East and North Asia, and possibly the Americas, were reached by 50,000 years ago.
Jebel Irhoud
The finds were initially interpreted as Neanderthal, as the stone tools found with them were believed to be associated exclusively with Neanderthals. They also had archaic features believed to be representative of the Neanderthals, rather than "Homo sapiens". They were thought to be around 40,000 years old, but this was thrown into doubt by faunal evidence suggesting a Middle Pleistocene date, around 160,000 years ago. The fossils were reappraised as representing an archaic form of "Homo sapiens" or perhaps a population of "Homo sapiens" that had interbred with Neanderthals. This was consistent with the idea that the then oldest known remains of a "Homo sapiens idaltu", dated to around 195,000 years ago and found in Omo Kibish, Ethiopia, indicated an eastern African origin for humans at around 200,000 years ago.