Homo
| Homo Temporal range: 2.4–0Ma Pliocene–present |
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| Homo habilis | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Primates |
| Infraorder: | Simiiformes |
| Superfamily: | Hominoidea |
| Family: | Hominidae |
| Subfamily: | Homininae |
| Genus: | Homo Linnaeus, 1758 |
| Type species | |
| Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 |
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| Species | |
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Homo sapiens |
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Homo is the genus of great apes that includes modern humans and species closely related to them. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old,[1][2] possibly having evolved from australopithecine ancestors, with the appearance of Homo habilis. Several species, including Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus afarensis, have been proposed as the direct ancestor of the Homo lineage.[3][4] Each of these species have morphological features that align them with Homo, but there is no consensus on which actually gave rise to Homo.
The most salient physiological development between the earlier Australopith species and Homo is the increase in cranial capacity, from about 450 cm3 (27 cu in) in A. garhi to 600 cm3 (37 cu in) in H. habilis. Within the Homo genus, cranial capacity again doubled from H. habilis through Homo ergaster or H. erectus to Homo heidelbergensis by 0.6 million years ago. The cranial capacity of H. heidelbergensis overlaps with the range found in modern humans.
The advent of Homo was thought to coincide with the first evidence of stone tools (the Oldowan industry), and thus by definition with the beginning of the Lower Palaeolithic; however, recent evidence from Ethiopia now places the earliest evidence of stone tool usage at before 3.39 million years ago.[5] The emergence of Homo coincides roughly with the onset of Quaternary glaciation, the beginning of the current ice age.
Homo sapiens (modern humans) is the only surviving species in the genus, all others having become extinct. Homo neanderthalensis, traditionally considered the last surviving relative, died out about 24,000 years ago, though recent discoveries suggest that two other species, Homo floresiensis and the Red Deer Cave people, may have lived much more recently. The other extant Homininae—the chimpanzees and gorillas—have a limited geographic range. In contrast, the evolution of humans is a history of migrations and admixture. According to genetic studies, modern humans bred with "at least two groups" of ancient humans: Neanderthals and Denisovans.[6] Humans repeatedly left Africa to populate Eurasia and finally the Americas, Oceania, and the rest of the world.
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Naming [edit]
In biological sciences, particularly anthropology and palaeontology, the common name for all members of the genus Homo is "human".
The word homo is Latin, in the original sense of "human being", or "man" (in the gender-neutral sense). The word "human" itself is from Latin humanus, an adjective cognate to homo, both thought to derive from a Proto-Indo-European word for "earth" reconstructed as *dhǵhem-.[7]
The binomial name Homo sapiens is due to Carl Linnaeus[8] (1758).[9]
Names for other species were coined beginning in the second half of the 19th century (H. neanderthalensis 1864, H. erectus 1892).
Species [edit]
Species status of Homo rudolfensis, H. ergaster, H. georgicus, H. antecessor, H. cepranensis, H. rhodesiensis and H. floresiensis remains under debate. H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis are closely related to each other and have been considered to be subspecies of H. sapiens. Recently, nuclear DNA from a Neanderthal specimen from Vindija Cave has been sequenced, as well, using two different methods that yield similar results regarding Neanderthal and H. sapiens lineages, with both analyses suggesting a date for the split between 460,000 and 700,000 years ago, though a population split of around 370,000 years is inferred. The nuclear DNA results indicate about 30% of derived alleles in H. sapiens are also in the Neanderthal lineage. This high frequency may suggest some gene flow between ancestral humans and Neanderthal populations.[10]
| Species | Lived when (mya) | Lived where | Adult height | Adult mass | Cranial capacity (cm³) | Fossil record | Discovery / publication of name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Denisova hominin | 0.04 | Russia | 1 site | 2010 | |||
| H. antecessor | 1.2 – 0.8 | Spain | 1.75 m (5.7 ft) | 90 kg (200 lb) | 1,000 | 2 sites | 1997 |
| H. cepranensis | 0.5 – 0.35 | Italy | 1,000 | 1 skull cap | 1994/2003 | ||
| H. erectus | 1.8 – 0.2 | Africa, Eurasia (Java, China, India, Caucasus) | 1.8 m (5.9 ft) | 60 kg (130 lb) | 850 (early) – 1,100 (late) | Many | 1891/1892 |
| H. ergaster | 1.9 – 1.4 | Eastern and Southern Africa | 1.9 m (6.2 ft) | 700–850 | Many | 1975 | |
| H. floresiensis | 0.10 – 0.012 | Indonesia | 1.0 m (3.3 ft) | 25 kg (55 lb) | 400 | 7 individuals | 2003/2004 |
| H. gautengensis | >2 – 0.6 | South Africa | 1.0 m (3.3 ft) | 1 individual | 2010/2010 | ||
| H. habilis | 2.3 – 1.4 | Africa | 1.0–1.5 m (3.3–4.9 ft) | 33–55 kg (73–120 lb) | 510–660 | Many | 1960/1964 |
| H. heidelbergensis | 0.6 – 0.35 | Europe, Africa, China | 1.8 m (5.9 ft) | 90 kg (200 lb) | 1,100–1,400 | Many | 1908 |
| H. neanderthalensis | 0.35 – 0.03 | Europe, Western Asia | 1.6 m (5.2 ft) | 55–70 kg (120–150 lb) (heavily built) | 1,200–1,900 | Many | (1829)/1864 |
| H. rhodesiensis | 0.3 – 0.12 | Zambia | 1,300 | Very few | 1921 | ||
| H. rudolfensis | 1.9 | Kenya | 700 | 2 sites | 1972/1986 | ||
| Red Deer Cave people | 0.0145–0.0115 | China | Very few | 2012 | |||
| H. sapiens idaltu | 0.16 – 0.15 | Ethiopia | 1,450 | 3 craniums | 1997/2003 | ||
| H. sapiens (modern humans) |
0.2 – present | Worldwide | 1.4–1.9 m (4.6–6.2 ft) | 50–100 kg (110–220 lb) | 1,000–1,980 | Still living | —/1978 |
Migration and admixture [edit]
H. habilis, which is considered the first member of the genus Homo, might have given rise to H. ergaster (however questionable, as some finds suggest both species were contemporaneous).[11] Some of H. ergaster migrated to Asia, where they are named Homo erectus, and to Europe with Homo georgicus. H. ergaster in Africa and H. erectus in Eurasia evolved separately for almost two million years and presumably separated into two different species. Homo rhodesiensis, who were descended from H. ergaster, migrated from Africa to Europe and became Homo heidelbergensis and later (about 250,000 years ago) Homo neanderthalensis and the Denisova hominin in Asia. The first Homo sapiens, descendants of H. rhodesiensis, appeared in Africa about 250,000 years ago. About 100,000 years ago, some H. sapiens sapiens migrated from Africa to the Levant and met with resident Neanderthals, with some admixture.[12] Later, about 70,000 years ago, perhaps after the Toba catastrophe, a small group left the Levant to populate Eurasia, Australia and later the Americas. A subgroup among them met the Denisovans[13] and, after further admixture, migrated to populate Melanesia. In this scenario, non-African people living today are mostly of African origin ("Out of Africa model"). However, there was also some admixture with Neanderthals and Denisovans, who had evolved locally (the "multiregional hypothesis"). Recent genomic results from the group of Svante Pääbo also show that 30,000 years ago at least three major subspecies coexisted: Denisovans, Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans.[14] Today, only H. sapiens sapiens remains, with no other extant species or subspecies.
References [edit]
- ^ Stringer, C.B. (1994). "Evolution of early humans". In Steve Jones, Robert Martin & David Pilbeam (eds.). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 242. ISBN 0-521-32370-3. Also ISBN 0-521-46786-1 (paperback)
- ^ McHenry, H.M (2009). "Human Evolution". In Michael Ruse & Joseph Travis. Evolution: The First Four Billion Years. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-674-03175-3.
- ^ Pickering, R., Dirks, P. H., Jinnah, Z., De Ruiter, D. J., Churchill, S. E., Herries, A. I., ... & Berger, L. R. (2011). Australopithecus sediba at 1.977 Ma and implications for the origins of the genus Homo. Science, 333(6048), 1421-1423.
- ^ Asfaw, B., White, T., Lovejoy, O., Latimer, B., Simpson, S., & Suwa, G. (1999). Australopithecus garhi: a new species of early hominid from Ethiopia. Science, 284(5414), 629-635.
- ^ McPherron, S. P., Z. Alemseged, C. W. Marean, J. G. Wynn, D. Reed, D. Geraads, R. Bobe, and H. A. Bearat. 2010. Evidence for stone-tool-assisted consumption of animal tissues before 3.39 million years ago at Dikika, Ethiopia. Nature 466:857-860.
- ^ Mitchell, Alanna (January 30, 2012). "DNA Turning Human Story Into a Tell-All". NYTimes. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
- ^ dhghem The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
- ^ Note: In 1959, Linnaeus was designated as the lectotype for Homo sapiens (Stearn, W. T. 1959. "The background of Linnaeus's contributions to the nomenclature and methods of systematic biology", Systematic Zoology 8 (1): 4-22, p. 4) which means that following the nomenclatural rules, Homo sapiens was validly defined as the animal species to which Linnaeus belonged.
- ^ Linné, Carl von (1758). Systema naturæ. Regnum animale. (10 ed.). pp. 18, 20. Retrieved 19 November 2012.
- ^ Biological Anthropology: 2nd Edition. 2009. Craig Stanford et al.
- ^ Spoor F, Leakey M.G, Gathogo P.N, Brown F.H, Antón S.C, McDougall I, Kiarie C, Manthi F.K. & Leakey L.N. (2007), "Implications of new early Homo fossils from Ileret, east of Lake Turkana, Kenya", Nature 448(7154): p. 688-691.
- ^ Green RE, Krause J, et al. A draft sequence of the Neandertal genome. Science. 2010 May 7;328(5979):710-22. doi:10.1126/science.1188021 PMID 20448178
- ^ ^ Reich D, Green RE, Kircher M, et al. (December 2010). "Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia". Nature 468 (7327): 1053–60. doi:10.1038/nature09710. PMID 21179161.
- ^ Reich D ., et al. Denisova admixture and the first modern human dispersals into southeast Asia and Oceania. Am J Hum Genet. 2011 Oct 7;89(4):516-28, doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2011.09.005 PMID 21944045.
- Serre et al. (2004). "No evidence of Neandertal mtDNA contribution to early modern humans". PLoS Biology 2 (3): 313–7. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0020057. PMC 368159. PMID 15024415.
External links [edit]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Homo |
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Wikispecies has information related to: Homo |
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Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Introduction to Paleoanthropology |
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