Homo

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For other uses, see Homo (disambiguation).
"Genus Homo" redirects here. For the novel by L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler
Miller, see Genus Homo (novel).
Homo
Temporal range: Piacenzian-Present, 2.8�0 Ma
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Homo erectus adult female - head model - Smithsonian Museum of Natural History -
2012-05-17.jpg
Forensic reconstruction of an adult female Homo erectus[1]
Scientific classificatione
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorhini
Infraorder: Simiiformes
Family: Hominidae
Subfamily: Homininae
Tribe: Hominini
Genus: Homo
Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Homo sapiens
Linnaeus, 1758
Species
Homo sapiens
�Homo erectus
�Homo floresiensis
�Homo habilis
�Homo heidelbergensis
�Homo luzonensis
�Homo naledi
�Homo neanderthalensis
For other species or subspecies suggested, see below.

Synonyms
Synonyms[show]
Homo (from Latin homo, meaning 'man') is the genus that emerged in the otherwise
extinct genus Australopithecus 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 the species), most notably Homo
erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. The genus emerged with the appearance of Homo
habilis, just over 2 million years ago.[2] Homo, together with the genus
Paranthropus, is probably sister to Australopithecus africanus, which itself had
previously split from the lineage of Pan, the chimpanzees.[3][4]

Homo erectus appeared about 2 million years ago and, in several early migrations,
it spread throughout Africa (where it is dubbed Homo ergaster) and Eurasia. It was
likely the first human species to live in a hunter-gatherer society and to control
fire. An adaptive and successful species, Homo erectus persisted for more than a
million years and gradually diverged into new species by around 500,000 years ago.
[5]

Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans) emerged close to 300,000 to 200,000 years
ago,[6] most likely in Africa, and Homo neanderthalensis emerged at around the same
time in Europe and Western Asia. H. sapiens dispersed from Africa in several waves,
from possibly as early as 250,000 years ago, and certainly by 130,000 years ago,
the so-called Southern Dispersal beginning about 70�50,000 years ago[7][8][9][10]
leading to the lasting colonisation of Eurasia and Oceania by 50,000 years ago.
Both in Africa and Eurasia, H. sapiens met with and interbred with[11][12] archaic
humans. Separate archaic (non-sapiens) human species are thought to have survived
until around 40,000 years ago (Neanderthal extinction), with possible late survival
of hybrid species as late as 12,000 years ago (Red Deer Cave people).