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Homo sapiens: Quick Facts

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Photos and Videos

Illustration of a nude adult male human (Homo sapiens) walking, shown in profile, with a scale bar indicating 40 centimeters or 12 inches for size reference.
Map of Africa, Europe, and Asia showing fossil sites of Homo heidelbergensis (marked with yellow triangles) and Homo sapiens, including Cro-Magnon (marked with green circles). The map highlights key archaeological locations across these continents, with an inset providing additional detail for fossil sites in Western Europe.
A diagram showing the tentative evolutionary relationships among hominid species over the past four million years, with skull images and labeled species names connected by solid and dotted lines to indicate proposed evolutionary pathways.
Replica of a Kenyanthropus platyops skull
Laetoli footprints
Chart displaying the ages and locations of major Homo sapiens and related fossil finds across Africa, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, with colored bars representing the time spans of each archaeological site over the past 600,000 years.
A timeline chart displays major fossil discoveries linked to Homo habilis from 1960 to 2000, with illustrations and brief descriptions of each find, including partial skeletons, skulls, jaws, and leg bones, along with locations, estimated ages, and discoverers.
Diagram showing the increase in hominid cranial capacity over time with illustrations of skulls from various species, including Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens, arranged along a timeline and brain volume scale for comparison.
A timeline chart showing the evolution of hominins over the past 4 million years, with colored bars representing different Australopithecus and Homo species diverging over time, ending with Homo sapiens at present.
A map of the Eastern Hemisphere during the Pleistocene, showing the geographic extents of several species of Homo that are thought to have existed at that time.
Hear a discussion about the uniqueness in humans which separates them from other animals
How evolution reveals the differences between humans and apes
Listen to psycholinguist Steven Pinker speaking about the “cognitive niche” in early modern human evolution
What was the first human species?
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Key People

Tim D. White
Tim D. White
American paleoanthropologist

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