{"id":771993,"date":"2026-09-16T01:24:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/771993\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T01:24:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:24:27","slug":"just-how-many-species-of-human-have-there-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/771993\/","title":{"rendered":"Just how many species of human have there been?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last 40,000 years, we (Homo sapiens) have lived alone – the last humans standing from a large and diverse group that, just 300,000 years ago, comprised at least nine species of walking, talking apes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you go further back in time you\u2019ll discover even more human species, many of whom followed their own evolutionary paths and gave rise to groups that, while similar, are distinct from humans living today.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d think, given our sense of self-importance, that we\u2019d know a lot about our evolutionary history. This is true to some degree, but in reality we know more about the evolutionary history of other animals than we do our own.<\/p>\n

How many human species lived during prehistory?<\/p>\n

The study of our evolutionary origins began in the mid-19th century and, since then, we\u2019ve managed to put together a rough family tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s little consensus on exactly how many human species make up this family tree, as new discoveries keep being made and there\u2019s no single, strict definition of human.<\/p>\n

Could there ever be a new species of human?<\/a><\/p>\n

If we define \u2018human\u2019 as members of the genus\u00a0Homo, then there are currently 16 recognised species. This is somewhat of a liberal estimate and includes species that may be: (1) known from very few fossils, (2) of uncertain classification, or (3) invalid and better viewed as a synonym of a valid species.<\/p>\n

The most familiar species of\u00a0Homo\u00a0are, of course,\u00a0H.sapiens, but there\u2019s also\u00a0H.neanderthalensis(Neanderthals),\u00a0H.heidelbergensis,\u00a0H.erectus, and\u00a0H.habilis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Denisovans are well-known too, though a lot of scientists refer to them as a population (or group) rather than a species. This could change very soon as fossils once thought to belong to other species are now being assigned to the Denisovans.<\/p>\n

If we stretch the definition of \u2018human\u2019 a bit further and include all of the hominins that evolved\u00a0after\u00a0our last common ancestor with chimpanzees<\/a> and bonobos (who lived around 6.5 million years ago), then there may have been as many as 30 species of human that lived during prehistory!<\/p>\n

What was the first human species?<\/p>\n

Again, this depends on the definition of \u2018human\u2019 you ascribe to.<\/p>\n

If we define \u2018human\u2019 as members of the genus\u00a0Homo, then\u00a0Homo habilis\u00a0was the first human species. These hairy, forest-dwelling hominids appeared 2.3 million years ago and were the first of our lineage to unequivocally use and manufacture stone tools.<\/p>\n

If we broaden that definition, then the title of \u2018first human species\u2019 is really up for grabs. The 7-million-year-old hominid\u00a0Sahelanthropus tchadensis\u00a0may be able to stake a claim, but there\u2019s a suspicion that it may actually be an early ancestor of gorillas rather than humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In that case, the title may go to another early hominid,\u00a0Orrorin tugenenesis\u00a0(around 6-million-years-old), or\u00a0Ardipithecus\u00a0– the first hominid to show definitive signs of a bipedal lifestyle.\u00a0Ardipithecus\u00a0lived from 5.8 to 4.3 million years ago and includes two species,\u00a0A.kadabba\u00a0and\u00a0A.ramidus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the last 40,000 years, we (Homo sapiens) have lived alone – the last humans standing from a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-771993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}