'The discovery of a human facial fragment aged over one million years represents the oldest known face in western Europe and confirms the region was inhabited by two species of human during the early Pleistocene, finds a new study.'
> “The evidence is still insufficient for a definitive classification, which is why it has been assigned to H. aff. erectus. This designation acknowledges Pink’s affinities with Homo erectus while leaving open the possibility that it may belong to another species.” - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/mar/fragment-human-face-aged...
Modern humans did. Other human species left Africa and populated the rest of the old world much, much earlier.
I'm not up-to-date on my research these days but it's only within the last 10K years or so (maybe even more recent) where there's been one extant human subspecies.
Interbred is putting it mildly. More like killed the men and raped all the women. This was repeated again with the Yamnaya from the Caucasus a few millennia ago where they again killed all the men and raped all the women.
How certainly do we actually know that? If the evidence you claim is that there are no Y-chromosomes from other hominids, an alternative explanation could be that hybrids with Y-chromosomes from other hominids did exist, but disappeared gradually over the centuries/millenia either because they were less fit or through pure chance.
Are there any now living people with mt-dna from other hominids?
Having a minority non-autosomal genotype could be an issue as there might be recurring "compatibility problems", given that the autosomal dna would mainly evolve to work with the majority mtdna and ydna.
The genetic evidence points into the other direction:
> There is considerably less Neanderthal ancestry on the X-chromosome compared to the autosomal chromosomes, which similarly suggests that admixture with modern humans was primarily the result of mating between modern human females and Neanderthal males.
If you’ve seen Star Trek the Original Series it shows you precisely how much humans are into humanoid subspecies. They could be green for all a dude who hasn’t seen a woman in a week could care!
I've been thinking about this a lot, by coincidence, as I read Unsong by Scott Alexander (unsongbook.com). It's a beautifully written somewhat comic and somewhat tragic story about the kabbalic-turned-capitalist search for the powerful Names of God.
It occurred to me that, if the Abrahamic God exists, and the origin of Adam is anything more than a mere metaphor, God must have had to make a decision at some point. "There!", He/She/It said as the last vital chromosome fell into place in generation Aleph-1, "All this work is finally done. Whew! I could use some rest." Or something.
But maybe it's all metaphor (except for the God existing part). Maybe the Garden of Eden was Us (big-us, all the hominids) co-existing without technology, and the rise of flint-knapping/agriculture/representational art/whatever was the "eating of the fruit and gaining of knowledge".
Or any other variation you like, as long as you're not intentionally bound from thinking by a literalist view of the Torah's Book of Genesis. In which case, I have bad news: "Adam" wasn't even named that in the early writings, presumably closer to God's word. So, your translation is a bad start for you.
So, maybe the "Twelve Tribes of Israel" are themselves metaphoric for the whole set of hominin branches. Maybe "Ham" was Paranthropus. Accepting that "seven" in the bible sometimes implies "an important big number", maybe "seven" generations later (give or take a few 100) Paranthropus died out completely. Poor Ham. He was just checking to make sure Dad didn't oversleep.
Or maybe, there is no God, and it's just fun to play with myths, which are culturally powerful.
It's not hard to see how "leaving the garden" can be interpreted as us leaving nature. We're the only animal that doesn't really jive with the rest of the ecosystem.
He seems to have been "Adamah", or "dirt" - which is not far removed from "Adam", I'll grant.
But "Eve" is the one that really changed. She was named by Adam "Ishah", feminine version of "ish"/man. Or maybe "Chivah", a variation on the Hebrew word for life. I'm not clear. Then the Greeks made her "Zoe".... Fast forward a few hundred years, and a couple languages, and it becomes "Eve".
An early computer translating program took "out of sight, out of mind" to Russian and back, and returned "invisible insanity". A fairly reasonable translation, in some respects.
My point is really this: Biblical literalists who only read it in their native tongue are making indefensible claims about meaning.
All homo species are or were bipedal tool users and descended from ancestors that had been bipedal tool users for a million years prior. You wouldn't get them confused with a gorilla.
Here's video of a gorilla that is famous for its ability and propensity for walking upright. If you want to tell me you would find this "barely distinguishable" from homo habilis, I don't think I'd be doing you a service by believing you.
Agreed. I was the same place: do they mean an imprint of a face? Or a partially preserved ancient artwork? No, they mean fossilised bone fragments comprising upper mouth and cheekbone areas of a human skull.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 94.7 ms ] threadDoesn't this completely upend early humanity?
> “The evidence is still insufficient for a definitive classification, which is why it has been assigned to H. aff. erectus. This designation acknowledges Pink’s affinities with Homo erectus while leaving open the possibility that it may belong to another species.” - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/mar/fragment-human-face-aged...
I'm not up-to-date on my research these days but it's only within the last 10K years or so (maybe even more recent) where there's been one extant human subspecies.
Are there any now living people with mt-dna from other hominids?
Having a minority non-autosomal genotype could be an issue as there might be recurring "compatibility problems", given that the autosomal dna would mainly evolve to work with the majority mtdna and ydna.
> There is considerably less Neanderthal ancestry on the X-chromosome compared to the autosomal chromosomes, which similarly suggests that admixture with modern humans was primarily the result of mating between modern human females and Neanderthal males.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genetics#Parentage
Not a great example; the green women are specifically shown to exert pheromonal control over alien males.
Or the history really began once the other Humans were no more ?
Just passing thoughts
It occurred to me that, if the Abrahamic God exists, and the origin of Adam is anything more than a mere metaphor, God must have had to make a decision at some point. "There!", He/She/It said as the last vital chromosome fell into place in generation Aleph-1, "All this work is finally done. Whew! I could use some rest." Or something.
But maybe it's all metaphor (except for the God existing part). Maybe the Garden of Eden was Us (big-us, all the hominids) co-existing without technology, and the rise of flint-knapping/agriculture/representational art/whatever was the "eating of the fruit and gaining of knowledge".
Or any other variation you like, as long as you're not intentionally bound from thinking by a literalist view of the Torah's Book of Genesis. In which case, I have bad news: "Adam" wasn't even named that in the early writings, presumably closer to God's word. So, your translation is a bad start for you.
So, maybe the "Twelve Tribes of Israel" are themselves metaphoric for the whole set of hominin branches. Maybe "Ham" was Paranthropus. Accepting that "seven" in the bible sometimes implies "an important big number", maybe "seven" generations later (give or take a few 100) Paranthropus died out completely. Poor Ham. He was just checking to make sure Dad didn't oversleep.
Or maybe, there is no God, and it's just fun to play with myths, which are culturally powerful.
Citation needed. What was he named in the early writings?
He seems to have been "Adamah", or "dirt" - which is not far removed from "Adam", I'll grant.
But "Eve" is the one that really changed. She was named by Adam "Ishah", feminine version of "ish"/man. Or maybe "Chivah", a variation on the Hebrew word for life. I'm not clear. Then the Greeks made her "Zoe".... Fast forward a few hundred years, and a couple languages, and it becomes "Eve".
An early computer translating program took "out of sight, out of mind" to Russian and back, and returned "invisible insanity". A fairly reasonable translation, in some respects.
My point is really this: Biblical literalists who only read it in their native tongue are making indefensible claims about meaning.
Usually those would be called hominids, not humans.
This says they left Africa within in that time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus
This has further details on human evolution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human#Evolution
This covers in more detail the time modern humans migrated from Africa:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_moder...
We don't find "missing links". Ever, really. They existed, but the fossil record is far too small a sampling to gift us like that.
Neither are first-cousins to Homo, which is descended from genii since the split from the shoot that Bonobos came from.
Homo habilis looks like a slight shorter haired gorilla.
You're confusing chimps with gorillas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVYzogbTs0w
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/mar/fragment-human-face-aged...
Paper with many photos and figures:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08681-0