Our Hominid Predecessors
Hominid facial reconstruction, Smithsonian Institution
Humans are a problem-solving animal. We evolve both physically and mentally in response to challenges, which enables us to move beyond our inheritance — to consciously evolve. Throughout our history, innovations and solutions have been linked to religious ideas.
How Humans Evolved from Our Hominid Predecessors
The hominid history is constantly revised as new skeletal remains are found, but the evidence paleontologists have to work with remains sparse, consisting of few fossil bone fragments. Nevertheless, looking back as far as we can with the evidence currently available, we can better understand human evolution and our place in the world, where we differ from our hominid ancestors, and when and how these differences came about.
Australopithecines
3-year-old Selam could walk and climb trees. The young Australopithecus couldn’t speak, but her brain was still growing at the time she died—which means she was part of a social group that cared for their immature young over a much longer period than ever before.
Homo Habilis: Early Toolmakers
With larger brains, the beginnings of speech, and tools to aid meat eating, Homo habilis and its pre-human branches left the first traces of cultural behavior.
Homo Ergaster and Erectus: Down from the Trees
Living entirely on the ground and the first to venture out of Africa, Homo ergaster/erectus may have been first to live in bands of hunter gatherers and use fire to cook food.
Homo heidelbergensis: Forebears of Homo Sapiens
Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo sapiens each evolved from Homo heidelbergensis, the first hominid to bury its dead—and quite possibly the first to use language.
Homo Neanderthalensis: Built for the Cold
Both Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens could make fire, flaked stone tools, and clothing from animal skins. We know they lived side by side for more than 10,000 years. What became of them? Did they mate with Homo sapiens? Genome sequencing indicates they may live on in some of us.
Denisovans: Another Species Discovered
The first Denisovan genome came from a girl’s pinkie finger bone dated between 60,000 to 80,000 years ago. In 2024 geneticist Stéphane Peyrégne unveiled the genetic sequence of a 200,000-year-old male Denisovan. He came from a distinct population of early Denisovans that interbred multiple times with a group of Neanderthals. The genomes of both Denisovans and the ancient Neanderthals all came from the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia. Scientists have also identified some Denisovan DNA in living humans, including in Papuans and Han Chinese people.
Homo Floresiensis: The Hobbit
Evidence of this tiny island species suggests it’s less about the size of the brain, and more about how the brain is organized.
Homo Sapiens: The Hominid Survivor
From our beginnings in Africa, the story of human evolution is emerging as one of making contact and connecting.
Out of Africa
Somewhere between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago, a single human migration out of Africa became the forebears of all non-Africans. What drove this first migration and what does that tell us about our evolution?
“As the problems and challenges facing humankind have changed, so have their religious and ideological solutions. We live among the wreckage of once-potent solutions. If we neglect them, they may become barriers to thought and action. If we understand them, they are a treasure house for all of us to share.”
The Unseen World: The Rise of Gods and Spirits
The Institute for Cultural Research
In the series: Discovering Our Distant Ancestors
- Genetics and Human Evolution
- Our Nearest Relatives: Bonobos and Chimpanzees
- She Has Her Mother's Laugh
- Neanderthal Man – In Search of Lost Genomes
- The Evolution of Human Morality: The Age of Empathy and The Bonobo and the Atheist
- The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals
- Before the Dawn: New details of human evolution revealed