Homo sapiens

Humans are the most abundant and widespread species of primates, characterized by bipedalism, minimal body hair, and large, complex brains enabling the development of advanced technology, culture, and language. Humans are highly social beings and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which bolster human society. Curiosity and the human desire to understand and influence the environment have motivated humanity's development of science, philosophy, religion, mythology, and other fields of knowledge.

A picture published with the record for Homo sapiens.

Weltenbummler84 · CC BY-SA 2.0 de · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
humanPBDB
Sits inside
HomoPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 762 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 0 of 97 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 97 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 58 of 97 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 38 of 97 occurrences5.4–5.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.3–5.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.1–4.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.3–4.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.1–3.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.9–3.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.7–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.7–2.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.5–2.3 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.3–2.1 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.1–1.9 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.8–1.6 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.6–1.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.2–972 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences972 ka–778 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences778 ka–583 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences583 ka–389 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences389 ka–194 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences194 ka–0 Mya — about 65 occurrences774 ka – 11.7 ka5.8 Mya0 Mya

97 occurrences of Homo sapiens on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

97 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

8 formations

Gabal Silsila — 24.43°N, 32.95°EGabal Silsila — 24.77°N, 32.95°EWehaietu — 10.63°N, 40.54°EThird White Ash — 27.12°S, 31.97°EGebel Silsila-YCS — 24.50°N, 33.00°EVogel River Series — 3.22°S, 35.20°ESwartkrans — 26.02°S, 27.72°EBouri — 10.00°N, 40.50°ENuapua — 20.75°S, 63.07°W

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The named rock units Homo sapiens has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 87 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Homo sapiens and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Homo sapiens and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,162 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 97 sites for Homo sapiens, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

83 references

Each of the 97 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 71 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Homo sapiens

Credit
Weltenbummler84
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0 de
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Homo sapiens · L-NS:MAMM:NS_human_specimen4

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itHomo through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758