History of study[edit]

Hominin timeline

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← Earlier apes
−10 — ← Gorilla split
– ← Chimpanzee split
Miocene ← Earliest bipedal
−9.5 — ← Stone tools
← Dispersal beyond Africa
–
← Earliest fire / cooking
−9 — ← Earliest clothes
Pliocene ← Modern humans
–
H
−8.5 —
o
–

−8 — Pleistocene m

– i

−7.5 — n
Hominini
– i
Nakalipithecus
−7 —
Ouranopithecus d
–
Oreopithecus s
−6.5 —
Sahelanthropus
–
Orrorin
−6 —
Ardipithecus
–

−5.5 —
Australopithecus

– Homo habilis

−5 — Homo erectus

– Homo heidelbergensis
−4.5 — Homo sapiens
– Neanderthals,Denisovans
−4 —

−3.5 —

−3 —

–
 −2.5 —

−2 —

−1.5 —

−1 —

−0.5 —

0 —
(million years ago)

Hominins

0.2 Mya
H.sapiens

0.6 Mya
H.heidelbergensis

4.0 Mya
Australopithecus
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Main article: Archaic humans

Before Darwin[edit]
The word homo, the name of the biological genus to which humans belong, is Latin for "human".
[b]
 It was chosen originally by Carl Linnaeus in his classification system.[c] The word "human" is
from the Latin humanus, the adjectival form of homo. The Latin "homo" derives from the Indo-
European root *dhghem, or "earth".[57] Linnaeus and other scientists of his time also considered
the great apes to be the closest relatives of humans based
on morphological and anatomical similarities.[58]
Darwin[edit]
The possibility of linking humans with earlier apes by descent became clear only after 1859 with
the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, in which he argued for the idea of
the evolution of new species from earlier ones. Darwin's book did not address the question of
human evolution, saying only that "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history." [59]
The first debates about the nature of human evolution arose between Thomas Henry
Huxley and Richard Owen. Huxley argued for human evolution from apes by illustrating many of
the similarities and differences between humans and other apes, and did so particularly in his
1863 book Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature. Many of Darwin's early supporters (such
as Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Lyell) did not initially agree that the origin of the mental
capacities and the moral sensibilities of humans could be explained by natural selection, though
this later changed. Darwin applied the theory of evolution and sexual selection to humans in his
1871 book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.[60]