When We Lived With at Least Eight Other Human Species

Around 6 million years ago, a branch of apes evolved and became the first species of the genus Homo.

The Stone Age, which began about 2.6 million years ago, is the earliest period showing evidence of humans using stone tools.

Homo habilis, with braincases slightly larger than those of apes, are believed to have evolved nearly 2.4 million years ago. Homo habilis means "Handy Man" due to the large number of tools found with fossils in Tanzania.

One of the oldest known early humans, Homo ergaster, the first of our relatives to have human-like body proportions, with shorter arms and longer legs relative to the torso, lived on the Savannah in Africa but might have been the first human species to leave Africa, expanding into southern Eurasia by 1.75 million years ago. (Asian Homo erectus)

Homo habilis, Sterkfontein Caves exhibition, flowcomm

Homo Rudofensis evolved about 1.8 to 1.2 million years ago. While only a few fossils of this species have been found in Kenya, they had a larger brain than Homo habilis.

Homo ergaster made complex tools. The first evidence of stone tools is about 2.6 million years ago.

Distant cousins of Homo ergaster still lived in Indonesia until 110,000 years ago. (1.)

Homo ergaster, (recreation) F. Javier Menéndez

These cousins (Homo erectus), lived isolated on islands in South-East Asia and appear to have evolved into smaller forms, such as Homo floresiensis - the "Hobbit" - on Flores, and Homo luzonensis in the Philippines. Homo floresiensis, survived until around 12,000 years ago.

The Cro-Magnons (Early Modern Humans), the first humans (genus Homo) to have a prominent chin, were anatomically similar to us, and living in Europe 25,000 years ago. Evidence of rituals and burial practices, with bodies covered with ochre, suggests belief in an afterlife.

Tools used for hunting, fishing or sewing were used by the Cro-Magnons. They were able to control fire which enabled them to live in the coldest regions of Europe and to fire clay figurines in a kiln. Venus figures were widespread in Europe after around 30,000 years ago.

The Cro-Magnon, early Homo sapiens date from the Upper Paleolithic Period (c. 40,000 to c. 10,000 years ago) in Europe.

Venus of Willendorf as shown at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Uspn (30,000 year old Venus of Willendorf from Austria)

Homo Heidelbergensis evolved around 700 to 200 thousand years ago, with the first fossil found in Germany in 1908. They built shelters, used fire and spears for hunting animals.

Our closest relatives — the Neanderthals and Denisovans, lived in the cold climates of Europe and southeastern and central Asia, about 600 to 30 thousand years ago, before they became extinct. They made clothing, and used complex tools such as sewing needles made from bone.

Cro-Magnon & Neanderthal Skulls, Horniman Museum, London. https://www.flickr.com/photos/brighton/. (Cro-Magnons wore decorative beads, and plant-fibre clothes dyed with various plant-based dyes. For music, they produced bone flutes and whistles, and possibly also bullroarers, rasps, drums, idiophones)

Neanderthals spread out across Europe and the Middle East, Denisovans spread through Asia.

Neanderthal Mother and child, Taken in Anthropos Pavilion, Brno, Czech Republic. https://www.flickr.com/photos/kojotisko/

Many modern humans carry DNA derived from these archaic populations from interbreeding during the Late Pleistocene. Humans and Neanderthals lived along side each other in Northern Europe 45,000 Years Ago,

About 300,000 years ago, a time of extreme climate change, Homo sapiens (us) evolved in Africa and spread throughout the Middle East by 100,000 years ago.

Homo Sapiens 68,000 Years Old, Taken at the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ideonexus/

Like the other early humans living at this time, Homo sapiens probably survived as hunter gatherers, living in small extended family groups.  

Climate change and perhaps war and violence and competition for food led to Homo sapiens being the sole remaining hominid.