Homo in the context of "Dmanisi skull 5"

Early modern human, or anatomically modern human, are terms used to distinguish Homo sapiens (the only extant Hominina species) that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans, from extinct archaic human species. This distinction is useful especially for times and regions where anatomically modern and archaic humans co-existed, for example, in Paleolithic Europe. Among the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens are those found at the Omo-Kibish I archaeological site in south-western Ethiopia, dating to about 233,000 to 196,000 years ago, the Florisbad Skull found at the Florisbad archaeological and paleontological site in South Africa, dating to about 259,000 years ago, and the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco, dated about 315,000 years ago.

Extinct species of the genus Homo include Homo erectus (extant from roughly 2,000,000 to 100,000 years ago) and a number of other species (by some authors considered subspecies of either H. sapiens or H. erectus). The divergence of the lineage leading to H. sapiens out of ancestral H. erectus (or an intermediate species such as Homo antecessor) is estimated to have occurred in Africa roughly 500,000 years ago. The earliest fossil evidence of early modern humans appears in Africa around 300,000 years ago, with the earliest genetic splits among modern people, according to some evidence, dating to around the same time. Sustained archaic human admixture with modern humans is known to have taken place both in Africa and (following the recent Out-Of-Africa expansion) in Eurasia, between about 100,000 and 30,000 years ago.

Several expansions of populations of archaic humans (genus Homo) out of Africa and throughout Eurasia took place in the course of the Lower Paleolithic, and into the beginning Middle Paleolithic, between about 2.1 million and 0.2 million years ago (Ma).These expansions are collectively known as Out of Africa I, in contrast to the expansion of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) into Eurasia, which may have begun shortly after 0.2 million years ago (known in this context as "Out of Africa II").

The earliest presence of Homo (or indeed any hominin) outside of Africa dates to close to 2 million years ago.A 2018 study identified possible hominin presence at Shangchen, central China, as early as 2.12 Ma based onmagnetostratigraphic dating of the lowest layer containing what may possibly be stone artefacts.The oldest known human skeletal remains outside of Africa are from Dmanisi, Georgia (Dmanisi skull 4), and are dated to 1.8 Ma. These remains are classified as Homo erectus georgicus.

The Hominidae (/hɒˈmɪnɪdiː/; hominids /ˈhɒmɪnɪdz/), whose members are known as the great apes, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); Gorilla (the eastern and western gorilla); Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo); and Homo, of which only modern humans (Homo sapiens) remain.

Numerous revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term hominid to change over time. The original meaning of "hominid" referred only to humans (Homo) and their closest extinct relatives. However, by the 1990s humans and other apes were considered to be "hominids".

Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an animal moves by means of its two rear (or lower) limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped /ˈbaɪpɛd/, meaning 'two feet' (from Latin bis 'double' and pes 'foot'). Types of bipedal movement include walking or running (a bipedal gait) and hopping.

Several groups of modern species are habitual bipeds whose normal method of locomotion is two-legged. In the Triassic period some groups of archosaurs, a group that includes crocodiles and dinosaurs, developed bipedalism; among the dinosaurs, all the early forms and many later groups were habitual or exclusive bipeds; the birds are members of a clade of exclusively bipedal dinosaurs, the theropods. Within mammals, habitual bipedalism has evolved multiple times, with the macropods, kangaroo rats and mice, springhare, hopping mice, pangolins and hominin apes such as australopithecines, including humans, as well as many other extinct groups evolving the trait independently.

The control of fire by early humans was a critical technology enabling the evolution of humans. Fire provided a source of warmth and lighting, protection from predators (especially at night), a way to create more advanced hunting tools, and a method for cooking food. These cultural advances allowed human geographic dispersal, cultural innovations, and changes to diet and behavior. Additionally, creating fire allowed human activity to continue into the darker and colder hours of the evening.

Claims for the earliest definitive evidence of control of fire by a member of Homo range from 1.7 to 2.0 million years ago (Mya). Evidence for the "microscopic traces of wood ash" as controlled use of fire by Homo erectus, beginning roughly 1 million years ago, has wide scholarly support. Some of the earliest known traces of controlled fire were found at the Daughters of Jacob Bridge, Israel/Golan Heights, and dated to ~790,000 years ago. At the site, archaeologists also found the oldest likely evidence (mainly, fish teeth that had been heated deep in a cave) for the controlled use of fire to cook food ~780,000 years ago. However, some studies suggest cooking started ~1.8 million years ago.

Early human migrations are the earliest migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents. They are believed to have begun approximately 2 million years ago with the early expansions out of Africa by Homo erectus. This initial migration was followed by other archaic humans including H. heidelbergensis, which lived around 500,000 years ago and was the likely ancestor of Denisovans and Neanderthals as well as modern humans. Early hominids had likely crossed land bridges that have now sunk.

Within Africa, Homo sapiens dispersed around the time of its speciation, roughly 300,000 years ago. The recent African origin theory suggests that the anatomically modern humans outside of Africa descend from a population of Homo sapiens migrating from East Africa roughly 70–50,000 years ago and spreading along the southern coast of Asia and to Oceania by about 50,000 years ago. Modern humans spread across Europe about 40,000 years ago.

The Hominini (hominins) form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae (hominines). They comprise two extant genera: Homo (humans) and Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos), and in standard usage exclude the genus Gorilla (gorillas), which is grouped separately within the subfamily Homininae.

The term Hominini was originally introduced by Camille Arambourg (1948), who combined the categories of Hominina and Simiina pursuant to Gray's classifications (1825).