Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: How old is the homo sapiens species?
200,000 years ago, "Homo sapiens" evolves in East Africa. At the time, "Homo sapiens" was one of many human species, such as Neanderthals. Since 13,000 years ago, "Homo sapiens" has been the only surviving human species. Harari suggests that one of the key reasons why Sapiens is able to take control of the world is Sapiens' advanced language.
The fossilized remains of "Homo sapiens idaltu" were discovered at Herto Bouri near the Middle Awash site of Ethiopia's Afar Triangle in 1997 by Tim White, but were first unveiled in 2003. Herto Bouri is a region of Ethiopia under volcanic layers. According to radioisotope dating, the layers are between 154,000 and 160,000 years old. Three well preserved crania are accounted for, the best preserved being from an adult male (BOU-VP-16/1) having a brain capacity of . The other crania include another partial adult male and a six-year-old child.
Another specimen, "the hominid from Lake Ndutu" in northern Tanzania, around 400,000 years old. In 1976 R.J.Clarke classified it as "Homo erectus" and it has generally been viewed as such since, although points of similarity to "H. sapiens" have also been recognized. After comparative studies with similar finds in Africa allocation to an African subspecies of "H. sapiens" seems most appropriate. An indirect cranial capacity estimate suggests 1100 ml. Its supratoral sulcus morphology and the presence of protuberance as suggested by Philip Rightmire "give the Nudutu occiput an appearance which is also unlike that of "Homo erectus"", but Stinger (1986) pointed out that a "thickened iliac pillar" is typical for "Homo erectus". In a 1989 publication Clarke concludes: "It is assigned to archaic "Homo sapiens" on the basis of its expanded parietal and occipital regions of the brain".
Originally assessed as being between 380,000 and 400,000 years old, they represent the oldest completely preserved hunting weapons of prehistoric Europe so far discovered. 
As such they predate the age of Neanderthal Man (by convention taken to emerge after 300,000 years ago), and is associated with "Homo heidelbergensis".
The spears support the practice of hunting by archaic humans in Europe in the late Lower Paleolithic.
The age of the spears was estimated from their stratigraphic position, "sandwiched between deposits of the Elsterian and Saalian glaciations, and situated within a well-studied sedimentary sequence.". More recently, thermoluminescence dating of heated flints in a deposit beneath that which contained the spears suggested that the spears were between 337,000 and 300,000 years old.
The Middle Stone Age (or MSA) was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Later Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago. The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550–500,000 years ago and as such some researchers consider this to be the beginnings of the MSA. The MSA is often mistakenly understood to be synonymous with the Middle Paleolithic of Europe, especially due to their roughly contemporaneous time span, however, the Middle Paleolithic of Europe represents an entirely different hominin population, "Homo neanderthalensis", than the MSA of Africa, which did not have Neanderthal populations. Additionally, current archaeological research in Africa has yielded much evidence to suggest that modern human behavior and cognition was beginning to develop much earlier in Africa during the MSA than it was in Europe during the Middle Paleolithic. The MSA is associated with both anatomically modern humans ("Homo sapiens") as well as archaic "Homo sapiens", sometimes referred to as "Homo helmei". Early physical evidence comes from the Gademotta Formation in Ethiopia, the Kapthurin Formation in Kenya and Kathu Pan in South Africa.
Gigantopithecus (from the Ancient Greek ' "giant", and ' "ape") is an extinct genus of ape that existed from perhaps nine million years to as recently as one hundred thousand years ago, at the same period as "Homo erectus" would have been dispersed, in what is now India, Vietnam, China and Indonesia placing "Gigantopithecus" in the same time frame and geographical location as several hominin species. The primate fossil record suggests that the species "Gigantopithecus blacki" were the largest known primates that ever lived, standing up to and weighing as much as , although some argue that it is more likely that they were much smaller, at roughly in height and in weight.
Sewing needles have been dated to at least 50,000 years ago (Denisova Cave, Siberia) – and uniquely associated with a human species other than modern humans, i.e. H. Denisova/H. Altai. The oldest possible example is 60,000 years ago, a needlepoint (missing stem and eye) found in Sibudu Cave, South Africa. Other early examples of needles dating from 41,000-15,000 years ago are found in multiple locations, e.g. Slovenia, Russia, China, Spain, and France.
This species of wildebeest seems to have evolved around 2.5 million years ago. The black wildebeest is believed to have diverged from the blue wildebeest to become a distinct species around a million years ago, in the mid- to late Pleistocene. Fossil evidence suggests that blue wildebeest were quite common in the Cradle of Humankind in the past. Apart from eastern Africa, fossils are commonly found in Elandsfontein, Cornelia, and Florisbad.
The image of the caveman is commonly associated with the Stone Age. For example, a 2003 documentary series showing the evolution of humans through the Stone Age was called "Walking with Cavemen", but only the last programme showed humans living in caves. While the idea that human beings and dinosaurs coexisted is sometimes portrayed in popular culture in cartoons, films and computer games, such as "The Flintstones", "One Million Years B.C." and "Chuck Rock", the notion of hominids and non-avian dinosaurs co-existing is not supported by any scientific evidence.
Gorillas are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Sub-Saharan Africa. They are classified in the genus Gorilla which is divided into two species: the eastern gorillas and the western gorillas (both critically endangered), and either four or five subspecies. They are the largest living primates. The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of humans, from 95 to 99% depending on what is included, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after the species of "Pan"; the chimpanzees and bonobos.
The Bornean orangutan is the third-heaviest living primate after the two species of gorilla, and the largest truly arboreal (or tree-dwelling) animal alive today. Body weights broadly overlap with the considerably taller "Homo sapiens", but the latter is considerably more variable in size. By comparison, the Sumatran orangutan is similar in size but, on average, is marginally lighter in weight. A survey of wild orangutans found that males weigh on average , ranging from , and long; females average , ranging from , and long. While in captivity, orangutans can grow considerably overweight, up to more than . The heaviest known male orangutan in captivity was an obese male named "Andy", who weighed in 1959 when he was 13 years old.
The Spirit Cave mummy is the oldest human mummy found in North America. It was discovered in 1940 in Spirit Cave, east of Fallon, Nevada by the husband-and-wife archaeological team of Sydney and Georgia Wheeler.
The prehistory of the area that is now the Netherlands was largely shaped by the sea and the rivers that constantly shifted the low-lying geography. The oldest human (Neanderthal) traces were found in higher soils, near Maastricht, from what is believed to be about 250,000 years ago. At the end of the Ice Age, the nomadic late Upper Paleolithic Hamburg culture (c. 13.000–10.000 BC) hunted reindeer in the area, using spears, but the later Ahrensburg culture (c. 11.200–9500 BC) used bow and arrow. From Mesolithic Maglemosian-like tribes (c. 8000 BC) the oldest canoe in the world was found in Drenthe.
The Later Stone Age is associated with the advent of modern human behavior in Africa, although definitions of this concept and means of studying it are up for debate. The transition from the Middle Stone Age to the Later Stone Age is thought to have occurred first in eastern Africa between 50,000 and 39,000 years ago. It is also thought that Later Stone Age peoples and/or their technologies spread out of Africa over the next several thousand years.
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was declared complete in April 2003. An initial rough draft of the human genome was available in June 2000 and by February 2001 a working draft had been completed and published followed by the final sequencing mapping of the human genome on April 14, 2003. Although this was reported to cover 99% of the euchromatic human genome with 99.99% accuracy, a major quality assessment of the human genome sequence was published on May 27, 2004 indicating over 92% of sampling exceeded 99.99% accuracy which was within the intended goal. Further analyses and papers on the HGP continue to occur.
The first use of the term "anthropology" in English to refer to a natural science of humanity was apparently in Richard Harvey's 1593 "Philadelphus, a defense of the legend of Brutus in British history", which, includes the passage: "Genealogy or issue which they had, Artes which they studied, Actes which they did. This part of History is named Anthropology."
History of anthropology in this article refers primarily to the 18th- and 19th-century precursors of modern anthropology. The term anthropology itself, innovated as a New Latin scientific word during the Renaissance, has always meant "the study (or science) of man". The topics to be included and the terminology have varied historically. At present they are more elaborate than they were during the development of anthropology. For a presentation of modern social and cultural anthropology as they have developed in Britain, France, and North America since approximately 1900, see the relevant sections under Anthropology.
As of , the oldest known living person is Kane Tanaka of Japan, aged . The oldest known living man is Gustav Gerneth of Germany, aged . Due to differences in life expectancy, the 100 oldest women have lived significantly longer than the 100 oldest men.
There are many species that have gone extinct as a direct result of human activity. Some examples include the dodo, the great auk, the Tasmanian tiger, the Chinese river dolphin, and the passenger pigeon. An extinct species can be revived by using allelic replacement of a closely related species that is still living. By only having to replace a few genes within an organism, instead of having to build the extinct species' genome from scratch, it could be possible to bring back several species in this way, even Neanderthals.
The Espíritu Santo antelope squirrel ("Ammospermophilus insularis") is a species of antelope squirrel in the family Sciuridae. It is endemic to Mexico, where it is known only from the island of Espíritu Santo in the Gulf of California. The species was originally described by Edward William Nelson and Edward Alphonso Goldman in 1909 as a subspecies of the white-tailed antelope squirrel ("Ammospermophilus leucurus"), a wide-ranging species in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico. In 1938, Arthur H. Howell elevated the subspecies to full species status, on the basis of slightly larger skull proportions and the absence or reduction of the third upper premolar. Studies of DNA and chromosomes have variously suggested close relationships with Harris's antelope squirrels ("A. harrisii") or other
subspecies of white-tailed antelope squirrel. A 2007 comparison of DNA and morphological traits suggested the differences between Espíritu Santo squirrels and those on the Baja California peninsula and other islands were not enough to warrant distinct species but rather a subspecies of white-tailed antelope squirrels. Since 2008 the IUCN has similarly recognized the Espíritu Santo antelope squirrel as a subspecies of white-tailed antelope squirrel.
A recent suggestion, based upon observations that men and women have the same number of ribs, speculates that the bone was the baculum, a small structure found in the penis of many mammals, but not in humans.
"Homo erectus" is the most, or one of the most, long-lived species of "Homo", having existed well over one million years and perhaps over two million years;
by contrast, "Homo sapiens" emerged about a quarter million years ago.
If considering "Homo erectus" in its strict sense (that is, as referring to only the Asian variety) no consensus has been reached as to whether it is ancestral to "H. sapiens" or any later human species."Wushan Man" was proposed as "Homo erectus wushanensis", but is now thought to be based upon fossilized fragments of an extinct non-hominin ape.
Archaeological excavations have demonstrated the presence of people in Morocco that were ancestral to "Homo sapiens", as well as the presence of early human species. The fossilized bones of a 400,000-year-old early human ancestor were discovered in Salé in 1971. The bones of several very early "Homo sapiens" were excavated at Jebel Irhoud in 1991, these were dated using modern techniques in 2017 and found to be at least 300,000 years old, making them the oldest examples of Homo Sapiens discovered anywhere in the world. In 2007, small perforated seashell beads were discovered in Taforalt that are 82,000 years old, making them the earliest known evidence of personal adornment found anywhere in the world.
Today, all humans are classified as belonging to the species "Homo sapiens". However, this is not the first species of homininae: the first species of genus "Homo", "Homo habilis", evolved in East Africa at least 2 million years ago, and members of this species populated different parts of Africa in a relatively short time. "Homo erectus" evolved more than 1.8 million years ago, and by 1.5 million years ago had spread throughout Europe and Asia. Virtually all physical anthropologists agree that "Archaic Homo sapiens" (A group including the possible species "H. heidelbergensis", "H. rhodesiensis" and "H. neanderthalensis") evolved out of African "Homo erectus" ("sensu lato") or "Homo ergaster." Anthropologists support the idea that anatomically modern humans ("Homo sapiens") evolved in North or East Africa from an archaic human species such as "H. heidelbergensis" and then migrated out of Africa, mixing with and replacing "H. heidelbergensis" and "H. neanderthalensis" populations throughout Europe and Asia, and "H. rhodesiensis" populations in Sub-Saharan Africa (a combination of the Out of Africa and Multiregional models).
The earliest members of the genus "Homo" are "Homo habilis" which evolved around . "Homo habilis" has been considered the first species for which there is clear evidence of the use of stone tools. More recently, however, in 2015, stone tools, perhaps predating "Homo habilis", have been discovered in northwestern Kenya that have been dated to 3.3 million years old. Nonetheless, the brains of "Homo habilis" were about the same size as that of a chimpanzee, and their main adaptation was bipedalism as an adaptation to terrestrial living. During the next million years a process of encephalization began, and with the arrival of "Homo erectus" in the fossil record, cranial capacity had doubled. "Homo erectus" were the first of the hominina to leave Africa, and these species spread through Africa, Asia, and Europe between . One population of "H. erectus", also sometimes classified as a separate species "Homo ergaster", stayed in Africa and evolved into "Homo sapiens". It is believed that these species were the first to use fire and complex tools. The earliest transitional fossils between "H. ergaster/erectus" and archaic humans are from Africa such as "Homo rhodesiensis", but seemingly transitional forms are also found at Dmanisi, Georgia. These descendants of African "H. erectus" spread through Eurasia from c. 500,000 years ago evolving into "H. antecessor", "H. heidelbergensis" and "H. neanderthalensis". The earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans are from the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago such as the Omo remains of Ethiopia and the fossils of Herto sometimes classified as "Homo sapiens idaltu". Later fossils of archaic "Homo sapiens" from Skhul in Israel and Southern Europe begin around 90,000 years ago.