Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: How long has the species homo sapiens existed?
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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."
Madagascar was colonised rather recently compared to other landmasses, with first evidence for humans—arrived from either Africa or Asia—dating to 2,300 or perhaps 4,000 years before present. It is assumed that humans first stayed near the coast and penetrated into the interior only several centuries later. The settlers had a profound impact on the long-isolated environment of Madagascar through land clearing and fire, introduction of zebu cattle, and probably hunting to extinction the native megafauna including, among others, elephant birds, giant lemurs and giant tortoises. The first Europeans arrived in the 16th century, starting an age of overseas exchange. Population growth and transformation of the landscape was particularly rapid since the mid-20th century.
Humans evolved to live as simple hunter-gatherers in small tribal bands. Contemporary humans now have a very different environment and way of life. This change makes present humans vulnerable to a number of health problems, termed "diseases of civilization" and "diseases of affluence". Stone-age humans evolved to live off the land, taking advantage of the resources that were readily available to them. Evolution is slow, and the rapid change from stone-age environments and practices to the world of today is problematic because we are still adapted to stone-age circumstances that no longer apply. This misfit has serious implications for our health. "Modern environments may cause many diseases such as deficiency syndromes like scurvy and rickets".)
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.
While Darwin had been somewhat coy about human origins, not identifying any explicit conclusion on the matter in his book, he had dropped enough hints about human's animal ancestry for the inference to be made, and the first review claimed it made a creed of the "men from monkeys" idea from "Vestiges". Human evolution became central to the debate and was strongly argued by Huxley who featured it in his popular "working-men's lectures". Darwin did not publish his own views on this until 1871.
During the Paleolithic era (20,000-10,000 BC) humans lived in several caves above the valley floor during the summer. The caves, Schnurenloch, Mamilchloch, Zwergliloch and Chniechälebalm, contained about 5,000 bones from the now extinct cave bear which the inhabitants had butchered. While no human remains were discovered, a number of stone tools were found. Today the tools and bones are at the Historical Museum of Bern while the caves can be visited with tour groups. These caves and other nearby rock shelters continued to be used through the Neolithic, the late Bronze Age and into the Middle Ages. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Alamanni tribes settled in the Simmen valley and established villages and alpine pastures.
Features necessary for defending a territory, such as the horns and broad-based skull of the modern black wildebeest, have been found in their fossil ancestors. The earliest known fossil remains are in sedimentary rock in Cornelia in the Orange Free State and date back about 800,000 years. Fossils have also been reported from the Vaal River deposits, though whether or not they are as ancient as those found in Cornelia is unclear. Horns of the black wildebeest have been found in sand dunes near Hermanus in South Africa. This is far beyond the recorded range of the species and it has been suggested that these animals may have migrated to that region from the Karoo.
The presence of a water spring is believed to be the reason why humans first settled in the area where present-day Bonchurch is located. A prehistoric race lived in the area around the Undercliff, land which was wild forest. Evidence has also been found showing that men that lived during the Stone Age had lived near to the water spring. Five burial mounds have been discovered at St. Boniface Down. Evidence has also been discovered showing that the Romans established a settlement in the area.
DNA and anthropologic data consider modern humans ("Homo sapiens sapiens") a primate and the descendants of ape-like species. Species of the genus ‘Homo’ are all extinct except humans, which are thought to have evolved from australopithecine ancestors originating in East Africa. The development of the modern human has taken place over some 300,000 years and unique adaptations have resulted from ecological pressures that "Homo Sapiens" has faced. Due prominently to ecological and behavioral factors, the modern human muscular system differs greatly from that of our early primate ancestors. These adaptations and changes have allowed "Homo sapiens" to function as they do today.
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.
The first species in the genus "Homo", "Homo habilis", has been found in Tanzania and Kenya at sites dating between 2.1 and 1.5 million years ago. Species within the genus "Homo" showed no difference within molar size up until "Homo floresiensis", where smaller molars were beginning to be expressed. Species after "H. floresiensis" such as "H. heidelbergensis", "H. neanderthalensis", and "H. sapiens" began to show instead wider frontal teeth and a decrease in size of the molars compared to earlier species. "H. sapiens" shows significantly smaller molars, mandible, and a prominence of the chin.
The species was initially thought to have emerged from a predecessor within the genus "Homo" around 300,000 to 200,000 years ago.
A problem with the morphological classification of "anatomically modern" was that it would not have included certain extant populations. 
For this reason, a lineage-based (cladistic) definition of "H. sapiens" has been suggested, in which "H. sapiens" would by definition refer to the modern human lineage following the split from the Neanderthal lineage. Such a cladistic definition would extend the age of "H. sapiens" to over 500,000 years.