Modern humans belong to the species Homo sapiens, which first emerged at least 300,000 years ago, but possibly as far back as 1 million years ago. And our history goes back much further: the first members of the Homo genus emerged nearly 3 million years ago in Africa.
As technology advances, scientists have been able to piece together how early modern humans arose and migrated around the world, sometimes breeding with close human relatives, such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Even today, humans are still evolving, including in Nepal, where people who have adapted to live in the low-oxygen conditions at high altitudes tend to have more children than those who haven't. Humans may also be evolving through our culture, an idea that learned behaviors we pass on are the "mutations" that can aid survival. Read on to learn more about humans evolved in the past — and continue to do so.
Discover more about human evolution
—Human evolution: Facts about the past 300,000 years of Homo sapiens
—Our mixed-up human family: 8 human relatives that went extinct (and 1 that didn't)
Latest about Human Evolution
1.8 million-year-old human jawbone discovered in Republic of Georgia — and it may be earliest evidence yet of Homo erectus
A new fossil find in the Republic of Georgia is expanding our understanding of the earliest humans to leave Africa.
Mysterious 300,000-year-old Greek cave skull was neither human nor Neanderthal, study finds
Researchers have dated the mysterious skull from Petralona Cave in Greece to 300,000 years ago and concluded that the fossil belonged to an ancient human group that lived alongside Neanderthals.
The first Americans had Denisovan DNA. And it may have helped them survive.
People with Indigenous American ancestry carry Denisovan genes that Neanderthals passed on when they mated with modern humans.
Gene that differs between humans and Neanderthals could shed light on the species' disappearance, mouse study suggests
A gene called ASDL, which helps synthesize DNA, differs between modern humans and our extinct human relatives. The findings could shed light on why Neanderthals vanished.
What was the first human species?
Modern humans emerged roughly 300,000 years ago, but our genus Homo is much older. So what's the oldest human species on record?
2.6 million-year-old stone tools reveal ancient human relatives were 'forward planning' 600,000 years earlier than thought
Hundreds of stone tools discovered in Kenya have revealed that human relatives traveled long distances to find raw material.
A braided stream, not a family tree: How new evidence upends our understanding of how humans evolved
Evidence is mounting that the evolution of our species is more convoluted than we imagined — more like a braided stream than a branching tree.
'It makes no sense to say there was only one origin of Homo sapiens': How the evolutionary record of Asia is complicating what we know about our species
As experts study the human fossil record of Asia, many have come to see it as telling a different story than what happened in Europe and Africa.
DNA has an expiration date. But proteins are revealing secrets about our ancient ancestors we never thought possible.
Analysis of ancient proteins may fill in the gaps of human evolution left by the decomposition of DNA.
Never-before-seen cousin of Lucy might have lived at the same site as the oldest known human species, new study suggests
An unidentified early hominin fossil that might be a new species confirms that Australopithecus and Homo species lived in the same region of Africa in the same time frame.
