{"id":3035,"date":"2019-11-13T19:12:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T23:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=3035"},"modified":"2022-03-10T09:14:57","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T13:14:57","slug":"types-of-human-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-human-species\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Types of Human Species: We Aren&#8217;t So Special"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What were the different types of human species? How were these early human species similar, and how did they differ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The different types of human species were <em>Homo soloensis, Homo floresiensis, Homo denisova, Homo rudolfensis, Homo neanderthalensis<\/em>, <em>Home erectus<\/em>, <em>Homo ergaster<\/em>, and <em>Homo sapiens<\/em>. Of these eight human species, only one survived: <em>Homo sapiens<\/em>, us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ll cover the different human species and what they had in common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">8 Types of Human Species<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s go back to a time when <em>Homo sapiens <\/em>was just one of multiple human species (and not a very distinguished species, at that).<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Different Human Species<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We think of our own species as the only humans, distinguished from and superior to every other species on earth. But when we, <em>Homo sapiens<\/em>, arrived on the scene 2.5 million years ago, <strong>we weren\u2019t anything special.<\/strong> We existed in the middle of the food chain, as often prey as we were predators, and we weren\u2019t even the only humans.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Eight Human (Homo) Species<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Humans evolved in East Africa from a genus of apes. These early humans settled all over the world, and as the climates and conditions differed from place to place, they acquired different traits and became different species.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We tend to think of the evolution of humans as a linear progression from <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/history-of-hominids\/\">Homo erectus<\/a> <\/em>to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/homosapiens-and-neanderthals\/\">Neanderthals<\/a> to <em>Homo sapiens<\/em>, but at least six human species were alive when our own lived on earth, and others may yet be discovered. The known types of human species included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>1. <em>Homo neanderthalensis<\/em><\/strong> (\u201cMan from the Neander Valley\u201d): Also known as Neanderthals, these humans lived in western Asia and Europe. They were more muscular than we were and they had bigger brains than we did (or do today). We\u2019ll see why the Neanderthal species died out, even though Neanderthals were superior to Sapiens in many ways.<\/li><li><strong>2. <em>Home erectus<\/em><\/strong> (\u201cUpright Man\u201d): These humans lived in eastern Asia for almost 2 million years, making them likely to be the longest-living human species ever. (As we\u2019ll see, it\u2019s unlikely that <em>Homo sapiens<\/em> will be around 2,000 years from now, let alone 2 million.)<\/li><li><strong>3. <em>Homo soloensis<\/em><\/strong> (\u201cMan from the Solo Valley\u201d): These humans lived in the tropics of what is now Java, Indonesia.<\/li><li><strong>4. <em>Homo floresiensis<\/em><\/strong>: Also in Indonesia, on the island of Flores, these humans were dwarfs. Flores was an island with few resources, and people who needed a lot of food were the first to die off. Homo floresiensis was 3.5 feet tall and weighed 55 pounds.<\/li><li><strong>5. <em>Homo denisova<\/em><\/strong>: A human species discovered in 2010 in the Denisova Cave in Siberia.<\/li><li><strong>6. &amp; 7. <em>Homo rudolfensis<\/em><\/strong> (\u201cMan from Lake Rudolf\u201d) and <strong><em>Homo ergaster<\/em><\/strong> (\u201cWorking Man\u201d): Both evolved from humanity\u2019s birthplace in East Africa.<\/li><li><strong>8. <em>Homo sapiens<\/em><\/strong> (\u201cWise Man\u201d): Us. Our species of man also evolved in East Africa.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Shared Characteristics of <\/strong>Different Types of Human Species<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the eight known types of human species, only one survived. Let\u2019s look at what all the human species had in common.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Human Species Characteristic #1: Large Brains<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Mammals that are 130 lbs typically have a brain that\u2019s an average of 12 cubic inches. In contrast, the brains of early humans were 36 cubic inches. Today, our average brain size is 73-85 cubic inches, and the brains of Neanderthals were even bigger than ours. All types of human species had relatively large brains.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems like large brains would give us and our fellow humans an obvious advantage over other animals, but it wasn\u2019t necessarily an asset to early humans.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>The Disadvantages of a Big Brain<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Big brains take a lot of energy to fuel. <strong>Our brains make up 2-3% of our body weight, but use 25% of our energy.<\/strong> (The brains of our ape siblings only use 8% of their energy.)<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This drain of energy caused two main problems:<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Problem #1: <\/strong>Humans had to spend a lot of time searching for food (they needed a lot of calories to feed their hungry brains).<\/li><li><strong>Problem #2: <\/strong>Their muscles atrophied because their bodies had to divert energy from muscles to feed the brain.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>When you\u2019re in the middle of the food chain, trying to catch small animals and keep out of the way of big ones, <strong>using your energy to power your brain instead of your muscles isn\u2019t the smartest strategy.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We still don\u2019t really know why we evolved such large brains when there was little use for them in early history. It was a bad use of our energy.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Characteristic #2: Walking Upright<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>All types of human species walked upright. Like having a big brain, walking upright seems like an unequivocally positive trait to us today, in part because we still walk upright and can\u2019t imagine moving any other way. There were both advantages and disadvantages to walking upright.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>A better view: <\/strong>When you\u2019re standing, it\u2019s easier to see the lion hiding in the grass or the prey oblivious to you.<\/li><li><strong>The ability to use tools: <\/strong>When you don\u2019t need your arms for moving around, they\u2019re freed up for other tasks, like signaling to others and using tools. As we evolved more nerve endings and agile muscles in our hands, our tools became more sophisticated.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cons:<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>An unstable skeleton: <\/strong>Because we\u2019re built to walk on all fours like most mammals, our skeletal structure doesn\u2019t easily support our large heads. Consequently, we get back and neck aches.<\/li><li><strong>Narrow hips: <\/strong>To walk upright, women (and men) evolved narrower hips, but this was bad news for childbirth. As women\u2019s hips were getting narrower, babies\u2019 heads were getting bigger.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The different types of human species had a lot in common, but in the end, only Homo sapiens (us) survived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What were the different types of human species? How were these early human species similar, and how did they differ? The different types of human species were Homo soloensis, Homo floresiensis, Homo denisova, Homo rudolfensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Home erectus, Homo ergaster, and Homo sapiens. Of these eight human species, only one survived: Homo sapiens, us. We&#8217;ll cover the different human species and what they had in common.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-3035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-sapiens","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>8 Types of Human Species: We Aren&#039;t So Special - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Different types of human species included Homo neanderthalensis, Home erectus, and us, Homo sapiens. Learn what we had in common with other human species.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/types-of-human-species\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"8 Types of Human Species: We Aren&#039;t So Special\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Different types of human species included Homo neanderthalensis, Home erectus, and us, Homo sapiens. 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