Sumatran Orangutan© Flickr/Drriss & Marrionn
News just broke that scientists have found fossils of Homo sapiens, the same species as you and me, that are 300,000 years old (about 100,000 years older than the next oldest known remains of our species)! The discovery was made in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, thus extending the known range of early humans, all of whom lived in Africa.[teaserbreak]
While these people were a little different in skull shape (and thus brain structure) than how our direct ancestors looked 100,000 years later, or how we look now, by the criteria scientists use to distinguish species, they were the same species as us—our direct ancestors—as opposed to other human species that lived at the same time, earlier, and later.
While, inevitably, new discoveries will be made and our knowledge of early humans will be consequently refined, there have been several different members of our genus, Homo, thus humans. And, they did not all evolve in linear fashion from early to late; several co-existed with our own species.
In fact, of the six or seven earlier species of human, it now appears that at least three, H. floresiensis, H. erectus, and the best known, H. neanderthals, co-existed with our own direct ancestors, the early H. sapiens.
All became extinct… all but us, the last human species!
There is a distinct pattern here to which too many folks, especially senior policymakers, are blind; we are the last humans, but not the last primates.
There are approximately 230-270 primate species, with some scientists estimating as many as 350. The discrepancies reflect technical distinctions between geographic variations and full species: the point being that there are a lot of primate species, and that most of us have never heard of, and could not identify, well over 90% of them.
About half of these primate species are in danger of extinction, but the exact number of many of these species is unknown. We are, by whole orders of magnitude, the most abundant primate—greatly outnumbering all others combined. Humans have become so abundant by taking so much from them: both their habitats and their lives.
But, we, too, are habitat dependent. We destroy the most essential things we depend upon for our survival, such as clean air, clean water, arable land, and biodiversity. We are the last human species, and we could become the last primate species—because a world that can’t support them also can’t support us.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Barry