One human species left
For the first time in six million years, only one hominin lineage remains on Earth.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 10 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 5 thousand years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
Neanderthals are gone by about 40,000 years ago, Denisovans leave no trace after roughly 30,000, Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis end on their islands, and Homo erectus had already gone on Java. For essentially all of the preceding record, several human species existed at once — often on the same continent. Afterwards there is exactly one, which is historically abnormal and makes the modern intuition that humanity means one species a very recent condition.