History › Human origins
Homo sapiens: modern humans
c. 300,000 years ago (oldest fossils, Morocco)· Event· Life & early humans
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details, dates or numbers uncertain.
Our own species evolved in Africa about 300,000 years ago and is now the only surviving kind of human.
See it on the History map →What happened
The oldest fossils with modern-looking faces come from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, about 300,000 years old, and Omo Kibish in Ethiopia, about 230,000. Brains reached modern size early; rounder skulls came later. For most of our history we shared the planet with other humans, including Neanderthals, Denisovans in Asia and small-bodied Homo floresiensis in Indonesia. Art, ornaments and long-distance trade built up gradually in Africa before people spread worldwide.
Why it matters
Every person alive descends from these African populations. Our edge was probably culture: language, cooperation and shared know-how that each generation builds on.
How we know
Fossils from Morocco, Ethiopia and South Africa, plus DNA: living Africans hold the most genetic diversity, pointing to an African origin. The Curious Life map covers human evolution in depth.
Still debated
Whether we arose in one region or from linked populations across Africa is debated, as is what made our species the last one standing.
Inside this (4)
Connections (6)
▸Homo erectus was a likely ancestor of Homo sapiens: modern humansMostly agreed
The connection
In Africa, descendants of Homo erectus-like populations evolved bigger brains over hundreds of thousands of years. Genetics suggests the lines leading to us and to Neanderthals split roughly 550,000 to 750,000 years ago, and our African branch became Homo sapiens by about 300,000 years ago.
When and how
Africa, roughly 1 million to 300,000 years ago.
How sure are we?
African fossils of intermediate form, such as Bodo in Ethiopia, and DNA comparisons that date when lineages split.
Debates and open questions
African fossils from this period are scarce, and the exact chain of species, and whether Asian erectus groups contributed anything, are unclear.
▸Homo sapiens: modern humans spread worldwide in the Out of Africa migrationMostly agreed
The connection
After some 200,000 years living mostly in Africa, Homo sapiens populations grew, developed more flexible technology and moved out. A main wave about 70,000–50,000 years ago produced the ancestors of everyone outside Africa today.
When and how
Northeast Africa into Arabia and the Levant, about 70,000–50,000 years ago; earlier forays reached Israel by about 190,000 years ago.
How sure are we?
DNA from living people worldwide traces non-African lineages to a small group that left Africa; fossils such as Misliya Cave in Israel date earlier forays.
Debates and open questions
What triggered the exit, wet periods that greened Arabia, new technology or population growth, is debated.
▸Neanderthals were outlasted by Homo sapiens: modern humansWell documented
The connection
Within a few thousand years of modern humans' arrival in Europe, about 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals disappeared, by about 40,000 years ago. Modern humans probably had larger, better-connected groups. Neanderthals did not vanish entirely: their DNA survives in billions of living people.
When and how
Europe and western Asia, about 45,000–40,000 years ago; some argue for later survival in southern Iberia.
How we know
Radiocarbon dates of the last Neanderthal sites and the first modern-human ones, which overlap for several thousand years in Europe.
Debates and open questions
Whether modern humans outcompeted, fought, absorbed or simply outbred them, and what role climate swings played, is still debated.
▸Homo sapiens: modern humans made Earliest symbolic art (Blombos Cave)Mostly agreed
The connection
Modern humans in southern Africa were already thinking symbolically long before most of them left Africa. At Blombos they mixed ochre paint, engraved patterns and wore shell beads, behaviors once thought to have begun in Europe about 40,000 years ago.
When and how
Blombos Cave, southern Cape coast of South Africa, about 100,000–73,000 years ago; excavations led by Christopher Henshilwood since 1991.
How sure are we?
Modern human teeth found in the same layers tie the objects to Homo sapiens.
Debates and open questions
Whether this was a local spark or part of a long, Africa-wide build-up, shown by older shell beads in Morocco, is debated.
▸Homo sapiens: modern humans began Domestication of the dogMostly agreed
The connection
Modern human hunter-gatherers living alongside Ice Age wolves set off the process that turned some wolves into dogs. One theory holds that people shared surplus lean meat in hard winters; tamer wolves that stayed close bred, and over generations became dogs that hunted, guarded and traveled with people.
When and how
Somewhere in Eurasia, perhaps Siberia, between about 40,000 and 15,000 years ago.
How sure are we?
Ancient dog burials with people, such as Bonn-Oberkassel 14,200 years ago, and genomes linking all dogs to an extinct Ice Age wolf population.
Debates and open questions
Whether dogs were domesticated once or twice, and whether humans or wolves drove the early stages, are unresolved.
▸Darwin's On the Origin of Species explained the evolution behind Homo sapiens: modern humansMostly agreed
The connection
Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, published in 1859, gave the framework for understanding humans as one species among many, descended from earlier apes. He said little about humans in that book, but argued in The Descent of Man (1871) that our ancestors probably lived in Africa.
When and how
London, 1859 and 1871; Darwin drew on decades of observation, including the Beagle voyage of 1831–1836.
How sure are we?
Later fossils, from the 1924 Taung Child in South Africa onward, and DNA studies confirmed his prediction of an African origin.
Debates and open questions
Darwin knew no genetics and no human fossils older than Neanderthals; the details of human evolution are still revised with each new find.