Discover interesting facts about the origin of the human species and what makes us different from our ape cousins.

"For me, Homo sapiens evolved between 1 million and 700,000 years ago in Africa," John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, told Live Science in an email.

By this definition, even the oldest of this genus that dates back at least 2 million years — Homo habilis — would be human, as would Neanderthals, Denisovans and H. erectus. Just as with early ...

The story of human evolution in Africa is undergoing a major rewrite. Did scientists discover the oldest Homo sapiens remains on record? Depends on your definition of what’s human.

Indeed, remains of Homo sapiens have been found a mere 50 kilometers away from this site, ... “Now that we have this new definition, everything falls into place,” she continues.

These five skulls, which range from an approximately 2.5-million-year-old Australopithecus africanus on the left to an approximately 4,800-year-old Homo sapiens on the right, show changes in the ...

NPR's Elissa Nadworny speaks with Elena Zavala of the University of California, Berkeley, about new research showing how homo sapiens and Neanderthals interacted and may have even interbred.

After Homo sapiens evolved from the African descendants of H. erectus, humans began exploring the rest of the world, starting this new journey at least 200,000 years ago.