Explain characteristics of homospaiens
Answers
Explanation:
All people living today belong to the species Homo sapiens. We evolved only relatively recently but with complex culture and technology have been able to spread throughout the world and occupy a range of different environments.background
Homo sapiens age
300,000 years ago to present:
archaic Homo sapiens from 300,000 years ago
modern Homo sapiens from about 160,000 years ago
What the name Homo sapiens means
The name we selected for ourselves means ‘wise human’. Homo is the Latin word for ‘human’ or ‘man’ and sapiens is derived from a Latin word that means ‘wise’ or ‘astute’.
Other Homo sapiens names
Various names have been used for our species including:
‘Cro-Magnon Man’ is commonly used for the modern humans that inhabited Europe from about 40,000 to 10,000 years ago.
The term ‘archaic’ Homo sapiens has sometimes been used for African fossils dated between 300,000 and 150,000 years of age that are difficult to classify due to a mixture of modern and archaic features. Some scientists prefer to place these fossils in a separate species, Homo helmei.
Homo sapiens sapiens is the name given to our species if we are considered a sub-species of a larger group. This name is used by those that describe the specimen from Herto, Ethiopia as Homo sapiens idàltu or by those who believed that modern humans and the Neanderthals were members of the same species. (The Neanderthals were called Homo sapiens neanderthalensis in this scheme)