What happened to the other Human Species?

Human evolution can’t help but fascinate us - the story of where we came from. Today we, Homo sapiens, are the only human species left. But that wasn’t always the case….

For millions of years, there thrived a great range of early human species. From small-brained island dwellers in Indonesia to the robust Neanderthals that dominated so much of Eurasia for hundreds of thousands of years.

With the help of human evolution specialists Dr Chris Stringer and Dr Fred Spoor, Tristan Hughes explores a list of five extraordinary early humans that went extinct.

Interviews shot at the Natural History Museum.

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#historyhit #evolution #homosapien #neanderthal

00:00 Introduction
00:52 Australopithecus
06:45 Homo erectus
12:03 Homo floresiensis
15:48 Homo naledi
21:02 Neanderthals

[andrewthompson]

Actually, they didn't die out at all. They are in the apartment above me.

[rachaelcourtnell]

I love it when they say "we don't know". This shows some sense of still looking (not being arrogant as to know every thing).

[irodmann]

Would love to see a movie of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens when they encountered each other.

[SomeoneBeginingWithI]

One of the hypotheses for Neandethal extinction is that they had more difficulty than Sapiens finding enough food during the ice age. Because Neandethals are bigger and much more muscular than modern humans, they require a lot more food to survive, estimated to be between 3, 500 and 5, 000 calories a day. When resources were scarce in the ice age, the smaller homo sapiens would have had an advantage.

[EarthScienceTV]

The robust Neanderthals, in particular, capture my imagination. Their ability to endure harsh climates and their sophisticated tool use is a testament to human adaptability.

[ILoveYou-rvpd]

I’ve seen Lucy up close when she was on loan to a nearby museum. She was absolutely breathtaking ❤

[Theturtleowl]

Usually I am not too interested in prehistoric history, but this was very interesting. Well done!

[ellenkarlsson]

I would love to see more content on Neanderthals, Denisovans and the Denisova cave!
There's a very interesting research project at the University of Vienna, led by Katerina Douka, looking into Denisovan distribution in South East Asia.
Another exciting project is led by Mateja Hajdinjak at the Max Planck Institute, she's looking at Neanderthals and early H. sapiens to figure out what exactly makes humans human.
If you want to know what happened when early humans left Africa and encountered new fauna for the first time, you should keep an eye on Peter Heintzman and Maja Krzewinska at Stockholm University.

[misssherrie-may]

I loved this video!! I really enjoyed the awesome experts in the field you brought in. Which made it even better

[johnsteiner]

I can see why you didn't cover Denisovans in this, because we really don't have much to go on. It'd be a segment lasting all of half a minute, and mostly describing where teeth were found.

[philipslighting]

Fantastic Documentary. Everyone should watch this.

[white-dragon]

Some say that Neanderthals still exist. I for one went to school and have worked with a lot like that.

[North_sea_empire_Viking]

The bus driver from the film 'Speed' is a blatant Neanderthal throwback.

[smooth_sundaes]

I tend to believe that small groups are more vulnerable than larger ones like ours. Losing an important member in a harsh environmen must have a bigger impact. The pressure on Neanderthal may have been more socialy nuanced compared to tribal Sapiens

[fotograf]

What's with the arbitrary blur that's in some private parts but not others? Is it AI private part blurring? :)

I am currently reading How Bipedalism made us Human and many of the themes in this video have resonated with me. With human evolutionary history, you shouldn't read a book published before 2020 as so many discoveries were made in 2018 and 2019 and they really change things.

Thank you for the wonderful video and pursuing this paleoanthropology track.

[Marshmallox]

I think its actually a good thing that neanderthales were extinct. Humans fight against each ither, racism is a huge thing and cultural differences are often a reason of conflict. Can you imagine what would happen if there were 2 types of humans? That class society would literally have another layer of discrimination and suffering

[Maleni]

This was absolutely fascinating, thank you all for putting it together. I think one of my favorite pieces of information was the ear bones are shaped differently in neanderthals, how would that affect their hearing? How would they hear what i hear differently? Or does it make their hearing better?

[robertmorici]

On the point with brain size and complex behaviors, several birds like crows and ravens, have small brains in size but are also capable of many complex behaviors. Wouldn't that show it's not only brain size when it comes to intelligence? If so, wouldn't the blue whale be the smartest animal?

[PeaceBeStill]

So many unanswered questions about who we are and where wr came from. Why do beings die out? I don't believe we're alone.
.

[lilz]

now i wanna know how people are who they are now and how we turned into better looking humans from 7 million years ago