As there are thousands of fossils, mostly fragmentary, often consisting of single bones or isolated teeth with complete skulls and skeletons rare, this overview is not complete, but shows some of the most important findings. The fossils are arranged by approximate age as determined by radiometric dating and/or incremental dating and the species name represents current consensus; if there is no clear scientific consensus the other possible classifications are indicated.
The chimpanzee–human divergence likely took place during around 10 to 7 million years ago.[1] The list of fossils begins with Graecopithecus, dated some 7.2 million years ago, which may or may not still be ancestral to both the human and the chimpanzee lineage. For the earlier history of the human lineage, see Timeline of human evolution#Hominidae, Hominidae#Phylogeny.
Andy Herries and Stephanie Baker's team (first found by Samantha Good and excavated by Samantha Good, Angeline Leece, Stephanie Baker and Andy Herries; reconstructed by Jesse Martin)
Andy Herries and Stephanie Baker's team (first part found by Khethi Nkosi. later parts by Amber Jaeger, Eunice Lalunio; reconstructed by Jesse Martin & Angeline Leece)
Jones, Steve; Martin, Robert D.; Pilbeam, David R, eds. (1994). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human evolution. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-46786-5. (Note: this book contains very useful, information dense chapters on primate evolution in general, and human evolution in particular, including fossil history).
Lewin, Roger. Bones of Contention: Controversies in the Search for Human Origins. Penguin Books (1987). ISBN0-14-022638-9
Morwood, Mike & van Oosterzee, Penny. A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the 'Hobbits' of Flores, Indonesia. Smithsonian Books (2007). ISBN978-0-06-089908-0
Weiss, M.L.; Mann, A.E. (1985). 'Human Biology and Behaviour: An anthropological perspective (4th ed.). Boston: Little Brown. ISBN978-0-673-39013-4. (Note: this book contains very accessible descriptions of human and non-human primates, their evolution, and fossil history).
Wells, Spencer (2004). The Journey of Man : A Genetic Odyssey. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks. ISBN978-0-8129-7146-0.
^"In effect, there is now no a priori reason to presume that human-chimpanzee split time are especially recent, and the fossil evidence is now fully compatible with older chimpanzee–human divergence dates [7 to 10 Ma]" White TD, Asfaw B, Beyene Y, et al. (October 2009). "Ardipithecus ramidus and the paleobiology of early hominids". Science. 326 (5949): 75–86. Bibcode:2009Sci...326...75W. doi:10.1126/science.1175802. PMID19810190. S2CID20189444.
^McDougall, I.A.N.; Craig, Feibel (1999). "Numerical age control for the Miocene-Pliocene succession at Lothagam, a hominoid-bearing sequence in the northern Kenya Rift". Journal of the Geological Society. 156 (4): 731–45. Bibcode:1999JGSoc.156..731M. doi:10.1144/gsjgs.156.4.0731. S2CID128952193.
^Bernard Wood, Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Human Evolution (2011), 887.
^Ward, Steven; Hill, Andrew (1987). "Pliocene hominid partial mandible from Tabarin, Baringo, Kenya". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 72 (1): 21–37. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330720104. PMID3103460.
^
Villmoare, Brian; Kimbel, William H.; Seyoum, Chalachew; Campisano, Christopher J.; DiMaggio, Erin N.; Rowan, John; Braun, David R.; Arrowsmith, J. Ramón; Reed, Kaye E. (2015-03-20). "Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia". Science. 347 (6228): 1352–55. Bibcode:2015Sci...347.1352V. doi:10.1126/science.aaa1343. ISSN0036-8075. PMID25739410.:
"The Gurumaha Tuff is radiometrically dated to 2.842±0.007 Ma, a date that is consistent with
the normal magnetic polarity of the Gurumaha section, presumably the Gauss Chron. An upper bounding age for LD 350-1 is provided by an adjacent, downfaulted younger block that contains the 2.665±0.016 Ma
Lee Adoyta Tuff. [...] the age of LD 350-1 can be further constrained by stratigraphic scaling. [...] Based on the current chronostratigraphic framework for Ledi-Geraru, we consider the age of LD 350-1 to be 2.80–2.75 Ma".
^At the time of its discovery considered the oldest fossil evidence of genus Homo. Ramirez Rozzi, Fernando V.; Bromage, Tim; Schrenk, Friedemann (1997). "UR 501, the Plio-Pleistocene hominid from Malawi. Analysis of the microanatomy of the enamel". Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Série IIA. 325 (3): 231–234. Bibcode:1997CRASE.325..231R. doi:10.1016/S1251-8050(97)88294-8.. Since the discovery of LD 350-1 (2.8 Ma, intermediate between Australopithecus and Homo) arguably demoted to the rank of second-oldest fossil of Homo.
^Lordkipanidze, D.; de Leon, Ponce; Margvelashvili, A.; Rak, Y.; Rightmire, G. P.; Vekua, A.; Zollikofer, C. P. E. (2013). "A Complete Skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the Evolutionary Biology of Early Homo". Science. 342 (6156): 326–31. Bibcode:2013Sci...342..326L. doi:10.1126/science.1238484. PMID24136960. S2CID20435482.
^Leakey, R. E. F.; Walker, A. C. (1988). "New Australopithecus boisei specimens from East and West Lake Turkana, Kenya". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 76 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330760102. ISSN1096-8644. PMID3136654.
^Lepre, C. J.; Kent, D. V. (2010). "New magnetostratigraphy for the Olduvai Subchron in the Koobi Fora Formation, northwest Kenya, with implications for early Homo". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 290 (3–4): 362. Bibcode:2010E&PSL.290..362L. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2009.12.032..
"paleo-magnetic results of this study delimit the age of KNM-ER 3733 to 1.78–1.48 Ma, making it one of the most securely dated fossils of early African H. erectus when compared to the oldest Homo fossils from Europe and Asia."
^Kappelman, J; Alçiçek, MC; Kazanci, N; Schultz, M; Ozkul, M; Sen, S (January 2008). "FirstHomo erectus from Turkey and implications for migrations into temperate Eurasia". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 135 (1): 110–16. doi:10.1002/ajpa.20739. PMID18067194.
^Streeter; et al. (2001). ""Margret. "Histomorphometric age assessment of the Boxgrove 1 tibial diaphysis". Journal of Human Evolution. 40 (4): 331–38. doi:10.1006/jhev.2001.0460. PMID11312585.
^Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (2010-01-30). "Salé". What does it mean to be human?. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
^J. J. Jaeger (1975). "The mammalian faunas and hominid fossils of the Middle Pleistocene of the Maghreb". In K. W. Butzer; G. L. Isaac (eds.). After the Australopithecines. Den Hage. pp. 399–418. ISBN978-9027976291.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Grün, R., Pike, A., McDermott, F., Eggins, S., Mortimer, G., Aubert, M., ... & Brink, J. (2020). Dating the skull from Broken Hill, Zambia, and its position in human evolution. Nature, 580(7803), 372-375.
^David Richter; et al. (8 June 2017). "The age of the hominin fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the origins of the Middle Stone Age". Nature. 546 (7657): 293–96. Bibcode:2017Natur.546..293R. doi:10.1038/nature22335. PMID28593967. S2CID205255853.
"Here we report the ages, determined by thermoluminescence dating, of fire-heated flint artefacts obtained from new excavations at the Middle Stone Age site of Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, which are directly associated with newly discovered remains of H. sapiens8. A weighted average age places these Middle Stone Age artefacts and fossils at 315±34 thousand years ago. Support is obtained through the recalculated uranium series with electron spin resonance date of 286±32 thousand years ago for a tooth from the Irhoud 3 hominin mandible.";
Smith TM, Tafforeau P, Reid DJ, et al. (April 2007). "Earliest evidence of modern human life history in North African early Homo sapiens". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 104 (15): 6128–33. Bibcode:2007PNAS..104.6128S. doi:10.1073/pnas.0700747104. PMC1828706. PMID17372199.
^Sun, Xuefeng; Yi, Shuangwen; Lu, Huayu; Zhang, Wenchao (2017). "TT-OSL and post-IR IRSL dating of the Dali Man site in central China". Quaternary International. 434: 99–106. Bibcode:2017QuInt.434...99S. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.05.027.
"correlating the pIRIR290 ages between 267.7±13.9 ka and 258.3±14.2 ka and new pollen analysis, we proposed a new viewpoint that the Dali Man was likely to live during a transitional period from glacial to interglacial climate in the S2/L3 (MIS 7/8) stage."
^Hennig, G. J.; Herr, W.; Weber, E.; Xirotiris, N. I. (6 August 1981). "ESR-dating of the fossil hominid cranium from Petralona Cave, Greece". Nature. 292 (5823): 533–36. Bibcode:1981Natur.292..533H. doi:10.1038/292533a0. S2CID4359695.
^Norton, Christopher J.; Braun, David R. (2011). Asian paleanthropology: From Africa to China and beyond. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. New York: Springer. p. 107. doi:10.1007/978-90-481-9094-2. ISBN978-90-481-9093-5.
^Wadjak 1 and Wadjak 2 are fossil human skulls discovered near Wajak, a town in Malang Regency, East Java, Indonesia in 1888/90.
Dubbed "Wajak Man", and formerly classified as a separate species (Homo wadjakensis), the skulls are now recognized as early anatomically modern human. They were dated to the Holocene, 12 to 5 ka, in the 1990s, but this has been revised in a 2013 study which claimed a far earlier date, "a minimum age of between 37.4 and 28.5 ka".
Storm, Paul; Wood, Rachel; Stringer, Chris; Bartsiokas, Antonis; de Vos, John; Aubert, Maxime; Kinsley, Les; Grün, Rainer (2013). "U-series and radiocarbon analyses of human and faunal remains from Wajak, Indonesia". Journal of Human Evolution. 64 (5): 356–365. Bibcode:2013JHumE..64..356S. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.11.002. PMID23465338.
J. Krigbaum in: Habu et al. (eds), Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology (2017), p. 314.
^Peter Bellwood, Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago: Revised Edition (2007), 86ff.
^Freedman, L.; Lofgren, M (1983). "Human skeletal remains from Lake Tandou, New South Wales". Archaeology in Oceania. 18 (2): 98–105. doi:10.1002/arco.1983.18.2.98. JSTOR40386634.
^"Lake Tandou Skull". Australia: The Land Where Time Began. Retrieved 2014-05-19.
^Stringer, C. B. (1985). "The hominid remains from Gough's Cave"(PDF). Proceedings of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society. 17 (2): 145–52. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2013-11-10. Retrieved 2011-05-22.
^ abJones, ER; Gonzalez-Fortes, G; Connell, S; Siska, V; Eriksson, A; Martiniano, R; McLaughlin, RL; Gallego Llorente, M; Cassidy, LM; Gamba, C; Meshveliani, T; Bar-Yosef, O; Müller, W; Belfer-Cohen, A; Matskevich, Z; Jakeli, N; Higham, TF; Currat, M; Lordkipanidze, D; Hofreiter, M; Manica, A; Pinhasi, R; Bradley, DG (2015). "Upper Palaeolithic genomes reveal deep roots of modern Eurasians". Nat Commun. 6: 8912. Bibcode:2015NatCo...6.8912J. doi:10.1038/ncomms9912. PMC4660371. PMID26567969. "We sequenced a Late Upper Palaeolithic ('Satsurblia' from Satsurblia cave, 1.4-fold coverage) and a Mesolithic genome ('Kotias' from Kotias Klde cave, 15.4-fold) from Western Georgia, at the very eastern boundary of Europe. We term these two individuals Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG)."
^Johnson, John. "Arlington Man". National Park Service. Retrieved December 25, 2014.
^Leroy-Gourhan, Michel Brézillon; preface by André (1969). Dictionnaire de la préhistoire (Ed. rev. & corr. ed.). Paris: Larousse. ISBN978-2-03-075437-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Vialet, Amélie; André, Lucile; Aoudia, Louiza. [https%3A%2F%2Fcoek.info%2Fpdf-lhomme-fossile-dasselar-actuel-mali-etude-critique-mise-en-perspective-historiqu.html "The Fossil Man from Asselar (present-day Mali). Critical study, historical perspective and new interpretations"]. Kundoc. Anthropology. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
^Angel, J.L.; Phenice, T.W.; Robbins, L.H.; Lynch, B.M. (1980). Late stone age fishermen of Lothagam, Kenya. National Anthropological Archives, Sithsonian Institution, Part 3.
^Lo 4b is the best preserved skull out of a sample of 30 fully modern skeletons of the period 9–6 ka, found at Lothagam, West Turkana, Kenya, excavated between 1965 and 1975. Joseph F. Powell, The First Americans (2005),
169.
Grine, F.E.; Jungers, W.L.; Schultz, J. (1996). "Phenetic Affinities Among Early Homo Crania from East and South Africa". Journal of Human Evolution. 30 (3): 189–225. Bibcode:1996JHumE..30..189G. doi:10.1006/jhev.1996.0019.