Gresham College
59 minutes
Why Homo sapiens Is the Only Surviving Human Species in Hominin Evolution
The biological species concept (Mayr) defines a species as a group of individuals that reproduce successfully together and are reproductively isolated from other such groups. Within the genus Homo, several species coexisted in the recent past but only Homo sapiens survives; the extinction of the others is not explained by a single cause and is best attributed to a combination of climate stress, disease, and technological and cultural factors, rather than direct conflict. Ancient DNA shows interbreeding (introgression) between lineages, so species boundaries in hominin evolution are porous and the family tree is a branching network rather than a simple tree; this sits within evolutionary biology, paleoanthropology, and population genetics.