300,000 years ago, nine human species lived on Earth. Did homo sapiens exterminate the others?

[Judi Lynn]

300,000 years ago, nine human species lived on Earth. Did homo sapiens exterminate the others?
A tendency to engage in genocide is arguably an intrinsic, instinctive part of human nature.

Yesterday · 07:30 pm

Nine human species walked the Earth 300,000 years ago. Now there is just one. The Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were stocky hunters adapted to Europe’s cold steppes. The related Denisovans inhabited Asia, while the more primitive Homo erectus lived in Indonesia, and Homo rhodesiensis in central Africa.

Several short, small-brained species survived alongside them: Homo naledi in South Africa, Homo luzonensis in the Philippines, Homo floresiensis (“hobbits”) in Indonesia, and the mysterious Red Deer Cave People in China. Given how quickly we’re discovering new species, more are likely waiting to be found.

By 10,000 years ago, they were all gone. The disappearance of these other species resembles a mass extinction. But there’s no obvious environmental catastrophe – volcanic eruptions, climate change, asteroid impact – driving it. Instead, the extinctions’ timing suggests they were caused by the spread of a new species, evolving 260,000-350,000 years ago in Southern Africa: Homo sapiens.

The spread of modern humans out of Africa has caused a sixth mass extinction, a greater than 40,000-year event extending from the disappearance of Ice Age mammals to the destruction of rainforests by civilisation today. But were other humans the first casualties?

More:
https://scroll.in/article/944558/300000-years-ago-nine-human-species-lived-on-earth-did-homo-sapiens-exterminate-the-others

[RKP5637]

1. Quite interesting! Thanks for posting!!! n/t

[sagesnow]

2. There is a lot of evidence mounting that an asteroid broke up 12,800 years ago and

broke into meteorites that impacted the earth at the end of the Pleistocene era, aka the Younger Dryas. Most of the North American mega fauna went extinct and well as the North American Clovis culture and the earth went into an ice age known as the Younger Dryas.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-38089-y

https://www.iflscience.com/environment/did-a-comet-impact-cause-massive-wildfires-that-extended-the-ice-age/
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/massive-crater-under-greenland-s-ice-points-climate-altering-impact-time-humans
http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/evidence-chile-younger-dryas-extraterrestrial-impact-hypothesis-07012.html
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/29/younger-dryas-climate-event-solved-via-nanodiamonds-it-was-a-planetary-impact-event/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5943965_Evidence_for_an_extraterrestrial_impact_12900_years_ago_that_contributed_to_the_megafaunal_extinctions_at_the_Younger_Dryas_cooling

[Bradshaw3]

6. Thanks for the additional info

I had not heard of this explanation before.

[Tumbulu]

3. I like the theory that we were better at sewing

And that the clothing that modern humans made for their babies and children gave them a 1 % boost in survivability and this over time made modern humans have the edge.

I don’t rule out these events of violence. They may certainly have played a part in the story. But I find it all too typical that focus is placed on the dramatic rather than the normal day to day things, such as improved fine motor skills resulting in improved rate of survival of young.

[sagesnow]

4. It's highly unlikely that humans caused the extinction of all of these large North American animals

[eppur_se_muova]

5. We know at least two species interbred with H. sapiens ...

... so they may have gone extinct as a pure species, but their genes survive. "Exterminate" is an attention-getter in a headline, but a bit hyperbolic.

[tamhas]

7. No!

Complete and utter crap. There is yet zero convincing evidence that there were ever two simultaneous species living at the same time in the last couple of million years. The fossil record is sketchy enough that it might actually have happened in the 7 digits ago time frame, but nothing drives us to that conclusion other than other than people wanting *their* find to be unique. All examples in the time frame of this post it is known that there was gene flow between the variations/populations and therefore they were not separate species from an evolutionary perspective, which is, after all, what we are discussing.

[canetoad]

8. Here are a couple of links

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2019, 12:56 AM - Edit history (1)

To the qualifications of Nick Longrich.

https://theconversation.com/profiles/nick-longrich-209117
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/nick-longrich

If you need to follow up further, you could try sending the 'total crap' comment to the University where he teaches.

[GP6971]

10. Hey!

How you've been?

[canetoad]

11. Hey GP

Missing you on MIRT.

I shouldn't have done that but couldn't help myself.

[GP6971]

9. Welcome to DU and

enjoy your stay!!

[cstanleytech]

12. Could also have partly been an inadvertent act because around that time

homo sapiens really began to spread out which means the viruses they carried also spread out and if the other species had no prior exposure it could have impacted on them in a very negative manner.