7 Bizarre Species Of Humans That Went Extinct

Modern human beings are the ultimate apex species, exerting dominance over our environment in a way that no other animal ever has. However, the other members of our species' lineage weren't nearly as successful. Homo sapiens are the last surviving members of the genus Homo, every other species within our genus having gone extinct no later than 40,000 years ago. Generations of paleoanthropologists have worked to uncover the identity of these other humans, but we still know fairly little about who they were, and why they disappeared.

We tend to think of the human evolution timeline as being perfectly linear, with one species evolving into the next. However, that is far from the truth. In reality, human evolution was a chaotic process, and there isn't even a scientific consensus as to which species evolved directly into our own because there was so much overlap between them. At one point, during the Paleolithic age, Homo sapiens shared the planet with several other human species. 

Some of these extinct humans were very similar to our species in terms of both physical attributes and cultural achievements, while others were much closer to the wild apes we know today. From around the world, here are seven strange-yet-familiar human species whose existences overlapped with our own.

Commonly known as Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis lived in western Eurasia between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago. They differed physically from modern humans with lower, elongated skulls, prominent brow ridges, smaller chins, and larger teeth. They averaged around 5 feet tall, with a stocky build to suit their cold habitat. They had an advanced culture for the time, using tools, wearing clothes, and making artwork. They even buried their dead, a behavior not found in other primates aside from Homo sapiens.

Modern humans did not evolve directly from Neanderthals (rather, we share a common, undetermined ancestor), but they are considered our closest evolutionary relatives. In 2013, Homo neandethalensis became the first extinct human species to have its complete genome sequenced, which led to the discovery that there was significant interbreeding between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Genetic tests show that modern humans can have as much as 4% Neanderthal DNA.

Homo neanderthalensis was one of the last known human species to go extinct, leaving Homo sapiens to rule the Earth. The fate of the Neanderthals is one of the great mysteries of paleoanthropology. Some believe they were violently wiped out by Homo sapiens, while others believe that Neanderthals began disproportionately interbreeding with our species, causing their own to die out. Another prominent theory posits that Neanderthals died out when the last Ice Age ended and many of the species they hunted went extinct. Homo sapiens, who developed trade networks early on, were able to find new sources of food and survive.

Homo naledi is one of the most recently-discovered members of the human family tree. In 2013, paleoanthropologists excavating a chamber in the Rising Star Cave system in South Africa discovered a collection of over 1,500 fossil fragments that they determined had come from at least 15 individuals. This is, to date, the largest collection of extinct human fossils ever found in Africa; however, remains of Homo naledi have not been found at any other site, making it difficult to determine how they lived, or what became of them.

The Rising Star Cave fossils were dated to between 236,000 and 335,000 years ago, but it remains unclear when the species arose and vanished. Homo naledi appear to have been a stepping stone between early primates and modern humans. Their feet are similar to Homo sapiens, indicating they walked upright. However, their fingers have an extreme curve to them which suggests they could also move through treetops like chimpanzees and orangutans do.

Another primitive trait of Homo naledi is their small skulls. Their brains would have been about a third the size of ours, and a lack of tool remnants at the fossil site suggests a much less advanced mind. Some have suggested that, based on the deep location of the fossils within the cave system, Homo naledi may have buried their dead. However, this claim has received significant criticism within the scientific community due to lack of evidence, and it is generally refuted.

Homo floresiensis was one of the last human species to go extinct, but also one of the most different from Homo sapiens. As far as we know, Homo floresiensis lived exclusively on the Indonesian island of Flores, where their fossilized remains were first discovered in 2003. What stands out most about these fossils is their size, with adults only reaching about 3 feet, 6 inches in height. This fact, coupled with the species' rather large feet, has earned Homo floresiensis the nickname "Hobbit," after the famous creations of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Aside from its small stature, Homo floresiensis shows several other features that make it a particularly unusual member of the human species. It had a brain about one-third the size of ours. Despite living contemporaneously with Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis, their skulls resemble species that went extinct much earlier, and their jaws and teeth bear closest resemblance to Austrolopithicus, the genus that preceded ours.

Based on fossil dating, scientists estimate that Homo floresiensis lived between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. However, a jawbone found at another site on Flores, which may have come from Homo floresiensis or a related species, has been dated even further back to 700,000 years ago. What became of the species is a mystery, but their disappearance seems to coincide with the first evidence of Homo sapiens arriving on Flores. Based on this evidence, many scientists believe that it was modern humans who wiped their fellow hominins out.

Following the discovery of Homo floresiensis, paleoanthropologists realized that ancient humans had spread much further throughout Southeast Asia than previously thought, likely crossing land bridges temporarily formed from extreme weather events like tsunamis. This inspired further digs in the area, and in 2019, researchers announced that yet another extinct species had been found, this time on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. Dubbed Homo luzonensis, these ancient humans are shrouded in mystery because the only evidence of their existence is a set of 13 bones attributed to two adults and a child. Nevertheless, these bones appear unlike any other Homo species we know of.

Fossilized teeth from Homo luzonensis are even smaller than those of Homo floresiensis, revealing it to be the second-known dwarf human species. Both species' sizes could be the result of island dwarfism, aka insular dwarfism, a phenomenon in which large species evolve to become smaller in an island habitat in order to adapt to a more limited supply of resources.

Another feature that sets Homo luzonensis apart from modern humans is its hands and feet, which appear to have been extremely primitive even compared to Homo floresiensis. Their fingers and toes are curved in a way that resembles wild primates, suggesting that Homo luzonensis lived partly in the trees. This is a shocking revelation given that the fossils were dated back to 67,000 years ago, at which point Homo sapiens already existed, and our genus was thought to have been firmly land bound.

Few species represent a greater leap in human evolution than Homo heidelbergensis. These extinct humans, which lived from around 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, were the first members of our genus known to build their own homes, creating simple shelters from wood and stones. They were also the first humans to hunt big game such as deer, horses, and water buffalo. Armed with flint-tipped spears, advanced tools for the time, Homo heidelbergensis even hunted highly dangerous animals like lions and hippopotamuses.

Homo heidelbergensis was likely the first human species to move beyond Africa and into Europe. They had heavy builds in the vein of Neanderthals, and their heights were comparable to modern humans, the males averaging 5 feet, 9 inches and the females averaging 5 feet, 2 inches. Their brains were only slightly smaller than Neanderthals and modern humans.

It has long been thought that Homo heidelbergensis was the last common ancestor between Neandethals and us. According to this theory, the population of Homo heidelbergensis that lived in Africa evolved into Homo sapiens while the population in Europe evolved into Homo neanderthalensis. In recent decades, this theory has been challenged. Some believe that fossils found in Spain represent another species called Homo antecessor, and that it later branched off into two lines. One line evolved into Homo heidelbergensis and then the Neanderthals, while the other line evolved into Homo sapiens. This hypothesis, which implies that modern humans aren't descendants of Homo heidelbergensis at all, remains a contentious and unresolved subject.

The discovery of Homo longi reads like an adventure novel. In 1933, a laborer in Harbin, China, dug up a fossilized skull. He chose not to turn it in to any authorities because the region was occupied by the Japanese military, and the laborer, being Chinese, didn't want his find falling into the invaders' hands. Instead, he buried it, and due to the continuing political turmoil of a civil war and communist revolution, it stayed there for 85 years. Before he died, the man revealed the skull's location to his family, who turned it over to scientists. Finally, in 2021, the fossil was identified as a new species dubbed Homo longi.

The Harbin skull is the only evidence to date of Homo longi, but it is one of the best preserved hominin skulls ever found. It is remarkably distinct, being larger than the skulls of any other extinct human species. Homo longi's cranial capacity would have rivaled our own, but their skulls were low and long, rather than high-domed like ours. They had huge teeth, large brows, and unusual eye sockets that are almost square.

Researchers have dated the Harbin skull to at least 146,000 years ago, and estimate that it came from a 50-year-old male. Lacking other bones to judge by, it's hard to say what other features might have stood out about Homo longi, or how it survived in its environment. However, the researchers who identified Homo longi believe that it may be an even closer relative to us than the Neanderthals.

The Denisovans are a group of extinct humans so mysterious that they don't have a scientific name yet. They are the first ancient humans to be identified by sequencing their genome, which was done on fossil fragments from the Denisova Cave in remote Siberia. More fossils have since been found in the Tibetan Plateau, but DNA analysis has revealed something even more shocking. It turns out that Denisovans interbred with modern humans, and several indigenous peoples in the South Pacific, including indigenous Australians, have been found to have traces of Denisovan DNA.

Given that we only have a few bone fragments from which to study the Denisovans, there is understandably a great deal of debate within the scientific community as to whether these ancient humans were really a unique species of their own, or rather a subspecies of other humans. DNA analysis suggests that they were more closely related to Neanderthals than to us, but where they fit in the Homo family tree is unclear. Some scientists have even proposed that the Denisovans and Homo longi were the same species.

The Denisovan fossil fragments discovered thus far appear to span a long period of time, with some dated back as far as 194,000 years ago. On the other hand, a finger bone from a Denisovan has been estimated to be between 50,000 and 30,000 years old. Based on this, it is possible that the Denisovans, not the Neandethals, were the last human species to walk the Earth besides Homo sapiens.