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all of them existed on earth ;).

how many hominids have there been? to my knowledge there are 21 known species of hominid and of those 21 I believe eight are in the genus homo.

This means aside from us there are 7 that were "early human species"

The definition of "totally separate" is not very clear.

Oke a follow-up question. Twenty years ago we thought that descent is linear and we were looking for the missing link to the modern human. We have long since moved on from that notion. But if you take Darwin's theory of evolution, each generation should have minimal differences from the next. So how do we distinguish the different fossils and how do we assign them to the different evolution lines there were? Is this all done with dna tests?

Wish you would’ve listed all of the ancestors you thought would fall under the category, that’s what I was waiting for the entire article. Wanted to research the ones I don’t know about like maybe a few of the 21 listed by the smithsonian.

I almost gave up on this, the goal posts keep moving but I can't resist checking in every now and then. Furthest I've been so far is "homo sapiens and neanderthals coexisted and interbred" but I'm probably behind the curve a lot now.

Well, the son of an australopithecus is an australopithecus, and the grandson of an australopithecus keeps being an australopithecus, and so on, but when some thousands or millions of years passing the fossils are not the same anymore, so you can say that that fossil you find is another species already. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Hominids are not equal to humans. Hominids include different australopithecus in older classification and gorillas, chimpanzee and orangutans in more recent classification.

In the future read the entire comment before attempting to correct someone as it was covered.

Notice I said: This means aside from us there are 7 that were "early human species". Notice I used works like " known".

Now why did I include other hominids? simple to cover the debate on when and where the term human should be applied.

Why did I bother? It is not as cut and dry as you are asserting my dude.

Ask yourself what defines a human? Ask yourself how can we infer such things from something as simple as a tooth? Ask yourself what kind of argument is being presented.

Knowledge is cumulative and new things are discovered and old mistakes are rectified constantly. I try to always acknowledge the holes or faults in the information and any fact based debate on the topic.

What faults? most of this is an argument from definition of what makes a human human.

Lets take the control of fire as an example as it was once thought to be the defining characteristic of our kind. In 2009 we observed a near human understanding of fire in wild Chimpanzees in Senegal.

Additionally recent discoveries may have pushed back the use of fire in cooking back before homo erectus. This either means that we've got the characteristics wrong or it's more complex than we assumed.

Another key idea which used to be tool use but we've observed other animals using tools, again those pesky chimps. There have been stone tools discovered which may be connected to Australopithecus. Which given your ridged idea shouldn't be the case if tool use is a defining factor.

See my friend it's never as absolute as we think. Arguments by definition are always falter when new information is discovered as they assume we know all. Notice I've been saying "may have" this was done purposely as well because again we don't know as much as we think.

OK, I have misread your comment then. My apology. I thought you equal hominids to genus homo.

no problem my dude.

I try not to think in terms of absolutes any longer and it can be a tad confusing to those not used to it.

Sorry bout that mate.

hope it didn't come off as smug or aggressive as that wasn't my intent. I'm just that I', getting to old to deal in absolutes any longer I'd make a terrible Sith.

All is good, we are just discussing :) Have a nice day :)

Twenty years ago, we started decoding the human genome. Nobody thought descent was linear in one "human" line or whatever it is you're trying to say. Try 50 years, maybe more? When Lucy was found, I think she was initially handled as the "missing link", but that notion quickly disappeared when other Australopithecene species were dug up and we were unsure which one of them was our direct ancestor.

Fossils are snapshots of a species at a certain point in time. If a species retains a relatively unchanged form over a long timespan, homo erectus coming to mind as an example, it means they were adequately adapted to the conditions they had to live in for a long time. Heavy physical mutation and speciation typically occur as a response to different selection pressures, aka a change in environment, isolation of a group, filling a different niche in the ecosystem, etc., although not exclusively so. Genetic drift obviously happens aswell.

If we find two specimen in the same layer, meaning from the same timeframe, but they look completely different, we are probably dealing with two different species. Now we have to figure out how far they're removed from their last common ancestor. DNA tests don't really do much here since DNA decays within millenia. No real use trying to get anything from bones that are hundreds of thousands of years old. Fossils aren't bones and they have pretty much no organic material left in them.

The entire human family tree is a work in progress, as with anything in science. As new information comes to light, it is updated. There are always different theories on how to classify species X vs Y and how they relate to one another and new discoveries can and do change the way we see things all the time. We can deduce certain estimates, for example how we are probably descended from homo habilis rather than a representative of the paranthropus group, simply because our bodies look more like the first. Researchers look at details in the skeletal structure such as facial/cranial features, bone density and proportions, joints, teeth, and a million others.

The determinations can be necessarily close calls when sometimes all you have is a jaw or a foot, and some are questioned: H ergaster (mentioned in the article) and H rudolfensis spring to mind. But the fossil record helpfully seems likely to throw up more "classic" than intermediate specimens because it's the former in which adaptation to their environment and way of life are more fully developed: nature abhors a half-adapted population. In practice a truly intermediate form unclassifiable as one or other known species would be more likely to be labelled a newly-discovered species related to both of its neighbours: out of the tangle a clearer picture seems to be evolving than was available only decades ago, though our classification of discrete human species may emerge blurrier than in the past when we had a few australopithicine types, H erectus, H habilis, H heidelbergensis, neanderthals and us and little else that I recall.

Me too, I despaired of catching up for a time but eventually managed to update my ancient family tree. The constantly-shifting sands are part of the adventure: I'll never see a final, definite answer but that's fine, it means more challenges ahead to keep the field alive.

I just realised I forgot the hobbits. But as the experts seem unsure where to put them I don't have to worry just yet. :)