Genus Homo
Homo sapiens is the only extant species of its genus, Homo. While some other, extinct Homo species might have been ancestors of Homo sapiens, many were likely our "cousins", having speciated away from our ancestral line. There is not yet a consensus as to which of these groups should count as separate species and which as subspecies. In some cases this is due to the dearth of fossils, in other cases it is due to the slight differences used to classify species in the Homo genus. The Sahara pump theory (describing an occasionally passable "wet" Sahara Desert) provides one possible explanation of the early variation in the genus Homo.
Based on archaeological and paleontological evidence, it has been possible to infer, to some extent, the ancient dietary practices of various Homo species and to study the role of diet in physical and behavioral evolution within Homo.
According to the Toba catastrophe theory to which some anthropologists and archeologists subscribe, the supereruption of Lake Toba on Sumatra island in Indonesia roughly 70,000 years ago had global consequences, killing most humans then alive and creating a population bottleneck that affected the genetic inheritance of all humans today.
Read more about this topic: Human Evolution
Famous quotes containing the word genus:
“Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own,—because we have not supposed that he had a character of his own.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)