It’s easy to think, given our self-assumed status at the top of the tree of life, that we’re unique, says Will Newton. While we’re certainly ‘special’ by some definitions of the word, we’re not actually that different from several other, now-extinct human species.
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In fact, there was a time when our species (Homo sapiens) lived alongside several closely related cousins that, if they were around today, you’d struggle to pick out from a crowd. From roughly 300,000 to 40,000 years ago, these prehistoric peoples lived alongside us, interacted with us, and - in some cases - even mated with us.
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In many ways, we owe our existence to these extinct human species - without them, we may have remained hiding in the trees like our earlier, chimp-like ancestors and never sought a life beyond the safety of the forests. Let’s take a look at several of these pioneering human species…
5 human species that lived alongside us
Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis)
Perhaps our most familiar relatives, Neanderthals appeared 400,000 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, we didn’t evolve from Neanderthals. Instead, we share a common ancestor who gave rise to two related yet distinct species of humans.
Researchers are divided on exactly who this common ancestor was: H.heidelbergensis, H.antecessor, or maybe an unknown Homo species. However, what they do know is that Neanderthals emerged from a group of these archaic humans who, roughly half-a-million years ago, left Africa, migrated north, and made Eurasia their home.
To survive up north, Neanderthals evolved a suite of cold-adapted traits. They were short and stocky, which minimised surface area and allowed them to conserve heat better than their lanky cousins could. They also had massive noses, with large internal volumes that would have moistened and warmed air as they breathed.
Ever since their discovery in 1856, Neanderthals have been depicted as primitive ‘cavemen’. Even today, the term ‘Neanderthal’ is often used as an insult and synonym for ‘uncivilized’ or ‘unintelligent’. The reality couldn’t be any more different - Neanderthals, on average, had larger brains than ours and are thought to have been similarly intelligent. They wore clothes, made tools, wielded fire, and even created art.
As a species, Neanderthals ultimately faced extinction 40,000 years ago. That said, part of them still lives on in our DNA - the average European or Asian carries roughly 1-2% Neanderthal DNA. This DNA is thought to have had a positive impact on our immune systems; so next time you’re recovering from a bug, remember to thank your long-lost Neanderthal relatives.
Homo naledi
In 2013, a team of cavers discovered a hoard of 1,550 bones while exploring Rising Star Cave in Gauteng Province, South Africa. These bones represent at least 15 individuals of an enigmatic species known as Homo naledi. To date, this species is only known from the remains found in this cave.
From these bones, researchers have estimated H.naledi stood 1.44m tall (4ft 9in) and weighed 40kg. As a species, they share a lot of characteristics with Australopithecus and early members of the Homo genus, such as H.habilis. They’re short, long-fingered, and have similarly small cranial capacities of around 500cm3.
Where H.naledi falls on our family tree is heavily debated. Based on their archaic anatomy, they’re thought to have branched off very early, around the same time as H.habilis (around 2.3 million years ago). However, a 2017 study found the remains discovered in 2013 were only 300,000 years old, meaning they lived at the same time as the first H.sapiens.
Up until the discovery of H.naledi, it was hypothesised that large-brained humans had an evolutionary advantage over small-brained humans and ultimately outcompeted them. The presence of H.naledi just 300,000 years ago refutes this particular hypothesis and suggests humans remained morphologically diverse for a lot longer than originally thought.
H.naledi, like other small-brained humans, is thought to have been better adapted for climbing trees than running across grassy plains. The patterns of wear on their teeth also suggests their diets were largely made up of nuts and tubers. It’s these ecological differences that may have allowed them to live alongside large-brained humans while avoiding competition.
Homo floresiensis
Nicknamed ‘Hobbits’ after the fictional species from J.R.R Tolkein’s fantasy world of Middle-earth, Homo floresiensis are the smallest members of the Homo genus and stood no taller than 1.1m (3ft 7in).
The first remains of this diminutive species were discovered in 2003 inside Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia, and later dated to 60,000 years ago.
The short stature and small cranial capacity of H.floresiensis was immediately apparent upon discovery, but later studies revealed other archaic features that resembled those of early Homo species and even some australopithecines. However, the dating of the remains and the fact that they were found alongside an assortment of stone tools reminiscent of those made by H.erectus suggests H.floresiensis may not be quite as archaic as their anatomy suggests.
There are currently two competing hypotheses as to how H.floresiensis came to exist. The most well-supported hypothesis is that they’re a product of island dwarfism and descended from a group of H.erectus that found themselves trapped on Flores. The other, less-supported hypothesis is that they’re descendants of an unknown migration of australopithecines (or early H.habilis) from Africa to Far East Asia.
However they came about, H.floresiensis are thought to have persisted on Flores for hundreds of thousands of years, hunting juvenile dwarf elephants known as Stegodon while avoiding giant, 1.8m tall storks (Leptoptilos robustus) that were capable of swallowing young H.floresiensis whole.
While dating of the youngest known remains of H.floresiensis suggest they didn’t overlap with H.sapiens on Flores, some think the two human species may have met and that encounters sparked the local myth of the Ebu Gogo - a group of forest-dwelling, human-like creatures that are said to steal babies during the night.
Denisovans (Homo sp. Denisova)
There are few, if any, human species more mysterious than the Denisovans. They were discovered in 2008 after the tip of a little finger was found in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, Russia.
From this bone, researchers were able to extra DNA and sequence an entire mitochondrial genome, revealing that these enigmatic peoples weren’t H.sapiens or Neanderthals, but a distinct group that lived from 285,000 to 25,000 years ago and last shared a common ancestor roughly 765,000 years ago.
This DNA also revealed Denisovans had dark skin, eyes, and hair, as well as a Neanderthal-like build and facial features, such as a prominent brow ridge. However, a later find of an unusually large molar - identified as Denisovan based on its DNA - revealed their teeth were unlike those of H.sapiens or Neanderthals and more reminiscent of early humans and australopithecines.
Another small piece of bone was found and analysed in 2018, revealing that it belonged to a teenage girl who had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. This is the first and so far only first-generation hybrid hominin ever found in the fossil record and while it confirmed the suspicion that Neanderthals and Denisovans were sister groups that had close evolutionary and geographical ties, it didn’t solve the Denisovan mystery.
To this day, the Denisovans are often referred to as a ‘population’ rather than a ‘species’ in scholarly studies, and this is primarily because so few Denisovan remains have been found. That said, in just the last few years, several strange fossils found across Asia - such as the famous ‘Dragon Man’ from Harbin, northeast China - are starting to be looked at through a new evolutionary lens.
A 2025 study extracted some DNA from the dental calculus of the ‘Dragon Man’ and confirmed its Denisovan affinities. Other fossils have also been identified as Denisovan, albeit with varying degrees of certainty, and they paint a picture of an adaptable group that lived in a range of different environments, from the freezing wastes of Siberia and the high altitudes of the Himalayas, to the stifling jungles of the East Asian tropics.
Homo erectus
Our lineage (Homo) began roughly 2.3 million years ago with H.habilis in East and South Africa, but it wasn’t until 300,000 years later and the emergence of H.erectus that humans really stepped out of their ecological comfort zone and began to establish themselves as contenders for the top of the food chain.
H.erectus achieved many ‘firsts’ during its 1.9 million-year-long reign. It was the first human species to evolve a fully upright body plan and walking gait, the first to leave Africa and colonise parts of Asia and Europe, and the first (perhaps) to wield fire. They were also the first of our lineage to properly hunt big game, rather than scavenge carcasses killed by other predators. To do so, they pioneered a method known as persistence hunting: where groups of H.erectus would doggedly pursue prey to the point of exhaustion before moving in for the kill.
While it’s widely thought to be the species that emerged from H.habilis, H.erectus looked a lot more like humans living today than this early, somewhat chimp-like ancestor. Yes, they had pronounced brow ridges, protruding jaws, and large teeth, but they were noticeably less hairy, stood upright, and had domed skulls that housed brains almost as large as ours.
This combination of derived features, on top of the fact that they spread far and wide and created relatively sophisticated stone tools, has led some researchers to suggest they were highly intelligent and maybe even capable of language.
From H.erectus emerged H.heidelbergensis, perhaps the last common ancestor of H.sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. There was a time when all of these species lived contemporaneously - some may never have met, but distributed across Africa, Europe, and Asia H.erectus likely encountered all of its descendants at some point. As a species, H.erectus marks a significant turning point in our evolutionary journey - the point where we stopped living like other apes and embraced the kind of lifestyles we associate with human.
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