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Homo sapiens has kept hidden an even more disturbing secret. Not only do we possess an abundance of uncivilized cousins, once upon a time we had quite a few brothers and sisters as well. We are used to thinking about ourselves as the only humans, because for the last 10,000 years, our species has indeed been the only human species around. Yet the real meaning of the word human is “an animal belonging to the genus Homo,” and there used to be many other species of this genus besides Homo sapiens. Moreover, as we shall see in the last chapter of the book, in the not so distant future we might again have to contend with non-sapiens humans. To clarify this point, I will often use the term “Sapiens” to denote members of the species Homo sapiens, while reserving the term “human” to refer to all extant members of the genus Homo.

Humans first evolved in East Africa about 2.5-million years ago from an earlier genus of apes called Australopithecus, which means “Southern Ape.” About 2-million years ago, some of these archaic men and women left their homeland to journey through and settle vast areas of North Africa, Europe and Asia. Since survival in the snowy forests of northern Europe required different traits than those needed to stay alive in Indonesia’s steaming jungles, human populations evolved in different directions. The result was several distinct species, to each of which scientists have assigned a pompous Latin name.

Humans in Europe and western Asia evolved into Homo neanderthalensis (“Man from the Neander Valley”), popularly referred to simply as “Neanderthals.” Neanderthals, bulkier and more muscular than us Sapiens, were well adapted to the cold climate of Ice Age western Eurasia. The more eastern regions of Asia were populated by Homo erectus, “Upright Man,” who survived there for close to 2-million years, making it the most durable human species ever. This record is unlikely to be broken even by our own species. It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be around a thousand years from now, so 2-million years is really out of our league.