Homo sapiens

Homo sapiens (Latin: "man who knows" or "wise man") is the binomial nomenclature for the human species. Homo is the human genus, which also includes Neanderthals and many other extinct species of hominid; H. sapiens is the only surviving species of the genus Homo. Modern humans are the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, which differentiates them from what has been argued to be their direct ancestor, Homo sapiens idaltu. The ingenuity and adaptability of Homo sapiens has led to its becoming, arguably, the most influential species on the planet; it is currently deemed of least concern on the Red List of endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

The term anatomically modern humans (AMH) or anatomically modern Homo sapiens (AMHS), also known as Homo sapiens sapiens (Latin: "very wise man") refers in paleoanthropology to individual members of the species Homo sapiens with an appearance consistent with the range of phenotypes in modern humans.

Anatomically modern humans evolved from archaic Homo sapiens in the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago. The emergence of anatomically modern human marks the dawn of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, i.e. the subspecies of Homo sapiens that includes all modern humans. The oldest fossil remains of anatomically modern humans are the Omo remains, which date to 195,000 (±5,000) years ago and include two partial skulls as well as arm, leg, foot and pelvis bones.

Other fossils include the proposed Homo sapiens idaltu from Herto in Ethiopia that are almost 160,000 years old and remains from Skhul in Israel that are 90,000 years old. The oldest human fossil from which an entire genome has been extracted belongs to a man who lived about 45,000 years ago in Western Siberia.