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Human Evolution Chart
All the pieces in the hominid puzzle
The human evolution chart shown below provides basic information about each of the various known hominids, and links to detailed articles on each. All the major players of hominid evolution are listed, together with the locations where they have been found and the approximate dates of their existence. Hominids for which earlier fossils are known appear higher up in the chart. Together, these various forms represent the fossil evidence for evolution of humans, human ancestors, and their relations (click here to read a history of how the idea originally arose that humans evolved from apes).
Note that many of these forms overlapped in time (this is better seen in the human evolution timeline). For example, modern humans (Homo sapiens) and neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) existed concurrently for about 180,000 years. Likewise, Homo habilis and Homo erectus overlapped for about half a million years (Spoor et al. 2007). In the chart, thumbnail pictures of hominid skulls are shown in those cases where images are available (to see a larger view of a skull image, click on it). To speed load times, the chart is shown on two separate pages (page 2 lists the more recent hominids).
*Skull KNM-ER 1470, assigned to H. rudolfensis, is at least 1.9 mllion years old and may date to as early as 2.5 mya.
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