Humans (Homo sapiens) ormodern humans are the most common and widespreadspecies ofprimate, and the last surviving species of the genusHomo. They aregreat apes characterized by theirhairlessness,bipedalism, and highintelligence. Humans have largebrains, enabling more advancedcognitive skills that facilitate successful adaptation to varied environments, development of sophisticatedtools, and formation of complexsocial structures andcivilizations.
Although the term "humans" technically equates with all members of the genusHomo, in common usage it generally refers toHomo sapiens, the onlyextant member. All other members of the genusHomo, which are now extinct, are known asarchaic humans, and the term "modern human" is used to distinguishHomo sapiens from archaic humans.Anatomically modern humans emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa, evolving fromHomo heidelbergensis or a similar species. Migratingout of Africa, they gradually replaced andinterbred with local populations of archaic humans. Multiple hypotheses for the extinction of archaic human speciessuch as Neanderthals include competition, violence, interbreeding withHomo sapiens, or inability to adapt to climate change.Genes and theenvironment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics,physiology, disease susceptibility, mental abilities, body size, and life span. Though humans vary in many traits (such as genetic predispositions and physical features), humans are among the least genetically diverse primates. Any two humans are at least 99% genetically similar. Humans aresexually dimorphic: generally,males have greater body strength andfemales have a higherbody fat percentage. Atpuberty, humans developsecondary sex characteristics. Females are capable ofpregnancy, usually between puberty, at around 12 years old, andmenopause, around the age of 50.
All modern humans are classified into thespeciesHomo sapiens, coined byCarl Linnaeus in his 1735 workSystema Naturae.[4] Thegeneric nameHomo is a learned 18th-century derivation from Latinhomō, which refers to humans of either sex.[5][6] The wordhuman can refer to all members of theHomo genus.[7] The nameHomo sapiens means 'wise man' or 'knowledgeable man'.[8] There is disagreement if certain extinct members of the genus, namelyNeanderthals, should be included as a separate species of humans or as asubspecies ofH. sapiens.[7]
Human is aloanword ofMiddle English fromOld Frenchhumain, ultimately fromLatinhūmānus, the adjectival form ofhomō ('man' – in the sense of humanity).[9] The native English termman can refer to the species generally (a synonym forhumanity) as well as to human males. It may also refer to individuals of either sex.[10]
Humans are apes (superfamily Hominoidea).[14] Thelineage of apes that eventually gave rise to humans first split fromgibbons (family Hylobatidae), nextorangutans (genusPongo), thengorillas (genusGorilla), and finally,chimpanzees andbonobos (genusPan). The last split, between the human and chimpanzee–bonobo lineages, took place around 8–4 million years ago, in the lateMiocene epoch.[15][16] During this split,chromosome 2 was formed from the joining of two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes.[17] Following their split with chimpanzees and bonobos, thehominins diversified into many species and at least two distinct genera. All but one of these lineages – representing the genusHomo and its sole extant speciesHomo sapiens – are now extinct.[18]
The genusHomo evolved fromAustralopithecus.[19][20] Thoughfossils from the transition are scarce, the earliest members ofHomo share several key traits withAustralopithecus.[21][22]
Some specialists claimHomo appeared 4.30–2.56 million years ago.[23] Studies found thatArdipithecus ramidus was in some aspects closer to humans than to apes.[24][25][26][27]Stone tools were used byAustralopithecus afarensis around 3.3 million years ago.[28] Others think it did not happen before 1.9 millions years ago, becauseHomo habilis is not a part ofHomo.[29] The earliest record ofHomo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimenLD 350-1 fromEthiopia, and the earliest named species areHomo habilis andHomo rudolfensis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago.[22]H. erectus (the African variant is sometimes calledH. ergaster) evolved 2 million years ago and was the firstarchaic human species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia.[30]H. erectus also was the first to evolve a characteristically humanbody plan.Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago from a species commonly designated as eitherH. heidelbergensis orH. rhodesiensis, the descendants ofH. erectus that remained in Africa.[31]H. sapiens migrated out of the continent, gradually replacing or interbreeding with local populations of archaic humans.[32][33][34] Humans began exhibitingbehavioral modernity about 160,000–70,000 years ago,[35] and possibly earlier.[36] This development was likely selected amidstnatural climate change inMiddle toLate Pleistocene Africa.[37]
The"out of Africa" migration took place in at least two waves, the first around 130,000 to 100,000 years ago, the second (Southern Dispersal) around 70,000 to 50,000 years ago.[38][39]H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving inEurasia 125,000 years ago,[40][41] Australia around 65,000 years ago,[42] the Americas around 15,000 years ago, and remote islands such asHawaii,Easter Island,Madagascar, andNew Zealand in the years 300 to 1280 CE.[43][44]
Human evolution was not a simple linear or branched progression but involvedinterbreeding between related species.[45][46][47] Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution.[48]DNA evidence suggests that several genes ofNeanderthal origin are present among all non sub-Saharan-African populations, and Neanderthals and other hominins, such asDenisovans, may have contributed up to 6% of theirgenome to present-day non sub-Saharan-African humans.[45][49][50]
Early human settlements were dependent on proximity towater and – depending on the lifestyle – othernatural resources used forsubsistence, such as populations of animal prey forhunting andarable land for growing crops and grazing livestock.[132] Modern humans, however, have a great capacity for altering theirhabitats by means of technology,irrigation,urban planning, construction,deforestation anddesertification.[133]Human settlements continue to bevulnerable tonatural disasters, especially those placed in hazardous locations and with low quality of construction.[134] Grouping and deliberate habitat alteration is often done with the goals of providing protection, accumulating comforts or material wealth, expanding the available food, improvingaesthetics, increasing knowledge or enhancing the exchange of resources.[135]
Humans are one of the mostadaptable species, despite having a low or narrow tolerance for many of the earth's extreme environments.[136] Currently the species is present in all eightbiogeographical realms, although their presence in theAntarctic realm is very limited toresearch stations and annually there is a population decline in the winter months of this realm. Humans established nation-states in the other seven realms, such asSouth Africa,India,Russia,Australia,Fiji, theUnited States, andBrazil (each located in a different biogeographical realm).
By using advanced tools andclothing, humans have been able to extend their tolerance to a wide variety of temperatures,humidities, and altitudes.[136][142] As a result, humans are acosmopolitan species found in almost all regions of the world, includingtropical rainforest,arid desert, extremely coldarctic regions, and heavily polluted cities; in comparison, most other species are confined to a few geographical areas by their limited adaptability.[143] Thehuman population is not, however, uniformly distributed on theEarth's surface, because the population density varies from one region to another, and large stretches of surface are almost completely uninhabited, likeAntarctica and vast swathes of the ocean.[136][144] Most humans (61%) live in Asia; the remainder live in the Americas (14%), Africa (14%), Europe (11%), and Oceania (0.5%).[145]
Humans and their domesticated animals represent 96% of all mammalian biomass on earth, whereas all wild mammals represent only 4%.[146]
Estimates of the population at the time agriculture emerged in around 10,000 BC have ranged between 1 million and 15 million.[147][148] Around 50–60 million people lived in the combined eastern and westernRoman Empire in the 4th century AD.[149]Bubonic plagues, first recorded in the 6th century AD, reduced the population by 50%, with theBlack Death killing 75–200 million people inEurasia andNorth Africa alone.[150] Human population is believed to have reached one billion in 1800. It has since then increased exponentially, reaching two billion in 1930 and three billion in 1960, four in 1975, five in 1987 and six billion in 1999.[151] It passed seven billion in 2011[152] and passed eight billion in November 2022.[153] It took over two million years ofhuman prehistory andhistory for the human population to reach onebillion and only 207 years more to grow to 7 billion.[154] The combinedbiomass of the carbon of all the humans on Earth in 2018 was estimated at 60 million tons, about 10 times larger than that of all non-domesticated mammals.[146]
In 2018, 4.2 billion humans (55%) lived in urban areas, up from 751 million in 1950.[155] The most urbanized regions are Northern America (82%), Latin America (81%), Europe (74%) and Oceania (68%), with Africa and Asia having nearly 90% of the world's 3.4 billion rural population.[155] Problems for humans living in cities include various forms of pollution andcrime,[156] especially in inner city and suburbanslums.
Basic anatomical features of female and male humans. These models have hadbody hair and malefacial hair removed and head hair trimmed.
Most aspects of human physiology are closelyhomologous to corresponding aspects of animal physiology. Thedental formula of humans is:2.1.2.32.1.2.3. Humans have proportionately shorterpalates and much smallerteeth than other primates. They are the only primates to have short, relatively flushcanine teeth. Humans have characteristically crowded teeth, with gaps from lost teeth usually closing up quickly in young individuals. Humans are gradually losing theirthird molars, with some individuals having them congenitally absent.[157]
Humans share with chimpanzees avestigial tail,[158]appendix, flexible shoulder joints, grasping fingers andopposable thumbs.[159] Humans also have a more barrel-shaped chests in contrast to the funnel shape of other apes, an adaptation for bipedal respiration.[160] Apart from bipedalism and brain size, humans differ from chimpanzees mostly insmelling,hearing anddigesting proteins.[161] While humans have a density ofhair follicles comparable to other apes, it is predominantlyvellus hair, most of which is so short and wispy as to be practically invisible.[162][163] Humans have about 2 millionsweat glands spread over their entire bodies, many more than chimpanzees, whose sweat glands are scarce and are mainly located on the palm of the hand and on the soles of the feet.[164]
It is estimated that the worldwide averageheight for an adult human male is about 171 cm (5 ft 7 in), while the worldwide average height for adult human females is about 159 cm (5 ft 3 in).[165] Shrinkage of stature may begin in middle age in some individuals but tends to be typical in the extremelyaged.[166] Throughout history, human populations have universally become taller, probably as a consequence of better nutrition, healthcare, and living conditions.[167] The averagemass of an adult human is 59 kg (130 lb) for females and 77 kg (170 lb) for males.[168][169] Like many other conditions, body weight and body type are influenced by bothgenetic susceptibility and environment and varies greatly among individuals.[170][171]
Humans have a far faster and more accuratethrow than other animals.[172] Humans are also among the best long-distance runners in the animal kingdom, but slower over short distances.[173][161] Humans' thinner body hair and more productive sweat glands help avoidheat exhaustion while running for long distances.[174] Compared to other apes, the humanheart produces greaterstroke volume andcardiac output and theaorta is proportionately larger.[175][176]
A graphical representation of the standard humankaryotype, including both the female (XX) and male (XY) sex chromosomes.
Like most animals, humans are adiploid andeukaryotic species. Eachsomatic cell has two sets of 23chromosomes, each set received from one parent;gametes have only one set of chromosomes, which is a mixture of the two parental sets. Among the 23 pairs of chromosomes, there are 22 pairs ofautosomes and one pair ofsex chromosomes. Like other mammals, humans have anXY sex-determination system, so that females have the sex chromosomes XX and males have XY.[177]Genes andenvironment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics, physiology, disease susceptibility and mental abilities. The exact influence ofgenes and environment on certain traits is not well understood.[178][179]
While no humans – not evenmonozygotic twins – are genetically identical,[180] two humans on average will have a genetic similarity of 99.5%-99.9%.[181][182] This makes them morehomogeneous than other great apes, including chimpanzees.[183][184] This small variation in human DNA compared to many other species suggests apopulation bottleneck during theLate Pleistocene (around 100,000 years ago), in which the human population was reduced to a small number of breeding pairs.[185][186] The forces ofnatural selection have continued to operate on human populations, with evidence that certain regions of thegenome displaydirectional selection in the past 15,000 years.[187]
Thehuman genome was first sequenced in 2001[188] and by 2020 hundreds of thousands of genomes had been sequenced.[189] In 2012 theInternational HapMap Project had compared the genomes of 1,184 individuals from 11 populations and identified 1.6 millionsingle nucleotide polymorphisms.[190] African populations harbor the highest number of private genetic variants. While many of the common variants found in populations outside of Africa are also found on the African continent, there are still large numbers that are private to these regions, especiallyOceania andthe Americas.[191] By 2010 estimates, humans have approximately 22,000 genes.[192] By comparingmitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from the mother, geneticists have concluded that the last female common ancestor whosegenetic marker is found in all modern humans, the so-calledmitochondrial Eve, must have lived around 90,000 to 200,000 years ago.[193][194][195][196]
Compared with other species, human childbirth is dangerous, with a much higher risk of complications and death.[204] The size of the fetus's head is more closely matched to thepelvis than in other primates.[205] The reason for this is not completely understood,[n 3] but it contributes to a painful labor that can last 24 hours or more.[207] The chances of a successful labor increased significantly during the 20th century in wealthier countries with the advent of new medical technologies. In contrast, pregnancy andnatural childbirth remain hazardous ordeals in developing regions of the world, withmaternal death rates approximately 100 times greater than in developed countries.[208]
Both the mother and the father provide care for human offspring, in contrast to other primates, where parental care is mostly done by the mother.[209]Helpless at birth, humans continue to grow for some years, typically reachingsexual maturity at 15 to 17 years of age.[210][211][212] The human life span has been split into various stages ranging from three to twelve. Common stages includeinfancy,childhood,adolescence,adulthood andold age.[213] The lengths of these stages have varied across cultures and time periods but is typified by an unusually rapid growth spurt during adolescence.[214] Human females undergomenopause and becomeinfertile at around the age of 50.[215] It has been proposed that menopause increases a woman's overall reproductive success by allowing her to invest more time and resources in her existing offspring, and in turn their children (thegrandmother hypothesis), rather than by continuing to bear children into old age.[216][217]
The life span of an individual depends on two major factors, genetics and lifestyle choices.[218] For various reasons, including biological/genetic causes, women live on average about four years longer than men.[219] As of 2018[update], the global averagelife expectancy at birth of a girl is estimated to be 74.9 years compared to 70.4 for a boy.[220][221] There are significant geographical variations in human life expectancy, mostly correlated with economic development – for example, life expectancy at birth inHong Kong is 87.6 years for girls and 81.8 for boys, while in theCentral African Republic, it is 55.0 years for girls and 50.6 for boys.[222][223] The developed world is generally aging, with the median age around 40 years. In thedeveloping world, the median age is between 15 and 20 years. While one in five Europeans is 60 years of age or older, only one in twenty Africans is 60 years of age or older.[224] In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 livingcentenarians (humans of age 100 or older) worldwide.[225]
Humans areomnivorous,[226] capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material.[227][228] Human groups have adopted a range of diets from purelyvegan to primarilycarnivorous. In some cases, dietary restrictions in humans can lead todeficiency diseases; however, stable human groups have adapted to many dietary patterns through both genetic specialization and cultural conventions to use nutritionally balanced food sources.[229] The human diet is prominently reflected in human culture and has led to the development offood science.[230]
Until the development of agriculture,Homo sapiens employed a hunter-gatherer method as their sole means of food collection.[230] This involved combining stationary food sources (such as fruits, grains, tubers, and mushrooms, insect larvae and aquatic mollusks) withwild game, which must be hunted and captured in order to be consumed.[231] It has been proposed that humans have used fire to prepare andcook food since the time ofHomo erectus.[232] Humandomestication of wild plants began about 11,700 years ago, leading to thedevelopment of agriculture,[233] a gradual process called theNeolithic Revolution.[234] These dietary changes may also have altered human biology; the spread ofdairy farming provided a new and rich source of food, leading to the evolution of the ability to digestlactose in some adults.[235][236] The types of food consumed, and how they are prepared, have varied widely by time, location, and culture.[237][238]
In general, humans can survive for up to eight weeks without food, depending on stored body fat.[239] Survival without water is usually limited to three or four days, with a maximum of one week.[240] In 2020, it was estimated 9 million humans die every year from causes directly or indirectly related tostarvation.[241][242] Childhood malnutrition is also common and contributes to theglobal burden of disease.[243] However, global food distribution is not even, andobesity among some human populations has increased rapidly, leading to health complications and increased mortality in somedeveloped and a fewdeveloping countries. Worldwide, over one billion people are obese,[244] while in the United States 35% of people are obese, leading to this being described as an "obesity epidemic."[245] Obesity is caused by consuming morecalories than are expended, so excessive weight gain is usually caused by an energy-dense diet.[244]
There is evidence that populations have adapted genetically to various external factors. The genes that allow adult humans todigest lactose are present in high frequencies in populations that have long histories of cattle domestication and are more dependent oncow milk.[249]Sickle cell anemia, which may provide increased resistance tomalaria, is frequent in populations wheremalaria is endemic.[250][251] Populations that have for a very long time inhabited specific climates tend to have developed specificphenotypes that are beneficial for those environments – short stature and stocky build in cold regions, tall and lanky in hot regions, and with high lung capacities or otheradaptations at high altitudes.[252] Some populations have evolved highly unique adaptations to very specific environmental conditions, such as those advantageous to ocean-dwelling lifestyles andfreediving in theBajau.[253]
Human hair ranges in color fromred toblond tobrown toblack, which is the most frequent.[254] Hair color depends on the amount ofmelanin, with concentrations fading with increased age, leading togrey or even white hair. Skin color can range fromdarkest brown tolightest peach, or even nearly white or colorless in cases ofalbinism.[255] It tends to varyclinally and generally correlates with the level ofultraviolet radiation in a particular geographic area, with darker skin mostly around the equator.[256] Skin darkening may have evolved as protection against ultraviolet solar radiation.[257] Light skin pigmentation protects against depletion ofvitamin D, which requiressunlight to make.[258] Human skin also has a capacity to darken (tan) in response to exposure to ultraviolet radiation.[259][260]
There is relatively little variation between human geographical populations, and most of the variation that occurs is at the individual level.[255][261][262] Much of human variation is continuous, often with no clear points of demarcation.[263][264][265][266] Genetic data shows that no matter how population groups are defined, two people from the same population group are almost as different from each other as two people from any two different population groups.[267][268][269] Dark-skinned populations that are found in Africa, Australia, and South Asia are not closely related to each other.[270][271]
Genetic research has demonstrated that human populations native to theAfrican continent are the most genetically diverse[272] and genetic diversity decreases with migratory distance from Africa, possibly the result ofbottlenecks during human migration.[273][274] These non-African populations acquired new genetic inputs from localadmixture with archaic populations and have much greater variation fromNeanderthals andDenisovans than is found in Africa,[191] though Neanderthal admixture into African populations may be underestimated.[275] Furthermore, recent studies have found that populations insub-Saharan Africa, and particularlyWest Africa, have ancestral genetic variation which predates modern humans and has been lost in most non-African populations. Some of this ancestry is thought to originate from admixture with anunknown archaic hominin that diverged before the split of Neanderthals and modern humans.[276][277]
Humans are agonochoric species, meaning they are divided into male and femalesexes.[278][279][280] The greatest degree of geneticvariation exists between males and females. While thenucleotide genetic variation of individuals of the same sex across global populations is no greater than 0.1%–0.5%, the genetic difference betweenmales andfemales is between 1% and 2%. Males on average are 15% heavier and 15 cm (6 in) taller than females.[281][282] On average, men have about 40–50% more upper-body strength and 20–30% more lower-body strength than women at the same weight, due to higher amounts of muscle and larger muscle fibers.[283] Women generally have a higherbody fat percentage than men.[284] Women havelighter skin than men of the same population; this has been explained by a higher need for vitamin D in females during pregnancy andlactation.[285] As there are chromosomal differences between females and males, some X and Y chromosome-related conditions anddisorders only affect either men or women.[286] After allowing for body weight and volume, the male voice is usually anoctave deeper than the female voice.[287] Women have alonger life span in almost every population around the world.[288] There areintersex conditions in the human population, however these are rare.[289][290]
Humans have a larger and more developedprefrontal cortex than other primates, the region of the brain associated with highercognition.[292][293] This has led humans to proclaim themselves to be more intelligent than any other known species.[294] Objectively defining intelligence is difficult, with other animals adapting senses and excelling in areas that humans are unable to.[295]
There are some traits that, although not strictly unique, do set humans apart from other animals.[296] Humans may be the only animals who haveepisodic memory and who can engage in "mental time travel".[297] Even compared with other social animals, humans have an unusually high degree of flexibility in their facial expressions.[298] Humans are the only animals known to cry emotional tears.[299] Humans are one of the few animals able to self-recognize inmirror tests[300] and there is also debate over to what extent humans are the only animals with atheory of mind.[301][302]
Humans are generallydiurnal. The average sleep requirement is between seven and nine hours per day for an adult and nine to ten hours per day for a child; elderly people usually sleep for six to seven hours. Having less sleep than this is common among humans, even thoughsleep deprivation can have negative health effects. A sustained restriction of adult sleep to four hours per day has been shown to correlate with changes in physiology and mental state, including reduced memory, fatigue, aggression, and bodily discomfort.[303]
During sleep humans dream, where they experience sensory images and sounds. Dreaming is stimulated by thepons and mostly occurs during theREM phase of sleep.[304] The length of a dream can vary, from a few seconds up to 30 minutes.[305] Humans have three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven.[306] Dreamers are more likely to remember the dream if awakened during the REM phase. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception oflucid dreaming, where the dreamer isself-aware.[307] Dreams can at times make acreative thought occur or give a sense ofinspiration.[308]
Human consciousness, at its simplest, issentience orawareness of internal or external existence.[309] Despite centuries of analyses, definitions, explanations and debates by philosophers and scientists, consciousness remains puzzling and controversial,[310] being "at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives".[311] The only widely agreed notion about the topic is the intuition that it exists.[312] Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied and explained as consciousness. Some philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness, which is sensory experience itself, and access consciousness, which can be used for reasoning or directly controlling actions.[313] It is sometimes synonymous with 'the mind', and at other times, an aspect of it. Historically it is associated withintrospection, privatethought,imagination andvolition.[314] It now often includes some kind ofexperience,cognition,feeling orperception. It may be 'awareness', or 'awareness of awareness', orself-awareness.[315] There might be different levels ororders of consciousness,[316] or different kinds of consciousness, or just one kind with different features.[317]
The process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses is known as cognition.[318] The human brainperceives the external world through thesenses, and each individual human is influenced greatly by his or her experiences, leading tosubjective views ofexistence and the passage of time.[319] The nature of thought is central to psychology and related fields.Cognitive psychology studiescognition, themental processes underlying behavior.[320] Largely focusing on the development of the human mind through the life span,developmental psychology seeks to understand how people come to perceive, understand, and act within the world and how these processes change as they age.[321][322] This may focus on intellectual, cognitive, neural, social, ormoral development.Psychologists have developed intelligence tests and the concept ofintelligence quotient in order to assess the relative intelligence of human beings and study itsdistribution among population.[323]
Human motivation is not yet wholly understood. From a psychological perspective,Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a well-established theory that can be defined as the process of satisfying certain needs in ascending order of complexity.[324] From a more general, philosophical perspective, human motivation can be defined as a commitment to, or withdrawal from, various goals requiring the application of human ability. Furthermore,incentive andpreference are both factors, as are any perceived links between incentives and preferences.Volition may also be involved, in which case willpower is also a factor. Ideally, both motivation and volition ensure the selection, striving for, andrealization of goals in an optimal manner, afunction beginning in childhood and continuing throughout a lifetime in a process known associalization.[325]
Human parents often displayfamilial love for their children.
For humans, sexuality involvesbiological,erotic,physical,emotional,social, orspiritual feelings and behaviors.[339][340] Because it is a broad term, which has varied with historical contexts over time, it lacks a precise definition.[340] The biological and physical aspects of sexuality largely concern thehuman reproductive functions, including thehuman sexual response cycle.[339][340] Sexuality also affects and is affected by cultural, political, legal, philosophical,moral,ethical, and religious aspects of life.[339][340] Sexual desire, orlibido, is a basic mental state present at the beginning of sexual behavior. Studies show that men desire sex more than women andmasturbate more often.[341]
Humanity's unprecedented set of intellectual skills were a key factor in the species' eventual technological advancement and concomitant domination of the biosphere.[352] Disregarding extinct hominids, humans are the only animals known to teach generalizable information,[353] innately deploy recursiveembedding to generate and communicate complex concepts,[354] engage in the "folk physics" required for competent tool design,[355][356] or cook food in the wild.[357] Teaching and learning preserves the cultural and ethnographic identity of human societies.[358] Other traits and behaviors that are mostly unique to humans include starting fires,[359]phoneme structuring[360] andvocal learning.[361]
While many speciescommunicate,language is unique to humans, a defining feature of humanity, and acultural universal.[362] Unlike the limited systems of other animals, human language is open – an infinite number of meanings can be produced by combining a limited number of symbols.[363][364] Human language also has the capacity ofdisplacement, using words to represent things and happenings that are not presently or locally occurring but reside in the shared imagination of interlocutors.[157]
Language differs from other forms of communication in that it ismodality independent; the same meanings can be conveyed through different media, audibly inspeech, visually bysign language or writing, and through tactile media such asbraille.[365] Language is central to the communication between humans, and to the sense of identity that unites nations, cultures and ethnic groups.[366] There are approximately six thousand different languages currently in use, including sign languages, and many thousands more that areextinct.[367]
Art is a defining characteristic of humans and there is evidence for a relationship between creativity and language.[376] The earliest evidence of art was shell engravings made byHomo erectus 300,000 years before modern humans evolved.[377] Art attributed toH. sapiens existed at least 75,000 years ago, with jewellery and drawings found in caves in South Africa.[378][379] There are various hypotheses as to why humans haveadapted to the arts. These include allowing them to better problem solve issues, providing a means to control or influence other humans, encouraging cooperation and contribution within a society or increasing the chance of attracting a potential mate.[380] The use of imagination developed through art, combined with logic may have given early humans an evolutionary advantage.[376]
Evidence of humans engaging in musical activities predates cave art and so far music has beenpracticed by virtually all known human cultures.[381] There exists a wide variety ofmusic genres andethnic musics; with humans' musical abilities being related to other abilities, including complex social human behaviours.[381] It has been shown that human brains respond to music by becoming synchronized with the rhythm and beat, a process calledentrainment.[382] Dance is also a form of human expression found in all cultures[383] and may have evolved as a way to help early humans communicate.[384] Listening to music and observing dance stimulates theorbitofrontal cortex and other pleasure sensing areas of the brain.[385]
Unlike speaking, reading and writing does not come naturally to humans and must be taught.[386] Still,literature has been present before the invention of words and language, with 30,000-year-old paintings on walls inside some caves portraying a series of dramatic scenes.[387] One of the oldest surviving works of literature is theEpic of Gilgamesh, first engraved on ancientBabylonian tablets about 4,000 years ago.[388] Beyond simply passing down knowledge, the use and sharing of imaginativefiction through stories might have helped develop humans' capabilities for communication and increased the likelihood of securing a mate.[389] Storytelling may also be used as a way to provide the audience with moral lessons and encourage cooperation.[387]
Stone tools were used by proto-humans at least 2.5 million years ago.[391] The use and manufacture of tools has been put forward as the ability that defines humans more than anything else[392] and has historically been seen as an important evolutionary step.[393] The technology became much more sophisticated about 1.8 million years ago,[392] with thecontrolled use of fire beginning around 1 million years ago.[394][395] The wheel and wheeled vehicles appeared simultaneously in several regions some time in the fourth millennium BC.[70] The development of more complex tools and technologies allowed land to becultivated and animals to bedomesticated, thus proving essential in the development ofagriculture – what is known as theNeolithic Revolution.[396]
Although measuring religiosity is difficult,[411] a majority of humans profess some variety of religious or spiritual belief.[412] In 2015 the plurality wereChristian followed byMuslims,Hindus andBuddhists.[413] As of 2015, about 16%, or slightly under 1.2 billion humans, wereirreligious, including those with no religious beliefs or no identity with any religion.[414]
An aspect unique to humans is their ability totransmit knowledge from one generation to the next and to continually build on this information to develop tools,scientific laws and other advances to pass on further.[415] This accumulated knowledge can be tested to answer questions or make predictions about how the universe functions and has been very successful in advancing human ascendancy.[416]
Philosophy is a field of study where humans seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves and the world in which they live.[424] Philosophical inquiry has been a major feature in the development of humans' intellectual history.[425] It has been described as the "no man's land" between definitive scientific knowledge and dogmatic religious teachings.[426] Major fields of philosophy includemetaphysics,epistemology,logic, andaxiology (which includesethics andaesthetics).[427]
Humans often live in family-based social structures.
Society is the system of organizations and institutions arising from interaction between humans. Humans are highly social and tend to live in large complex social groups. They can be divided into different groups according to their income, wealth,power,reputation and other factors. The structure ofsocial stratification and the degree ofsocial mobility differs, especially between modern and traditional societies.[428] Human groups range from the size offamilies to nations. The first form of human social organization is thought to have resembledhunter-gathererband societies.[429]
Human societies typically exhibitgender identities andgender roles that distinguish betweenmasculine andfeminine characteristics and prescribe the range of acceptable behaviours and attitudes for their members based on theirsex.[430][431] The most common categorisation is agender binary ofmen andwomen.[432] Some societies recognize athird gender,[433] or less commonly a fourth or fifth.[434][435] In some other societies,non-binary is used as an umbrella term for a range of gender identities that are not solely male or female.[436]
Gender roles are often associated with a division ofnorms,practices,dress,behavior,rights,duties,privileges,status, andpower, with men enjoying more rights and privileges than women in most societies, both today and in the past.[437] As asocial construct,[438] gender roles are not fixed and vary historically within a society. Challenges to predominant gender norms have recurred in many societies.[439][440] Little is known about gender roles in the earliest human societies.Early modern humans probably had a range of gender roles similar to that of modern cultures from at least theUpper Paleolithic, while theNeanderthals were less sexually dimorphic and there is evidence that the behavioural difference between males and females was minimal.[441]
All human societies organize, recognize and classify types of social relationships based on relations between parents, children and other descendants (consanguinity), and relations throughmarriage (affinity). There is also a third type applied togodparents oradoptive children (fictive). These culturally defined relationships are referred to as kinship. In many societies, it is one of the most important social organizing principles and plays a role in transmitting status andinheritance.[442] All societies have rules ofincest taboo, according to which marriage between certain kinds of kin relations is prohibited, and some also have rules of preferential marriage with certain kin relations.[443]
Pair bonding is a ubiquitous feature of human sexual relationships, whether it is manifested as serial monogamy,polygyny, orpolyandry.[444] Genetic evidence indicates that humans were predominantlypolygynous for most of their existence as a species, but that this began to shift during the Neolithic, whenmonogamy started becoming widespread concomitantly with the transition from nomadic to sedentary societies.[445] Anatomical evidence in the form of second-to-fourth digit ratios, a biomarker for prenatal androgen effects, likewise indicates modern humans were polygynous during the Pleistocene.[446]
Human ethnic groups are a social category thatidentifies together as a group based on shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. These can be a common set of traditions,ancestry,language,history,society,culture,nation,religion, or social treatment within their residing area.[447][448] Ethnicity is separate from the concept ofrace, which is based on physical characteristics, although both aresocially constructed.[449] Assigning ethnicity to a certain population is complicated, as even within common ethnic designations there can be a diverse range of subgroups, and the makeup of these ethnic groups can change over time at both the collective and individual level.[183] Also, there is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes an ethnic group.[450] Ethnic groupings can play a powerful role in thesocial identity and solidarity of ethnopolitical units. This has been closely tied to the rise of thenation state as the predominant form of political organization in the 19th and 20th centuries.[451][452][453]
TheUnited Nations headquarters (left) in New York City, which houses one of the world's largest political organizations
As farming populations gathered in larger and denser communities, interactions between these different groups increased. This led to the development of governance within and between the communities.[454] Humans have evolved the ability to change affiliation with various social groups relatively easily, including previously strong political alliances, if doing so is seen as providing personal advantages.[455] Thiscognitive flexibility allows individual humans to change their political ideologies, with those with higher flexibility less likely to support authoritarian and nationalistic stances.[456]
Trade, the voluntary exchange of goods and services, is seen as a characteristic that differentiates humans from other animals and has been cited as a practice that gaveHomo sapiens a major advantage over other hominids.[460] Evidence suggests earlyH. sapiens made use of long-distance trade routes to exchange goods and ideas, leading tocultural explosions and providing additional food sources when hunting was sparse, while such trade networks did not exist for the now extinct Neanderthals.[461][462] Early trade likely involved materials for creating tools likeobsidian.[463] The first truly international trade routes were around thespice trade through the Roman and medieval periods.[464]
Early humaneconomies were more likely to be based aroundgift giving instead of abartering system.[465] Earlymoney consisted ofcommodities; the oldest being in the form of cattle and the most widely used beingcowrie shells.[466] Money has since evolved into governmental issuedcoins,paper andelectronic money.[466] Human study of economics is asocial science that looks at how societies distribute scarce resources among different people.[467] There are massiveinequalities in the division ofwealth among humans; the eight richest humans are worth the same monetary value as the poorest half of all the human population.[468]
Humans commit violence on other humans at a rate comparable to other primates, but have an increased preference for killing adults,infanticide being more common among other primates.[469] Phylogenetic analysis predicts that 2% of earlyH. sapiens would bemurdered, rising to 12% during the medieval period, before dropping to below 2% in modern times.[470] There is great variation in violence between human populations, with rates of homicide about 0.01% in societies that havelegal systems and strong cultural attitudes against violence.[471]
The willingness of humans to kill other members of their species en masse through organized conflict (i.e.,war) has long been the subject of debate. One school of thought holds that war evolved as a means to eliminate competitors, and has always been an innate human characteristic. Another suggests that war is a relatively recent phenomenon and has appeared due to changing social conditions.[472] While not settled, current evidence indicates warlike predispositions only became common about 10,000 years ago, and in many places much more recently than that.[472] War has had a high cost on human life; it is estimated that during the 20th century, between 167 million and 188 million people died as a result of war.[473] War casualty data is less reliable for pre-medieval times, especially global figures. But compared with any period over the past 600 years, the last ~80 years (post 1946), has seen a very significant drop in global military and civilian death rates due to armed conflict.[474]
^The world population and population density statistics are updated automatically from a template that uses the CIA World Factbook and United Nations World Population Prospects.[129][130]
^Cities with over 10 million inhabitants as of 2018.[131]
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