# Talk:Human

So, I made a few things more precise (hopefully), but in general, this lemma is too much a biology article. While this makes sense for related articles for animals, plants, etc., where we usually do not know more than the biological aspects, I feel it does not make sense here. The effect is, as they denote here, that it reads like an article which an alien species has written about us. That can not be right. However, English is not my mother tongue, so I refrain from trying to fix it. I can just point to the German lemma, which does the job much better in this case, in my opinion Heronils (talk) 04:19, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

see the faq Radman the 12th (talk) 20:07, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not clear nor consistent on this.   Does the word “human” refer to Homo sapiens as well as their entire lineage, does it refer to any member of the genus homo (such that homo erectus and Neanderthals are referred to as “human”), or does it only refer specifically to the species homo sapien. 50.239.58.6 (talk) 19:48, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Yeah anything in the genus Homo can be considered a species of human. "Human" isn't really a scientific word, it's kinda like how when someone says the word "lion" you can generally assume the living Panthera leo is being discussed but you can also use the word "lion" to discuss the extinct cave lions  Panthera fossilis and Panthera spelaea, the American lion Panthera atrox, and even the living mountain lion Puma concolor Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

A skull found in central China has pushed human evolution back further than originally thought. The skull has been studied, tested, and retested by independent teams. Findings have now been published in Science.  The skull is dated to 1 million years pushing back Homo sapiens 500,000 years earlier than previously known. It is therefore assumed that our entire evolutionary timeframe may be off for not only Homo sapiens, but also homo erectus and the rest of our evolutionary family. Further, this now puts the entire time framework of human migration out of Africa into question. I highly recommend that the editors review the newest findings and update this section accordingly. 2601:18E:C583:E880:E574:6408:B798:4F6D (talk) 21:52, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Please provide the reference. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:36, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
The user is probably referring to this paper; WPLibrary link has access to this non-open paper.
It received an admirable amount of media attention in mere 9 hours after publishing (as I'm typing this message). Washington Post - [1]; BBC - [2]; Guardian - [3]; CNN - [4]; Reuters - [5]. 海盐沙冰  / aka irisChronomia / Talk 03:33, 26 September 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion. This indeed looks worthy of a mention in the #Evolution section based soly on the level of media attention alone. 海盐沙冰  / aka irisChronomia / Talk 03:35, 26 September 2025 (UTC)
Why dont you just say evolved "at least" 300,000 years ago? Same if you change it to a million. who's to say they wont move the date back again in a few decades? Wikiman5676 (talk) 16:55, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
Who, precisely, is "they"? And what is he point of your speculative question? HiLo48 (talk) 23:58, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
Scientific consensus is the they. the article said humans evolved "around 300,000 years ago". wouldnt it be better to just say its believed humans evolved "at least 300,000 years ago?", so we can account for things like this million year old skull?  Wikiman5676 (talk) 02:34, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
So any comments? If not i will just be bold and make the change. It seems pretty uncontroversial. Wikiman5676 (talk) 04:15, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

The skull in question was a Denisovan skull, not a Homo sapien skull, although most news reports didn’t make that distinction and just described it as pushing back the date of “human evolution”. I don’t think on older date for Denisovans necessarily means an older date for Homo sapiens as well. 2601:282:103:BD0:E43E:C7D:2933:A116 (talk) 02:01, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
This article covers both H. Sapiens and Homo. 海盐沙冰  / aka irisChronomia / Talk 02:47, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
That’s fine, as long as the distinction is made clear. So far no H. Sapiens skull older than around 300,000 years has been found, right? 2601:282:103:BD0:C03E:EB5B:95EC:AA5 (talk) 17:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
Yep, go ahead pal. Have my gratitude for the edit :) 海盐沙冰  / aka irisChronomia / Talk 02:49, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
The paper doesn't seem to argue that Homo Sapiens is 1 million years old, but instead that the lineage that lead to Sapiens (its divergence from the ancestors of Neanderthals/Denisovans) could be that old. Nor does or seem to challenge the African origin of Homo Sapiens. Skllagyook (talk) 21:43, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Change the "humans are in a biological sense animals." to "humans are animals.", the biological term is unnecessary, you might as well say that lions are biologically animals. Also, change the "Humans belong to the biological family of apes (superfamily Hominoidea)." to "Humans are apes (superfamily Hominoidea).", it avoids repetition. ~2025-32672-05 (talk) 18:46, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. NotJamestack (talk) 19:12, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

For most of their history they were hunter-gatherers...As opposed to what? Prior to the invention of agriculture, isn't it true that every vertebrate (and many an invertebrate) was a hunter-gatherer? I dislike this term more because it pretends to inform but doesn't. Last I heard, it's believed that some of our ancestors - possibly most at one point - lived by large bodies of water for many generations; by definition NOT hunter-gatherers. The blanket "they were hunter-gatherers" lacks nuance and implies they ALL were, which is dubious. Also, last I heard, our species is homo sapiens sapiens and homo sapiens is an abbreviation. This may no longer be true, IDK. But if it is now true, there are plenty of people (like me) who aren't aware of the change in terminology so this change needs to be mentioned - if it is actually correct. I note that in WP, the usage is pervasive. The article uses "history" to mean the non-literary prehistoric period. Our history began ~10,000 BCE. Before that is our prehistory. The meager paleoanthopological records we have don't qualify to be a convincing record of our past. I find this article squishy. Sorta right, but mostly wrong. What, for instance, does it mean to describe ourselves as a species when we're a mixture of species lineages? (i.e. some, but not all of us have Neanderthal dna, some Denisovian, and some not either?). Are we a species? Were we always? (I'd say yes, we are and no we weren't but what do I know.) Finally, the article is over-all severely lacking in authoritative references.~2025-31506-44 (talk) 11:57, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

For a start, most vertebrate species (or most mammals, anyway) aren't hunter-gatherers. The majority are herbivores, eating plants. A minority are carnivores, eating other animals. As for what you heard regarding 'living by large bodies of water', you are probably referring to the Aquatic ape hypothesis, which is generally discounted by academic scholarship as vague, unsupported by evidence, and bordering on pseudoscience. Regarding 'history', the term is somewhat ambiguous, and I'd call your objection somewhat nit-picking, though others might differ. As for being 'a mixture of species lineages', this is entirely true, but only if you adopt a particular position amongst the many definitions of 'species' that currently abound. There isn't any agreed scientific definition as to what exactly constitutes a 'species', and nor is there ever likely to be - there are biologists who will tell you that a 'species' is just a social construct, created to make a complex reality easier to think about. They are probably right.
I'm quite sure there are issues with this article, but if you wish to see it improved, you will have to do better than make vague complaints based on things you think you know. We need appropriate reliable sources to base content on, and concrete suggestions as to specific changes. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:17, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Why would proximity to water prevent you from hunting or gathering? GMGtalk 12:39, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
From what I've read, the fringe aquatic ape hypothesis is very much orientated around an omniverous shoreline hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Such environments present very diverse food opportunities - fish,  aquatic birds, mammals etc to hunt, along with many types of edible plant sources etc to gather. And then there are invertibrates like crustaceans and molluscs, which one doesn't really need to hunt, making the distinction between hunting and gathering more to do with the 'how' than the 'what'. I doubt that the OP has actually read our hunter-gatherer article, and I suspect they are just guessing as to what they think the words mean. Not a good start, if you want to complain about an article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:52, 22 November 2025 (UTC)