6 Ancient Human Species That Once Shared Our World

Neanderthals, or Homo neanderthalensis, lived about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. Yet unlike most ancestors of Homo sapiens, they did not evolve in Africa. All of the known Neanderthal fossils and archaeological evidence comes from Europe and Asia.

So how did Neanderthal DNA get mixed in with our own? Scientists theorize that Homo sapiens mated with Neanderthals after migrating outside of Africa. After this, groups of Homo sapiens with Neanderthal DNA migrated back into Africa.

As a result, “all humans alive today have some Neanderthal DNA,” McRae says.

Denisovans, or Homo longi, are another species that appear to have evolved outside Africa. Evidence suggests they lived throughout Asia around 400,000 to 30,000 years ago.

Like Neanderthals, we know that Denisovans mated with Homo sapiens because of the genetic legacy they left in modern-day humans. However, we’ve only become aware of Denisovans’ existence very recently. The first paper identifying the group came out in 2010. The authors named the new species after the Denisova Cave in Siberia where Denisovan DNA was discovered.

In 2025, researchers determined that a skull in northeastern China previously identified as a new human species called Homo longi was actually a Denisovan skull. Since then, many experts have started to use Homo longi as the scientific name for Denisovans.

Homo floresiensis lived around 100,000 to 50,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores. This species’ existence overlapped with Homo sapiens, but researchers are still unsure if Homo sapiens ever reached Flores before Homo floresiensis went extinct.

“The earliest evidence we have right now is Homo sapiens in Australia around 40,000 to 60,000 years ago,” McRae says. “As of right now, the evidence points towards us likely just missing each other.”

Homo luzonensis was an isolated island species that lived on Luzon in the Philippines approximately 67,000 to 50,000 years ago. As with Homo floresiensis, it’s not clear if Homo sapiens ever reached Luzon while Homo luzonensis was still alive. In fact, researchers are still investigating how Homo luzonensis and Homo floresiensis were able to reach the islands they inhabited in the first place.

“Both Flores and the Philippines are isolated geologically,” McRae says. “Even when sea levels were lower, you would have had to cross water to get there. So how those species got to those islands, we still don’t know.”

Of the species on this list, Homo erectus is identified as the oldest. It lived from about 1.89 million to 110,000 years ago, overlapping with the emergence of Homo sapiens. However, we don’t have evidence that the two species were ever in the same geographic place at the same time.

Homo erectus evolved in Africa but left the area, traveling as far as the island of Java in Indonesia before going extinct. Archaeological evidence suggests that by the time Homo sapiens first left Africa, Homo erectus was near the end of its time on Earth.

“It’s not impossible, but highly unlikely, that Homo sapiens and Homo erectus ever interacted directly,” McRae says.

Homo naledi is an extinct species that lived around 335,000 to 236,000 years ago in South Africa. It existed at the same time and on the same continent as Homo sapiens. Yet for now, there’s no evidence of interaction.

Currently, there’s a gap in our knowledge of the first 100,000 years of Homo sapiens' history. The earliest evidence of the species is in Morocco and dates to around 300,000 years ago. After that, the next known fossils are in East Africa and date closer to 200,000 years ago.

There’s a chance that Homo sapiens encountered Homo naledi in Southern Africa between these times. So far, there is no evidence confirming this.