Genus of hominins that includes humans and their closest extinct relatives

<i>Homo</i>

Homo

Homo is the genus that emerged in the genus Australopithecus that encompasses the extant species Homo sapiens , plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely related to modern humans , most notably Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. The oldest member of Homo is Homo habilis with records of just over 2 million years ago. Homo erectus appeared about 2 million years ago and, in several early migrations, spread throughout Africa and Eurasia. It is likely that the first human species lived in a hunter-gatherer society and was able to control fire. An adaptive and successful species, H. erectus persisted for more than a million years and gradually diverged into new species by around 500,000 years ago. 