Humans, or modern humans (Homo sapiens), are the most common and widespread species of primate. A great ape characterized by their hairlessness, bipedalism, and high intelligence, humans have a large brain and resulting cognitive skills that enable them to thrive in varied environments and develop complex societies and civilizations. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. As such, social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, languages, and rituals, each of which bolsters human society. The desire to understand and influence phenomena has motivated humanity's development of science, technology, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other conceptual frameworks. Although some scientists equate the term "humans" with all members of the genus Homo, in common usage it generally refers to Homo sapiens, the only extant member. Other members of the genus Homo are known as archaic humans. Anatomically modern humans emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa, evolving from Homo heidelbergensis or a similar species and migrating out of Africa, gradually replacing or interbreeding with local populations of archaic humans. For most of their history, humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Humans began exhibiting behavioral modernity about 160,000–60,000 years ago. The Neolithic Revolution, which began in Southwest Asia around 13,000 years ago (and separately in a few other places), saw the emergence of agriculture and permanent human settlement. As populations became larger and denser, forms of governance developed within and between communities, and a large number of civilizations have risen and fallen. Humans have continued to expand, with a global population of over 8 billion . Genes and the environment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics, physiology, disease susceptibility, mental abilities, body size, and life span.

About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related courses (27)
BIO-483: Neuroscience: behavior and cognition
The goal is to guide students into the essential topics of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience. The challenge for the student in this course is to integrate the diverse knowledge acquired from those
BIO-617: Practical - Gönczy Lab
Give students a feel for some of the approaches pursued to understand mechanisms underlying cell division processes, primarily in C. elegans embryos but also in other systems, including human cells in
HUM-275: Evolutionary psychology
La psychologie évolutionniste est une discipline située au carrefour de la biologie, de la psychologie, de l'anthropologie, des sciences sociales et naturelles qui examine les traits psychologiques et
Show more
Related MOOCs (8)
Instructional Design with Orchestration Graphs
Discover a visual language for designing pedagogical scenarios that integrate individual, team and class wide activities.
Instructional Design with Orchestration Graphs
Discover a visual language for designing pedagogical scenarios that integrate individual, team and class wide activities.
Fundamentals of Biomedical Imaging: Ultrasounds, X-ray, positron emission tomography (PET) and applications
Learn how principles of basic science are integrated into major biomedical imaging modalities and the different techniques used, such as X-ray computed tomography (CT), ultrasounds and positron emissi
Show more

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.