Hominin

Hominin is the term for modern humans and all the extinct species on our side of the split from the chimpanzee lineage, which happened in Africa roughly six to eight million years ago. The group includes very early forms such as Sahelanthropus, Orrorin and Ardipithecus, the australopiths such as Australopithecus afarensis, and members of our own genus, Homo, including Homo erectus, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens is the only hominin alive today.

The defining hallmark of hominins is bipedalism, habitual walking on two legs, which was established more than four million years ago, long before brains grew much larger. Other changes followed over time, including smaller canine teeth, bigger brains, tool making and, much later, language and art. The fossil record shows that several hominin species often lived at the same time, and most left no living descendants, so human evolution looks more like a bushy tree with many dead-end branches than a single ladder.

The word is easily confused with hominid. In current usage hominids, the family Hominidae, include all the great apes and humans, while hominins are only the human branch. Older books often used hominid in the way hominin is used now.