Why Are We the Only Human Species Left? What happened to others...

For most of human history, we weren't alone. At least five different species of humans walked this planet at the same time — some taller, some shorter, some built for ice ages, one barely three feet tall. Today, we're the only ones left. What happened to everyone else? This video traces the full story — from Homo Erectus, the longest-surviving human species in history, to the Neanderthals, who were nothing like the brutes we were taught about, to the Denisovans, a species we discovered from a single finger bone, to Homo Floresiensis, tiny humans who lived alongside Komodo dragons on a remote Indonesian island. By the end, you might start questioning what it actually means to be the last ones standing. Time Stamps. 0:00 When We Weren’t the Only Humans 0:45 Homo erectus 2:10 Neanderthals 4:01 Denisovans 5:17 Homo floresiensis 6:31 Why Did Homo sapiens Survive? 7:33 The Last Human Species All research and sources are linked below. ———————————————————— 📚 RESEARCH & SOURCES: ▸ Homo Erectus — Final dating of Ngandong (Java) fossils: "Last appearance of Homo erectus at Ngandong, Java" (2019, Nature) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1863-2 ▸ Neanderthal Genome — Svante Pääbo et al., "A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome" (2010, Science) https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1188021 ▸ Shanidar Cave — Ralph Solecki, "Shanidar: The First Flower People" (1971, Knopf). Erik Trinkaus, "The Shanidar Neandertals" (1983, Academic Press) ▸ Neanderthal Genetic Diversity — "Patterns of coding variation in the complete exomes of three Neandertals" (2016, PNAS) https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1524553113 ▸ Denisovans — Krause et al., "The complete mitochondrial DNA genome of an unknown hominin from southern Siberia" (2010, Nature) https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08976 ▸ Denisovan EPAS1 Gene — Huerta-Sánchez et al., "Altitude adaptation in Tibetans caused by introgression of Denisovan-like DNA" (2014, Nature) https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13408 ▸ Homo Floresiensis — Brown et al.,