A Timeline of Fossil Hominins in Order of Discovery

This timeline traces hominin fossils in the order they were discovered, using the year of discovery whenever it is known. Though the focus is largely on extinct hominin species, Homo sapiens appears at moments when the epistemological context undergoes a substantial transformation. Rather than organizing specimens by geologic age or species designation, I follow the arc from discovery to full scientific awareness, and how that timing folded into evolving ideas about human antiquity and variation. Some of these fossils had little immediate impact and were recognized only retrospectively for what they were. All of them, however, provide us with new information about our collective history, introducing new debates and reshaping existing ones. Taken together, timeline records moments when the meaning of what it means to be human shifted.