Date: October 10th, 2026 1:51 PM
Author: indecent hairless property
When did we “become dominant”?
That depends on what you mean, and it’s debated:
Demographically, probably not until after about 50,000 years ago. Sapiens populations expanded out of Africa in a major way around 70,000 to 50,000 years ago, and by roughly 40,000 years ago every other human species appears to have vanished or been absorbed.
Ecologically and technologically, the case for dominance is strongest after about 40,000 years ago, with the explosion of symbolic art, complex tools, and long-distance trade networks, though some of this likely began earlier in Africa.
So a reasonable answer is that we coexisted with other human species for roughly 250,000 years, and only became the sole surviving human species in the last 40,000 or so.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5911306&forum_id=2#50181953)