Life Sciences: scientific classification
The Greek philosopher Aristotle is recognised as being the first person to classify all living things, and some of his groups are still used today, like the vertebrates and invertebrates, which he called “animals with blood and without blood”.
Taxonomy is the science of naming, defining and classifying groups of biological organisms in order to better understand the attributes of different types of plants or animals.
“Taxonomy … not only produces fascinating insights into the characteristics of life on on Earth, above all it provides the answers to many questions. It delivers basic and indispensable knowledge for many fields of human interest and contributes in many ways to the sustainability of our planet.” – BioNET (an international initiative dedicated to promoting the science and use of taxonomy)
In modern science, we have a hierarchy of ranks that are in the following order: domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.
How does this work in relation to the hominin fossils discovered in the Cradle of Humankind?
At Maropeng, you’ll hear names such as Australopithecusafricanus, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus prometheus (Little Foot) or Homo naledi. These names refer to both the genus and the species of the hominin fossils found in the Cradle of Humankind.
The following section in our exhibition guide explains how humans are linked to the large and complex hominid family:
Modern humans are grouped together with all earlier species of the zoological family hominidae as hominids. This is the most recent branch of a family tree that over millions of years has included dozens of hominid species. But we – Homo sapiens (modern humans) – are the only hominids still living today, having been around for only about 200 000 years.
Homo sapiens and all our hominid ancestors belong to the zoological superfamily hominoidea together with the apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, orangutans and gibbons).
Since we are the only surviving species in the Homo genus, the great apes are our closest living relatives. Humans and apes, together with monkeys, lemurs, lorises and tarsiers, belong to the zoological order Primates.
Although gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans share many anatomical and genetic characteristics with Homo sapiens, they are not members of the Homo genus. Chimpanzees are classified in the genus Pan, gorillas in the genus Gorilla and orangutans in the genus Pongo.
The genus Homo includes not only Homo sapiens, but also many earlier species of Homo that are now extinct, including Homo naledi, Homo habilis, Homo ergaster (in Africa), Homo erectus (in Europe and Asia), Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis (in Europe).