How old is the human species?

I've heard everything from more than a million years to about 100,000 years. Does anyone know The Answer, or more reasonably, some sources where I could read various notions of the answer?

Well, 'species' is a very fuzzy concept in biology. Wikipedia has this on appearance of humans:

Anatomically modern humans first appear in the fossil record in Africa about 195,000 years ago, and studies of molecular biology give evidence that the approximate time of divergence from the common ancestor of all modern human populations was 200,000 years ago.

And the number of 200,000 years ago is the most common answer here.
You might get something like a million years if you take the definition of 'same species' as 'being able to interbreed and produce fertile offspring'. Then again the Human/Neanderthal common ancestor lived about 0.5 MYA so Neanderthals would probably be 'human' as well if you use that definition.

Wikipedia on 'Human'. Puts it at about 200,000 years ago. Had a quick glance through The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, and the most promising reference looks to be The Origin of Humankind by Richard Leakey.

ETA: Snap!

Thanks people!

The excellent website TalkOrigins.org has a wealth of information available on what is known, unknown, and disputed about human origins. One of the maintainers has also published a great book called The Counter-Creationism Handbook. (Very strange, I would have sworn that I cataloged that book, but it wasn't in my LibraryThing library. I wonder how many other books I've missed!)

Maybe Tim S. converted to creationism and is deleting such dreadfully heterodox material! :)

I am no evolutionary biologist but I find Elaine Morgan's theory on the origin of humans very fascinating. According to her we have evolved from the sea not the grasslands.

You can find her website here: http://www.elainemorgan.me.uk/

I also highly recommend her TED talk video: http://www.ted.com/talks/elaine_morgan_says_we_evolved_from_aquatic_apes.html

On the surface it seems like it might float (sorry). But it's been around quite a while and is widely discredited. For a full explanation of why it's wrong look here

Not Elaine Morgan of the (infamous) Aquatic Ape controversy?!

I've seen statements about 'archaic' Homo Sapiens dating back 1 million years. Probably in National Geographic, within the past decade anyways.

The aquatic ape hypothesis is discussed in the book Strange Creations.

Does it make sense to date a species other than by the time its ancestral population separated into two species? (Independently of whether both species survived long.)

Most, if not all, conclusions drawn from high ground, inland riverine and/or savannah ecosystems and anyone keeping track of how many bodies found and investigated from that time period?

I'm sorry, but I can't make sense of that sentence; it seems to be all clauses. It sounds like you're saying something interesting but I can't figure out what you're getting at.

I had the same reaction to the whole post. I think s/he's sayig the human race is older than everyone thinks?

No; wait, younger?

Or is lamenting a lack of good data?

By destructiveness of inundation do you mean that remains aren't well-preserved when covered with salt water? I don't know if that's true or not, but it sounds plausible. If you mean that the inundation itself was destructive and people had to flee uphill for their lives, I believe on a day-to-day basis the sea-level rise was gradual (except I read once that the filling of the Mediterranean basin may have been through a gigantic flood.

MrsHouseLibrary (who has been reading books primarily about paleoanthropology for much longer than the 9+ years we've been together) would like to direct your attention to this web site to view the time-line of human evolution (between six and seven million years).

Edited to fix the link, and to add (for MHL):
"...depending on your definition of hominid..."

18> He said homo sapien though, not hominid.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition...

Cro-Magnon man , an early Homo sapiens (the species to which modern humans belong) that lived about 40,000 years ago. Skeletal remains and associated artifacts of the of the Aurignacian culture were first found in 1868 in Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France. Later discoveries were made in a number of caverns in the Dordogne valley, Solutré, and in Spain, Germany, and central Europe. Cro-Magnon man was anatomically identical to modern humans, but differed significantly from Neanderthals (see Neanderthal man ), who disappear in the fossil about 10,000 years after the appearance of Aurignacian and other upper Paleolithic populations (e.g. the Perigordian culture). The abrupt disappearance of Neanderthal populations and the associated Mousterian technologies, the sudden appearance of modern Homo sapiens (who had arisen earlier in Africa and migrated to Europe) and the associated upper Paleolithic technologies, and the absence of transitional anatomical or technological forms have led most researchers to conclude that Neanderthals were driven to extinction through competition with Cro-Magnon or related populations. Greater linguistic competence and cultural sophistication are often suggested as characteristics tilting the competitive balance in favor of upper Paleolithic groups. Finely crafted stone and bone tools, shell and ivory jewelry, and polychrome paintings found on cave walls all testify to the cultural advancement of Cro-Magnon man.

#12: Does it make sense to date a species by the time its ancestral population separated into two species? We've observed speciation in the lab; does that mean that Drosophila melanogaster dates back a few years at most? If we found a new species had evolved from Homo sapiens in isolation somewhere in the last 10,000 years, would it really affect the genetic and physiological continuity of Homo sapiens back 200,000 years?

There are literally hundreds of caves throughout Europe that contain paintings done by Cro Magnon. The oldest Cave Paintings are in Chauvet Cave (France), and they've been deemed as being a mere 35,000 years old, so your first question is moot.

My guess is that Homo sapiens were on higher ground at the time of the deluge.

Perhaps the point is not that the people moved, but that evidence of their presence is now underwater?

While underwater archaeology is possible, I don't think much is being done on prehistoric sites, given the technical difficulties of even locating such things.