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Human Origins Exhibit Entrance

What Does It Mean To Be Human?

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Being a human means having thoughts and feelings that no one else can fathom understanding.
And exploring the vast uncertainty.

- Izzy, Golden High School

To be able to use our advanced brains to better the world.

- Tyler, Ohio

Being human relates to our biological makeup, our DNA, but has a deeper context of understanding the history we come from. It means to be conscious about the emotions we feel and bonds we create, as well as our ability to experience the world around us.

- John, Worcester, MA

To kill for political rather than survival reasons. What have we become?

- John, St. Louis

Cake

- jeff, 56 yadley avenue, iraq

To be created in the image of God and to be able to talk with him. This distinguishes us from animals who not exhibit these characteristics

- Rebecca, Here

Introspection into the human condition is paradoxically one of the things that makes us feel the most human.

- James V, London, UK

Being human is to have the faculties to determine beauty, philosophize, and reason complexities.

- Courtney, South Carolina

Growth and learning through exploration

- Katrin, Saskatoon

To have a deeper complexity of thoughts, e.g. plan for the future, be aware of the world around us, to think beyond survival/reproduction

- Laura, London

To be human is to make greater assumptions about the world based on our smaller individual experiences.

- Mia, Pennsylvania

Can't choose to be human, but can stop being one or make most of the condition imposed by evolution and become evolution itself for future.

- vijay, irving,TX

Featured Research

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image of Homo floresiensis; LB1, skeleton

'Hobbits' on Flores, Indonesia

New digs and geological dating in Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia, show that Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the “hobbit” for its small size, became extinct around 50,000 years ago – tens of thousands of years earlier than originally thought.

For Teachers

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AP Biology Curriculum Materials

Are you an AP Biology teacher? Click here for freely downloadable curriculum materials aligned to the AP learning objectives that use human case studies to teach core evolutionary principles and a resource to help teachers create a comfortable and supportive classroom environment for teaching evolution.

Lesson Plans

Comparison of Human and Chimp Chromosomes (Grades 9-12)

Investigating Common Descent: Formulating Explanations and Models (Grades 9-12)

Human Evolution: Religious Perspectives

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The Hall of Human Origins offers a welcoming place to explore one of the most exciting areas of science, the study of human evolution. Despite strong public interest in the science, however, many people find this topic troubling when viewed from a religious perspective. Representatives of diverse religious communities encourage a larger, more respectful understanding of both the scientific evidence and religious belief.

Featured Media

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Rock or stone tool

How To Tell a Rock from a Stone Tool

How can you tell if a rock is actually an early stone tool? Watch this video to find out.

Video Thumbnail of Rick Potts from "Designing the Exhibition"

Designing the Exhibition

This video takes you behind-the-scenes into the process of designing and building the Smithsonian's Hall of Human Origins.

Fun Facts

Why do we have wisdom teeth?

When our back molars are impacted in our jaw, they don’t seem very wise! They’re the last teeth to come into place, and having them was helpful to our early ancestors who ate tough, uncooked foods that wore away their teeth. But with cooking and making food softer, the size of our jaws has diminished, often with room for the last molars to form in the jaw…but – ouch! – not enough room to erupt.