What is called the first human?

The first humans are collectively referred to as Homo sapiens, but identifying a single "first human" is scientifically impossible because evolution works through gradual population-level changes rather than sudden individual transformations. The earliest known Homo sapiens fossils, discovered at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco and dating to approximately 300,000 years ago, represent our oldest direct ancestors, though these individuals lived among populations that were transitioning toward modern human anatomy over thousands of generations.

In various cultural and religious traditions, symbolic "first humans" carry deep significance—Adam and Eve in Abrahamic religions, Ask and Embla in Norse mythology, or other creation figures across world cultures—but these represent theological or mythological frameworks rather than scientific descriptions. From an evolutionary perspective, there was never a moment when non-human parents gave birth to the first human child; instead, populations of archaic Homo species gradually accumulated anatomical and genetic changes over hundreds of thousands of years. Scientists sometimes use the term "Mitochondrial Eve" and "Y-chromosomal Adam" to refer to the most recent common female and male ancestors of all living humans, but these individuals lived at different times (approximately 150,000-200,000 years ago) and were surrounded by many other humans—they simply happen to be the ancestors whose mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes, respectively, survived in all modern lineages.