All people today are classified as Homo sapiens. Our species of humans first began to evolve nearly 200,000 years ago in association with technologies not unlike those of the early Neandertals. It is now clear that early Homo sapiens, or modern humans, did not come after the Neandertals but were their contemporaries. However, it is likely that both modern humans and Neandertals descended from Homo heidelbergensis.
Compared to the Neandertals and other late archaic humans, modern humans generally have more delicate skeletons. Their skulls are more rounded and their brow ridges generally protrude much less. They rarely have the occipital buns found on the back of Neandertal skulls. They also have relatively high foreheads, smaller faces, and pointed chins.
photo of a Neandertal and a modern human skull shown together for comparison with differences in foreheads, brow ridges, and chins highlihgted
Neandertal modern Homo sapiens
The species that you and all other living human beings on this planet belong to is Homo sapiens. During a time of dramatic climate change 200,000 years ago, Homo sapiens (modern humans) evolved in Africa. Like other early humans that were living at this time, they gathered and hunted food, and evolved behaviors that helped them respond to the challenges of survival in unstable environments.
Anatomically, modern humans can generally be characterized by the lighter build of their skeletons compared to earlier humans. Modern humans have very large brains, which vary in size from population to population and between males and females, but the average size is approximately 1300 cubic centimeters. Housing this big brain involved the reorganization of the skull into what is thought of as "modern" -- a thin-walled, high vaulted skull with a flat and near vertical forehead. Modern human faces also show much less (if any) of the heavy brow ridges and prognathism of other early humans. Our jaws are also less heavily developed, with smaller teeth.
Scientists sometimes use the term “anatomically modern Homo sapiens” to refer to members of our own species who lived during prehistoric times.