Homo nosce te ipsum. The species Homo sapiens was described by Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758) but no holotype was designated as part of the original description, as was customary at the time. The question of what person should serve as the type specimen is addressed in a FAQ on the ICZN website by David Notton and Chris Stringer, where they argue Carl Linnaeus himself is the appropriate lectotype as designated by William Stearn in 1959. Norton and Stringer also refute the designation of Edward Cope as a type for Homo sapiens. Cope is unavailable as a lectotype because he was not alive in 1758 and therefore not among the specimens considered by Linnaeus. Spamer (1999) provides a full description of the history and context of the debate. Historically, biological anthropology is replete with numerous taxonomies that recognize subspecies and races of Homo sapiens but current consensus is that humans form a single species and prior racial classifications served largely colonial and imperial rather than biological or taxonomic interests. The fossil record of Homo sapiens extends possibly to 300 ka (Hublen et al. 2017) and includes several morphological subspecies such as Homo sapiens idaltu from Herto, Ethiopia (White et al. 2003).
