Why are human fossils very rare?

Answer 1

It bears mention that ALL fossils are rare in comparison with the amount of creatures that were around when the creature that made the fossil died. If you have a trillion trilobites swimming around in the ocean, it's not too surprsing to find a fossil of one. If you only have a couple thousand pre-historic humans kicking around, you'll be lucky if a fossil exists at all. This may also be why the more transitional fossils of all kinds are difficult to locate.

There are also any number of other complicating factors. Most fossils are formed when creatures are buried in mud... so there are more fossils of sea creatures than land ones. Likewise, it's reasonable to assume that no creature WANTS to be made into a fossil, so the more intelligent a creature is, the more it's going to be able to avoid some of the things that would cause it to be trapped and killed in such a way. Soft-bodied creatures also decay - and thus don't fossilize - far more readily than hard-bodied ones.

Humans being land-bound, more or less intelligent, mostly soft, and for most of history not too numerous, it is probably not surprising we've found as few fossils of humans as we have.

Answer 2

While humans have existed for about 500,000 years, there were not many of them until the last 5 to 10 thousand years. It is actually a rare event for an animal to become a fossil. The conditions have to be just right. So the lack of not many specimens and few dieing under conditions that would cause them to fossilize has lead to a much smaller number then other animals that have been around longer and in larger numbers.

Answer 3

Because humans are generally burried in some type of box. Before the coffin, it hasn't been long enough to make a fossil.

Answer 4

To create a fossil the creature living must be covered by debris (dirt, mud, etc...) very quickly after it perishes. Most ancient humans died under more control environments like Savannah's and wooded areas where there bodies would not be covered by debris.
most of the time scavengers would disrupt the body and scatter the remains over a large area.

Humans remains have been found as old as 2.5 million years. the last one this old we scientist named "Lucy".

Recently, remains of a primate humanoid was found in the USA is is believed to be 42 million years old!

Most of the Ancient human remains that have been found have been found in areas that they were covered by mud rock and other debris to preserve the intact body.

Answer 5

because human bones deteriorate before dinosaur bones, and usually, they'll decay and grow old within 3-4 weeks, and nobody ever finds them again. so the reason is, is because they are usually in coffins, or the body is deteriorated.

Answer 6

because no humans were alive around 30 million years ago. thats why we mostly find skeletons.

Answer 7

most are buried in grave yards.