Humanity timeline

Documented and published events

Information about main hominin species can be found here: Our ancestors: hominids and hominins

1.8 MYA to 10,000 years ago - Pleistocene epoch

(Neogene Period - Cenozoic era)

• 10,000 years ago - a global shift from foraging to farming; extinction of Neanderthals (Neill D. (2007))
• ~13,000 years ago - beginning of Neolithic era (New Stone Age) in the Middle East; an increase in human population growth rates
• 40,000 years ago - evidence for controlled use of fire in northern Europe associated with Homo heidelbergensis (Wells JC, Stock JT. (2007))
• ~50,000 years ago or earlier - humans occupied Australia
• 70,000 years ago - appearance of speech-enabled humans
• 35,000 (Neill D. (2007)) - 78,000 (Wells JC, Stock JT. (2007)) years ago - arrival and dispersal of humans to temperate zones of Europe where Neanderthals had existed for ~200,000 years already without major changes in culture
• 100,000-200,000 years ago - documented fossils of H. sapiens/H. heidelbergensis-like ancestors in sub-saharan Africa (Martin RD. (2007)); normal human FOXP2 around this time (Enard W at al.(2002))
• 600,000-150,000 years ago - further encephalization burst (referenced in Wells JC, Stock JT. (2007))

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5.332 MYA - 1.806 MYA - Pliocene epoch

(Neogene Period - Cenozoic era)

• 1.8-1 MYA - documented fossils of Homo erectus in Africa, Asia, and Europe; advanced bipedalism; the handaxe, a multipurpose tool with sharp edges and a pointed tip, was the hallmark of Homo erectus technology (Acheulean technology)
• around 1.5 MYA - estimated time for beginning of Acheulean technology (Mode II): handaxes
• around 1.8 MYA - dramatic aridification of environment - savanna and steppe stretched from Eastern and Northern Africa through the Levant and central Asia; possible dependence of early hominins on carnivory occured
• 2.4-5.3 MYA (according to different studies) - the time of frame-shift inactivation of MYH16 (sacromeric myosin) in hominins, a main structural component of muscle tissue, which is associated with marked reduction of chewing musculature (Creely H, Khaitovich P. (2006))
• 2.5 MYA-2 MYA - estimated time for beginning of Oldowan technology (Mode I): making rough, all-purpose tools capable of chopping, scraping, or cutting S
• 4.2 MYA - fossils of Australopithecus anamensis from Kenya (Leakey MG at al. (1998))

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23.03 MYA - 5.33 MYA - Miocene epoch

(Neogene Period - Cenozoic era)

• 4.4 MYA - occurence of morphological characteristics in fossils that might be indicative of development of bipedalism (Wells JC, Stock JT. (2007))
• 7-5 MYA - separation from common human-chimpanzee ancestor (Glazko GV, Nei M. (2003)); around this time two aminoacid substitutions occured in very conservative FOXP2 gene (gene associated with speach) (Enard W at al.(2002))
• 7 MYA - fossils of the earliest hominin, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, from Chad (Brunet M at al. (2005))

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33.9 - 23 MYA - Oligocene epoch

(Paleogene Period - Cenozoic era)

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55.8 - 33.9 MYA - Eocene epoch

(Paleogene Period - Cenozoic era)

• more than 40 MYA - first primates appeared as descendants of small terrestrial insectivorous mammals (Bellisari A. (2008))

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65.5 - 55.8 MYA - Paleocene epoch

(Paleogene Period - Cenozoic era)

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Mesozoic era

(Jurassic and Cretaceous periods)

• ~65 MYA - about 70% of all species then living on Earth disappeared within a very short period including the last of the great dinosaurs; the event is referred as the K-T event (Cretaceous-Tertiary Mass Extinction event)
• 80-120 MYA - divergence of human and mouse lineages
• 140 MYA - vivipary was present in the common therial ancestor of marsipuals and placentals (Martin RD. (2007))
• 200 MYA - emergence of lactation and suckling (Martin RD. (2007))

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Origin of Life

• 2,700 MYA - tentative evidence of presence of primitive Eukaryotes (Nisbet EG, Sleep NH. (2001))
• 3,600-4,000 MYA - geological evidence of first life forms on Earth (Nisbet EG, Sleep NH. (2001))

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Origin of Earth

• 4,500 MYA - the Earth was struck by another inner planet about the size of Mars; this impact spun and tilted the Earth and ejected enormous amounts of molten mantle into orbit, some of which formed the Moon (Nisbet EG, Sleep NH. (2001))
• 4,600 MYA - the Solar system began after one or more local supernova explosions (Nisbet EG, Sleep NH. (2001))

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References

• Martin RD. The evolution of human reproduction: a primatological perspective. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2007;Suppl 45:59-84. PMID: 18046752
• Nisbet EG, Sleep NH. The habitat and nature of early life. Nature. 2001 Feb 22;409(6823):1083-91. PMID: 11234022
• Enard W at al. Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language. Nature. 2002 Aug 22;418(6900):869-72. Epub 2002 Aug 14. PMID: 12192408
• Glazko GV, Nei M. Estimation of divergence times for major lineages of primate species. Mol Biol Evol. 2003 Mar;20(3):424-34. PMID: 12644563
• Bracha HS. Human brain evolution and the "Neuroevolutionary Time-depth Principle: "Implications for the Reclassification of fear-circuitry-related traits in DSM-V and for studying resilience to warzone-related posttraumatic stress disorder. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2006 Jul;30(5):827-53. Epub 2006 Mar 23. PMID: 16563589
• Bellisari A. Evolutionary origins of obesity. Obes Rev. 2008 Mar;9(2):165-80. PMID: 18257754
• Wells JC, Stock JT. The biology of the colonizing ape. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2007;Suppl 45:191-222. PMID: 18046751
• Brunet M at al. New material of the earliest hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad. Nature. 2005 Apr 7;434(7034):752-5. PMID: 15815627
• Leakey MG at al. New specimens and confirmation of an early age for Australopithecus anamensis. Nature. 1998 May 7;393(6680):62-6. PMID: 9590689
• Creely H, Khaitovich P. Human brain evolution. Prog Brain Res. 2006;158:295-309. PMID: 17027702
• Neill D. Cortical evolution and human behaviour. Brain Res Bull. 2007 Sep 28;74(4):191-205. PMID: 17720540

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