Homo Sapiens
250,000 to 13,000 Years Ago
Our Beginnings
Homo sapiens probably evolved in Africa about 250,000 years ago, and successfully migrated out of Africa about 80,000 years ago. Despite a devastating supervolcano that reduced human population to no more than several thousand, our species was successfully established as far east as China and as far south as Australia and Papua New Guinea within 10,000 years. By the time the most recent global freeze forced a withdrawal from central and northern Europe 25,000 years ago, human culture had spread throughout half the globe.
Homo Sapiens
250,000 years ago
Homo sapiens, the species to which we belong, probably evolved gradually, between 300,000 and 100,000 years ago. "Eve," not actually a single woman but a core of between 2,000 and 10,000 Africans, lived some 200,000 years ago. Our "Adam," also not literally a single male progenitor, was more adventurous and lived there somewhat later. DNA analysis suggests that all of us alive today have descended from them.
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Abstract Thought
130,000 years ago
We Homo sapiens have a lot in common with other animals, yet we are extraordinary. We read poetry, celebrate birthdays, care who wins a football game, and write wills to distribute our property when we die. We've gone to the moon and are trying to get to Mars. What makes it possible for us to do these things? Scientists are seeking to figure out when our ancestors started thinking the way we think today.
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Artifacts suggest people were thinking abstractly somewhere between 130,000 and 77,000 years ago, but such abilities may have developed earlier, even several million years earlier. The spiral carvings visible on the photograph are typical of those which are found on rocks and standing stones throughout Britain and western Europe. They are clearly indicative of a capacity for speculative, rational or abstract thought. The carving shown here is on Long Meg, the principal stone in a famous circle in England's Cumbria, "Long Meg and her Daughters." The carvings on Long Meg date from 2000-900 BCE. |
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Neanderthal Man
125,000 years ago
Homo neanderthalenses were a human species and co-existed with Homo sapiens for up to 20 thousand years. Named after the Neander valley in Germany where their fossils were first found in 1856, they hunted, made clothes and used tools. They lived in small family groups, cared for their sick and buried their dead. Their tough stocky bodies gave them immense physical stamina and they spread from Spain to Israel and as far north as the Ukraine. Yet 25-30 thousand years ago, all trace of the Neanderthals disappeared.
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Out of Africa
80,000 years ago
Most scientists think Homo sapiens lived in Africa for over a hundred thousand years and that a small band left Africa 80,000 years ago. They believe this was the only successful exodus by Homo sapiens and all non-Africans - Asians, Europeans, Indians, Orientals, Australians and Native Americans - are descendants of this single pioneering group. Research will continue to explore whether this simple story is what really happened.
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The Toba Supervolcano
74,000 years ago
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Shortly after the exodus from Africa, a supervolcano in Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia erupted. It sent three billion tons of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere and for at least five years the world was plunged into a volcanic winter. The entire human population was reduced from over a hundred thousand to several thousand and it is possible that the population never grew beyond this number for the next 20,000 thousand years. |
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It is in the Indian ocean just north of Sumatra that a devastating undersea earthquake of 2004 generated a tsunami that has destroyed more than 200,000 lives. The above animation produced by the US National Oceanic Administration illustrates the tsunami's range.
China, Australia and Papua
70,000 years ago
Despite the Toba supervolcano, 10,000 years after they had left Africa, people had migrated as far east as China and as far south as Australia and Papua New Guinea. A severe glacial period 70,000 years ago created so much ice that sea levels were drastically lowered, making a sea crossing from Timor to Australia just feasible. The crossing would have required the kind of seaworthy watercraft not found anywhere else in the world for another 50,000 years!
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Cro-Magnon man in Europe
18,000 years ago
As the world warmed up, settlers of our species called Cro-Magnons arrived in Europe from the Middle East. They were semi-nomads with extensive trading networks. They could weave and sew clothes, build huts, storage pits and quarries. They buried their dead with highly developed rituals. The Cro-Magnons also left behind artistic works, including the cave paintings of life-sized animals in southern France and Spain.
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© Copyright T. H. Sissons "All of Time Online" 2004-2006 all rights reserved
The title background image is from a public domain photograph of sunrise taken at Neptun on the Black Sea by Romanian photographer Bogdan Gluşcă.
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