Smithsonian Magazine has an excellent piece on their website called AN EVOLUTIONARY TIMELINE OF HOMO SAPIENS which is where "Scientists share the findings that helped them pinpoint key moments in the rise of our species."
The article is broken down into six sections, and while being a brief article skipping a few things it is still remarkably thorough for it's brevity.
The sections are
Each contains multiple hyperlinks providing more detail.
To provide a taste here is the portion before each of the sections
As I said, it isn't long and I highly recommend it.
The article is broken down into six sections, and while being a brief article skipping a few things it is still remarkably thorough for it's brevity.
The sections are
- 550,000 to 750,000 Years Ago: The Beginning of the Homo sapiens Lineage
- 300,000 Years Ago: Fossils Found of Oldest Homo sapiens
- 300,000 Years Ago: Artifacts Show a Revolution in Tools
- 100,000 to 210,000 Years Ago: Fossils Show Homo sapiens Lived Outside of Africa
- 50,000 to 60,000 Years Ago: Genes and Climate Reconstructions Show a Migration Out of Africa
- 15,000 to 40,000 Years Ago: Genetics and Fossils Show Homo sapiens Became the Only Surviving Human Species
Each contains multiple hyperlinks providing more detail.
To provide a taste here is the portion before each of the sections
The long evolutionary journey that created modern humans began with a single step—or more accurately—with the ability to walk on two legs. One of our earliest-known ancestors, Sahelanthropus, began the slow transition from ape-like movement some six million years ago, but Homo sapiens wouldn’t show up for more than five million years. During that long interim, a menagerie of different human species lived, evolved and died out, intermingling and sometimes interbreeding along the way. As time went on, their bodies changed, as did their brains and their ability to think, as seen in their tools and technologies.
To understand how Homo sapiens eventually evolved from these older lineages of hominins, the group including modern humans and our closest extinct relatives and ancestors, scientists are unearthing ancient bones and stone tools, digging into our genes and recreating the changing environments that helped shape our ancestors’ world and guide their evolution.
These lines of evidence increasingly indicate that H. sapiens originated in Africa, although not necessarily in a single time and place. Instead it seems diverse groups of human ancestors lived in habitable regions around Africa, evolving physically and culturally in relative isolation, until climate driven changes to African landscapes spurred them to intermittently mix and swap everything from genes to tool techniques. Eventually, this process gave rise to the unique genetic makeup of modern humans.
"East Africa was a setting in foment—one conducive to migrations across Africa during the period when Homo sapiens arose," says Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program. "It seems to have been an ideal setting for the mixing of genes from migrating populations widely spread across the continent. The implication is that the human genome arose in Africa. Everyone is African, and yet not from any one part of Africa."
New discoveries are always adding key waypoints to the chart of our human journey. This timeline of Homo sapiens features some of the best evidence documenting how we evolved.
To understand how Homo sapiens eventually evolved from these older lineages of hominins, the group including modern humans and our closest extinct relatives and ancestors, scientists are unearthing ancient bones and stone tools, digging into our genes and recreating the changing environments that helped shape our ancestors’ world and guide their evolution.
These lines of evidence increasingly indicate that H. sapiens originated in Africa, although not necessarily in a single time and place. Instead it seems diverse groups of human ancestors lived in habitable regions around Africa, evolving physically and culturally in relative isolation, until climate driven changes to African landscapes spurred them to intermittently mix and swap everything from genes to tool techniques. Eventually, this process gave rise to the unique genetic makeup of modern humans.
"East Africa was a setting in foment—one conducive to migrations across Africa during the period when Homo sapiens arose," says Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program. "It seems to have been an ideal setting for the mixing of genes from migrating populations widely spread across the continent. The implication is that the human genome arose in Africa. Everyone is African, and yet not from any one part of Africa."
New discoveries are always adding key waypoints to the chart of our human journey. This timeline of Homo sapiens features some of the best evidence documenting how we evolved.
As I said, it isn't long and I highly recommend it.
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