Prehistory - Timeline

Timeline

Further information: Timeline of human evolution and Timeline of the Stone Age

All dates are approximate and conjectural, obtained through research in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, genetics, geology, or linguistics. They are all subject to revision due to new discoveries or improved calculations. BP stands for "Before Present (1950)."

Lower Paleolithic

• c. 2.5 million BP - Evidence of early human tools
• c. 2.4 million BP - Genus Homo appears as a carnivorous scavenger
• c. 600,000 BP - Hunting-gathering
• c. 400,000 BP Control of fire by early humans

Middle Paleolithic

• c. 200,000 BP - Anatomically modern Homo sapiens appear in Africa, including by this point lack of significant hair compared to other primates
• c. 300,000 BP to 30,000 BP. Mousterian (Neanderthal) culture in Europe.
• c. 75,000 BP - Toba Volcano supereruption.
• c. 70,000 - 50,000 BP - Homo sapiens move from Africa to Asia. In the next millennia, these human groups' descendants move on to southern India, the Malay islands, Australia, Japan, China, Siberia, Alaska, and the northwestern coast of North America.
• c. 50,000? BP - Behavioral modernity, by this point including language and sophisticated cognition
• c. 42,000 - 650,000? BP - Invention of clothing

Upper Paleolithic

• c. 32,000 BP - Aurignacian culture begins in Europe.
• c. 30,000 BP / 28,000 BC - A herd of reindeer is slaughtered and butchered by humans in the Vezere Valley in what is today France.
• c. 28,500 BC - New Guinea is populated by colonists from Asia or Australia.
• c. 28,000 BP - 20,000 BP - Gravettian period in Europe. Harpoons, needles, and saws invented.
• c. 26,000 BP / c. 24,000 BC - Women around the world use fibers to make baby-carriers, clothes, bags, baskets, and nets.
• c. 25,000 BP / 23,000 BC - A hamlet consisting of huts built of rocks and of mammoth bones is founded in what is now Dolni Vestonice in Moravia in the Czech Republic. This is the oldest human permanent settlement that has yet been found by archaeologists.
• c. 20,000 BP or 18,000 BC - Chatelperronian culture in France.
• c. 16,000 BP / 14,000 BC - Wisent sculpted in clay deep inside the cave now known as Le Tuc d'Audoubert in the French Pyrenees near what is now the border of Spain.
• c. 14,800 BP / 12,800 BC - The Humid Period begins in North Africa. The region that would later become the Sahara is wet and fertile, and the Aquifers are full.

Mesolithic

Neolithic

• c. 8000 BC / 7000 BC - In northern Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, cultivation of barley and wheat begins. At first they are used for beer, gruel, and soup, eventually for bread. In early agriculture at this time, the Planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive Plow in subsequent centuries. Around this time, a round stone tower, now preserved to about 8.5 meters high and 8.5 meters in diameter is built in Jericho.

Chalcolithic

• c. 3700 BC - Cuneiform writing appears in Sumer, and records begin to be kept. According to the majority of specialists, the first Mesopotamian writing was a tool that had little connection to the spoken language.
• c. 3000 BC - Stonehenge construction begins. In its first version, it consisted of a circular ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts.