Tucoxi's Lab
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Early Man
Learn a Little About Your Ancestors.

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Here are names of some of our common ancestors
and their approximate time spans.

  • Ardipithecus -- 4.4 million years ago
  • Australopithecus anamensis -- 4.3 to 3.9 million years ago
  • Australopithecus afarensis -- 3.9 to 3 million years ago
  • Australopithecus bahrelghazali -- 3.5 to 3 million years ago
  • Australopithecus africanus -- 3 to 2.3 million years ago
  • Australopithecus boisei (including A. aethiopicus) -- 2.4 to 1 million years ago
  • Homohabilis (including H. rudolfensis) -- 2.5 to 1.4 million years ago
  • Australopithecus robustus -- 2 to 1.2 million years ago
  • Homo erectus (H. ergaster) -- 1.8 million to 100,000 years ago
  • Archaic Homo sapiens (H. heidelbergensis) -- 800,000 to 100,000 years ago
  • Neandertal -- 225,000 to 28,000 years ago
  • Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens -- 100,000 years ago to present

Some Historic Firsts

  • 2.4 million years ago -- Earliest known stone tools
  • 1 million years ago -- Earliest evidence of controlled fire
  • 340,000 years ago -- Earliest evidence of shelters
  • 125,000 years ago -- Earliest evidence of modern Homo sapiens in Africa
  • 100,000 years ago -- Earliest evidence of burials
  • 60,000 years ago -- Earliest evidence of modern Homo sapiens in Australia
  • 39,000 years ago -- Earliest evidence of modern Homo sapiens in Europe
  • 31,000 years ago -- Earliest known cave paintings
  • 11,500 years ago -- Earliest evidence of modern Homo sapiens in America
  • 10,000 years ago -- Most recent Ice Age ends
  • 4,000 years ago -- First cities
Information concerning our early ancestors

In 1925, Raymond Dart said A. africanus could do that; and since then we have unearthed other humanoids from sites all over Africa known as "Australopithecines." A. bahrelghazali was found in Chad and dated at 3 to 3.5 million years, which took geographic range 1500 miles west of the East African Rift. When A. anamensis was found in Kenya, the human evolutionary scale moved back another 250,000 years. But, the earliest known fossil to date was found in Ethiopia, Ardipithecus radimus, 4.4 million years old. Have visited this page.