Human originshow apes became Homo sapiens

Human evolution begins about 6 million years ago with walking upright, which freed the hands. Stone tools, fire, Homo sapiens, language, the move out of Africa and cave paintings came later. The time range of this era is "6 million – 12,000 years ago", and it has seven key events.

The details of human evolution are still being updated, and each study below represents only the conclusion of the year it was published.

Seven events

• 6 million years ago · Walking upright: The hands are freed.
• 3.3 million years ago · Stone tools: Smashing stone to make sharp edges.
• 1 million years ago · Fire: Cooked food lets the brain grow larger.
• 300,000 years ago · Homo sapiens: Modern human bones appear.
• 100,000 years ago · Language: Complex ideas can be passed on.
• 70,000 years ago · Out of Africa: Humans spread to every continent.
• 40,000 years ago · Cave paintings: Symbols and art.

Standing up: the fossil evidence

The skull of a small child showed that human ancestors came from Africa, and that they learned to walk upright first, with the brain growing larger later. The skull is known as the Taung Child (Dart, Nature, 1925). A line of footprints left in volcanic ash proves that early hominins were already walking upright more than 3.6 million years ago (Leakey and Hay, Nature, 1979). In the same year, Australopithecus afarensis, the species of "Lucy", got a firm place on the human family tree (Johanson and White, Science, 1979).

Tools and fire

The oldest stone tools are older than the genus Homo, which shows that the toolmakers were not necessarily "human" (Harmand et al., Nature, 2015). Evidence of fire comes from Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa: ash and burnt bones in the cave are evidence that early humans used fire inside it (Berna et al., PNAS, 2012).

Where Homo sapiens came from

Fossils from Morocco push the history of Homo sapiens back by about 100,000 years and suggest that our species originated across the whole of Africa rather than in a single place (Hublin et al., Nature, 2017). Earlier, genes had offered another angle: the mitochondrial DNA of all modern humans can be traced to one woman who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago (Cann, Stoneking and Wilson, Nature, 1987).

Ancient genomes: we are not alone

After the Neanderthal genome was sequenced, it turned out that modern humans outside Africa carry a small share of Neanderthal DNA (Green et al., Science, 2010). From the DNA of a single finger bone, researchers found a previously unknown group of ancient humans, the Denisovans (Reich et al., Nature, 2010).

Language and art

The FOXP2 gene, linked to language, underwent special changes in the human lineage (Enard et al., Nature, 2002). In art, a painting of a pig that is at least 45,500 years old is one of the oldest known figurative artworks, somewhat older than the "40,000 years ago" cave painting event on the timeline (Brumm et al., Science Advances, 2021).

How the studies line up with the timeline

Several nodes on the timeline find an echo in the research. The stone tools event is at 3.3 million years ago, and Harmand et al.'s paper title gives exactly 3.3-million-year-old stone tools. The fire event is at 1 million years ago, and the ash and burnt bones at Wonderwerk Cave have been called a "million-year-old campfire". The Homo sapiens event is at 300,000 years ago, and the Moroccan fossils push the history of Homo sapiens back to around that date. The cave painting event is at 40,000 years ago, while the pig painting in Sulawesi is at least 45,500 years old, earlier than the number on the timeline. Such differences are normal: the timeline gives a rough order that is easy to follow, and the exact years depend on the research itself.

Want to read the originals? Search these titles

• Dart (1925): Australopithecus africanus: The man-ape of South Africa
• Leakey and Hay (1979): Pliocene footprints in the Laetolil Beds at Laetoli, northern Tanzania
• Johanson and White (1979): A systematic assessment of early African hominids
• Harmand et al. (2015): 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya
• Berna et al. (2012): Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave
• Hublin et al. (2017): New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens
• Cann et al. (1987): Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution
• Green et al. (2010): A draft sequence of the Neandertal genome
• Reich et al. (2010): Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia
• Enard et al. (2002): Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language
• Brumm et al. (2021): Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi

How the game shows it

In the game, the Human origins era has the resource population, and its generators are Primate troops, Hunting & gathering, Tribes and Migration. They run from a group of primates, to living by hunting and gathering, to forming tribes and moving around. Real evolution was of course more winding than this.