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Prehistory (c. 3.3 million years ago – c. 3000 BCE)
"Lucy", the first Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found. Lucy was only 1.06 m (3 ft 6 in) tall.
Humans evolved in Africa. Genetic measurements indicate that the ape lineage which would lead to Homo sapiens diverged from the lineage that would lead to chimpanzees and bonobos, the closest living relatives of modern humans, between 7 million and 5 million years ago.
The term hominin denotes human ancestors that lived after the split with chimpanzees and bonobos, including many species and at least two distinct genera: Australopithecus and Homo. Other fossil specimens such as Paranthropus, Kenyanthropus, and Orrorin may represent additional genera, but paleontologists debate their taxonomic status. The early hominins such as Australopithecus had the same brain size as apes but were distinguished from apes by walking on two legs, an adaptation perhaps associated with a shift from forest to savanna habitats. Hominins began to use rudimentary stone tools c. 3.3 million years ago, marking the advent of the Paleolithic era.
The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus. The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia, and the earliest named species is Homo habilis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago. The most important difference between Homo habilis and Australopithecus was an increase in brain size. H. erectus (the African variant is sometimes called H. ergaster) evolved by 2 million years ago[17][c] and was the first hominin species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia. Perhaps as early as 1.5 million years ago, but certainly by 250,000 years ago, hominins began to use fire for heat and cooking.[20][21]
Beginning about 500,000 years ago, Homo diversified into many new species of archaic humans such as the Neanderthals in Europe, the Denisovans in Siberia, and the diminutive H. floresiensis in Indonesia. Human evolution was not a simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species. Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution.DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non-sub-Saharan African populations, and Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans, may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non-sub-Saharan African humans. Early humans
Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago from a species commonly designated as either H. heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis. Humans continued to develop over the succeeding millennia, and by 100,000 years ago, were already using jewellery and ocher to adorn the body. By 50,000 years ago, they exhibited many characteristic behaviors such as burial of the dead, use of projectile weapons, and seafaring. One of the most important changes was the development of syntactic language, which dramatically improved humans' ability to communicate. Signs of early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, implying a form of spirituality generally interpreted as animism or shamanism. Paleolithic humans lived as hunter-gatherers and were generally nomadic.
The migration of anatomically modern humans out of Africa took place in multiple waves beginning 194,000–177,000 years ago. The dominant view among scholars (Southern Dispersal) is that the early waves of migration died out and all modern non-Africans are descended from a single group that left Africa 70,000–50,000 years ago. H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Australia 65,000 years ago,[43] Europe 45,000 years ago, and the Americas 21,000 years ago.
These migrations occurred during the most recent Ice Age, when temperate regions of today were extremely inhospitable. Nevertheless, by the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, humans had colonized nearly all ice-free parts of the globe. Human expansion coincided with both the Quaternary extinction event and Neanderthal extinction. These extinctions were probably caused by climate change, human activity, or a combination of the two.
Beginning around 10,000 BCE, the Neolithic Revolution marked the development of agriculture, which fundamentally changed the human lifestyle. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa, in at least 11 separate centers of origin. Cereal crop cultivation and animal domestication had occurred in Mesopotamia by at least 8500 BCE in the form of wheat, barley, sheep, and goats.
There is no scholarly consensus on why the Neolithic Revolution occurred. For example, according to some theories, agriculture was the result of an increase in population which led people to seek out new food sources, while in others agriculture was the cause of population growth as the food supply improved. Other proposed factors include climate change, resource scarcity, and ideology. The effects of the transition to agriculture are better understood--it created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production, permitting far denser populations and the creation of the first cities and states.
Cities were centers of trade, manufacturing, and political power. Cities established a symbiosis with their surrounding countrysides, absorbing agricultural products and providing, in return, manufactured goods and varying degrees of political control. Early proto-cities appeared at Jericho and Çatalhöyük around 6000 BCE.
Metalworking was first used in the creation of copper tools and ornaments around 6400 BCE. Gold and silver soon followed, primarily for use in ornaments. The need for metal ores stimulated trade, as many areas of early human settlement lacked the necessary ores. The first signs of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, date to around 4500 BCE, but the alloy did not become widely used until the third millennium BCE.
Neolithic societies usually worshiped ancestors, sacred places, or anthropomorphic deities. The vast complex of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, dated 9500–8000 BCE, is a spectacular example of a Neolithic religious or civic site. It may have been built by hunter-gatherers rather than a sedentary population. Elaborate mortuary practices developed in the Levant during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, in which certain high-status individuals were buried under the floors of houses and the graves were later re-opened for the skulls to be removed. Some of the skulls were then covered in plaster, painted, and displayed in public. Ancient history (c. 3000 BCE – c. 500 CE)
The Bronze Age saw the development of cities and civilizations. Early civilizations arose close to rivers, first in Mesopotamia (3000 BCE) with the Tigris and Euphrates, followed by the Egyptian civilization along the Nile River (3000 BCE), the Indus Valley civilization in Pakistan and northwestern India (2500 BCE), and the Chinese civilization along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers (2200 BCE).
These societies developed a number of unifying characteristics, including a central government, a complex economy and social structure, systems for keeping records, and distinct cultures and religions. These cultures variously invented the wheel, mathematics, bronze-working, sailing boats, the potter's wheel, woven cloth, construction of monumental buildings, and writing. Polytheistic religions developed, centered on temples where priests and priestesses performed sacrificial rites.
Writing facilitated the administration of cities, the expression of ideas, and the preservation of information.[103] Writing may have independently developed in at least four ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (3300 BCE), Egypt (around 3250 BCE), China (1200 BCE), and lowland Mesoamerica (by 650 BCE). Among the earliest surviving written religious scriptures are the Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the oldest of which date to between 2400 and 2300 BCE.
Trade became increasingly important as urban societies exchanged manufactured goods for raw materials from distant lands, creating vast commercial networks and the beginnings of archaic globalization. Bronze production, for example, required the import of tin to Southwest Asia from as far away as England,[116] and Indus Valley seals and gems have been found in Mesopotamia.[117]
The growth of cities was often followed by the establishment of states and empires. In Mesopotamia, there prevailed a pattern of independent warring city-states and of a loose hegemony shifting from one city to another. In Egypt, by contrast, the initial division into Upper and Lower Egypt was followed by the unification of all the valley around 3100 BCE.
Most ancient societies had slaves. Slavery was particularly prevalent in Athens and Rome, where slaves made up a large proportion of the population and were foundational to the economy. Most societies were also patriarchal, with men controlling more political and economic power than women.