History of Humans

The history of humans begins in the Late Cretaceous period, 88 million years ago, when early mammals started to evolve. The earliest fossils of these evolved mammals date back to around 55 million years ago during the Paleocene.

Around the 15-20 million-year-ago mark, the Hominidae family diverged from the Hylobatidae family, which are both part of the Hominoidea superfamily. The Homininae subfamily, known today as African apes, diverged from Ponginae, modern-day orangutans, around 14 million years ago.

The Hominini tribe, which includes us humans and some other apes, parted with the Gorillini tribe, modern-day gorillas, around eight to nine million years ago. In turn to this, the Hominina, us humans, and Panina, modern-day chimpanzees, subtribes separated around four to seven million years ago. Thus begins the next step in human evolution.

Fast-forwarding to 2.8 million years ago, we meet the earliest documented representative of the Homo genus: Homo habilis, which appeared around this time. Homo habilis is arguably the first species known to use stone tools. The brains of these prehistoric humans are known to be the size of a chimpanzee’s brain. However, the brain would grow over the next million years with the evolution of Homo erectus and Homo ergaster. At this point, cranial capacity had grown to 850 cm³.

There are a lot of prehistoric human species that follow, so let’s fast forward to 300,000 years ago, where the human species is about to make history. We arrive at the Homo sapiens, the human species we evolved from. The first Homo sapiens appeared around this time in Africa. This is where our history comes to a close. There’s probably a lot more to learn about humans, so why not do some research? There’s lots of information on the internet that just might be worth your while.