Pre History

Prehistory is a narrative of the doings of humans around the world before the beginning of writing. (785 records).

We begin in the easternmost subregions and move westwardly around the globe, crossing the equator as many as six times to explore ever shorter time periods as we continue to circle the planet. The maps of the regions and subregions change to reflect the appropriate time period.

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Lucy, discovered in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar region, is considered the world's second oldest, but most complete and best preserved, adult Australopithecine fossil.

Lucy's taxonomic name, Australopithecus afarensis, means 'southern ape of Afar', and refers to the Ethiopian region where the discovery was made.

Lucy is estimated to have lived three point two million years ago.

There have been many other notable fossil findings in the country, including another early hominin, Ardipithicus ramidus (Ardi).

East Africa, and more specifically the general area of Ethiopia, is widely considered the site of the emergence of early Homo sapiens in the Middle Paleolithic.

Humans—the genus Homo—may have descended from australopithecine ancestors, while the genus Ardipithecus is a possible ancestor of the australopithecines.

Australopithecine is the general term for any species in the related genera of Australopithecus and Paranthropus.

They are bipedal and dentally similar to humans, but with a brain size not much larger than that of modern apes.

It appears that the Australopithecus genus evolved in eastern Africa around four million years ago before spreading throughout the continent and eventually becoming extinct two million years ago.

During this time period several australopith species emerges, including Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, A. anamensis, A. bahrelghazali, A. garhi and A. sediba.

Opinions differ as to whether the species aethiopicus, boisei, and robustus should be included within the genus Australopithecus, and there is no current consensus as to whether they should be placed in the distinct group of hominids now called the "robust australopiths” or, Paranthropus (Greek para, "beside"; Greek anthropos, “human”).

The fossil record seems to indicate that Australopithecus is the common ancestor of Paranthropus, and most likely the genus Homo, which includes modern humans.

Though the intelligence of these early hominids is likely no more sophisticated than modern apes, the bipedal stature is the key evidence that distinguishes the group from previous primates, who were quadrupeds.

Most species of Australopithecus are no more adept at tool use than modern nonhuman primates, yet modern African apes, chimpanzees, and most recently gorillas, have been known to use crack open nuts with stones and use long sticks to dig for termites in mounds, and chimpanzees have been observed using spears (not thrown) for hunting.

However, some have argued that A. garhi used stone tools due to a loose association of this species and butchered animal remains.

Trace element studies of the strontium/calcium ratios in robust australopith fossils  in 1992 suggested the possibility of animal consumption, as they did in 1994 using stable carbon isotopic analysis.

Paranthropus stands roughly one point three to one point four meters (four and a quarter to four and a half feet) tall and is well muscled.

More massively built craniodentally, Paranthropus tends to sport gorilla-like sagittal crests on the cranium that anchor massive temporalis muscles of mastication.

The emergence of the robusts could be either a display of divergent or convergent evolution.

Australopithecus afarensis and A. anamensis had, for the most part, disappeared by the time Paranthropus first appears, roughly two point seven million years ago, sharing the earth with some early examples of the Homo genus, such as Homo habilis, H. ergaster, and possibly even H. erectus.

Most species of Paranthropus have significantly larger braincases than Australopithecus, with a brain about forty percent of the size of a modern human.

Paranthropus is associated with stone tools both in southern and eastern Africa, although there is considerable debate whether they were made and utilized by these robust australopithecines or contemporaneous Homo.

Most believe that early Homo was the toolmaker, but hand fossils from Swartkrans, South Africa, indicate that the hand of this robust species was also adapted for precision grasping and tool use.

Most Paranthropus species seem almost certainly neither to have used language nor to have controlled fire, although they are directly associated with the latter at Swartkrans.

Its physiology specifically tailored to a diet of grubs and plants, Paranthropus is thought to have lived in wooded areas rather than the grasslands of the Australopithecus.

This would have made it more reliant on favorable environmental conditions than members of the genus Homo, such as Homo habilis, which would eat a much wider variety of foods.

Therefore, due to poor adaptation, Paranthropus boisei/Robust Australopithecus dies out, leaving no descendants.

The Quaternary Period, the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present.

Typically defined by the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets driven by Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that occurred, the Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene and the Holocene (eleven thousand seven hundred years ago to today).

The Pleistocene spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations.

With the onset of the Quaternary glaciation, the first of the several ice ages to follow, decreasing oceanic evaporation results in a drier climate in East Africa and an expansion of the savanna at the expense of forests.

Reduced availability of fruits forces some Australopithecines to unlock new food sources found in the drier savanna climate, representing a move from the mostly frugivorous or omnivorous diet of Australopithecus to the carnivorous scavenging lifestyle of early Homo.

Paranthropus species are still present in the beginning of the Pleistocene, along with early human ancestors, but they disappear during the lower Paleolithic.

The Lower Paleolithic, the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age, begins around two and a half million million years ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tools by hominids appears in the current archaeological record.

The genus Homo, which includes modern humans and species closely related to them, is estimated to be about two point three to two point four million years old, evolving from australopithecine ancestors with the appearance of Homo habilis.

Specifically, H. habilis is considered the direct descendant of Australopithecus garhi, a gracile species that lived about two and a half million years ago.

The most salient physiological development between the two species is the increase in cranial capacity, from about four hundred and fifty cubic centimeters (twenty-seven cubic inches) in A. garhi to six hundred cubic centimeters (thirty-seven cubic inches) in H. habilis.

The African South, encompassing the southern subcontinent of Africa, includes the Republic of South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Botswana, southern Mozambique, nearly all of Namibia except its far north, and the western portion of East Antarctica.

This region also extends into the South Atlantic and Southern Ocean, incorporating Coronation Island (visible above the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula), South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands, and the remote Tristan da Cunha and Gough Islands in the mid-South Atlantic.

The desolate Kerguelen Islands, marking the convergence of Southern Africa, Australasia, and Afroasia, form its easternmost point.

The northern boundary runs just south of the Namibia-Angola border, tracing the Caprivi Strip before reaching the Mababe Depression, northwest of the Okavango Basin.

The northeastern border follows Botswana’s boundary with Zimbabwe, then continues between South Africa’s Drakensberg Range and Kruger National Park, before finally separating Eswatini from Mozambique.

HistoryAtlas contains 554 entries for the African South from the Paleolithic period to 1899.

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Homo gautengensis is, as of May 2010, the earliest recognized species in the genus Homo.

While earlier fossils belong to the genus Homo, none have yet been classified in any species.

Analysis announced in May 2010 of a partial skull found decades earlier in South Africa's Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg identified the species, named Homo gautengensis by anthropologist Dr Darren Curnoe of the UNSW School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences.

While earlier fossils belong to the genus Homo, none have yet been classified in any species.

The species' first remains were originally discovered in 1977 but had been left largely ignored.

They had been catalogued Stw 53 and were noted as being anomalous.

Identification of H. gautengensis was based on partial skulls, several jaws, teeth and other bones found at various times at the Caves.

It emerged over two million years ago and died out approximately six hundred thousand years years ago, and is believed to have arisen earlier than Homo habilis.

According to Curnoe, who led the research project, Homo gautengensis had big teeth suitable for chewing plant material.

It was "small-brained" and "large-toothed," and was "probably an ecological specialist, consuming more vegetable matter than Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, and probably even Homo habilis."

It apparently produced and used stone tools and may even have made fire, as there is evidence for burnt animal bones associated with H. gautengensis' remains.

Curnoe and South African paleoanthropologist colleague Phillip Tobias believe H. gautengensis stood just over three feet tall and weighed about one hundred and ten pounds.

It walked on two feet when on the ground, "but probably spent considerable time in trees, perhaps feeding, sleeping and escaping predators," Curnoe said.

The researchers believe it lacked speech and language skills.

Due to its anatomy and geological age, researchers think that it was a close relative of Homo sapiens but not necessarily a direct ancestor.

Homo habilis (“Handy-man") lives from approximately two point three to one point four million years ago at the beginning of the Pleistocene period.

With a cranial capacity slightly less than half of the size of modern humans, standing no more than one point three meters meters four feet three inches) tall, and with disproportionately long arms compared to modern humans, it has a less protruding face than the australopithecines from which it is thought to have descended.

Despite the ape-like morphology of the bodies, primitive stone tools often accompany H. habilis remains.

Homo habilis has often been thought to be the ancestor of the more gracile and sophisticated Homo ergaster, which in turn gives rise to the more human-appearing species, Homo erectus.

Some experts propose excluding H. habilis from the genus Homo, and renaming as "Australopithecus habilis.” Debates continue over whether H. habilis is a direct human ancestor, and whether all of the known fossils are properly attributed to the species.

New findings in 2007, however, suggest that the two species coexisted and may be separate lineages from a common ancestor instead of H. erectus being descended from H. habilis.

Homo erectus (from the Latin ērĭgĕre, "to put up, set upright”) originated in Africa at the end of the Pliocene epoch and spread as far as China and Java to the later Pleistocene, about one point eight to one point three million years ago.

There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H. erectus, with two major alternative hypotheses: erectus may be another name for Homo ergaster, and therefore the direct ancestor of later hominids such as Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens; or it may be an Asian species distinct from African ergaster.

Homo erectus is the only hominid species found in fossil records for much of the Pleistocene.

The phenomena called the Saharan pump has been used to date four waves of human migration from Africa of which H. erectus is the first, migrating from Africa around two million years ago into Southeast and East Asia.

This species will migrate through much of the Old World, giving rise to many variations of humans, notably Homo ergaster, widely accepted to be the direct ancestor of later hominids such as Homo heidelbergensis, Homo sapiens, and Homo neanderthalensis rather than Asian Homo erectus.

The Great Crossroads, one of the twelve divisions of the globe, is centered on Eurasia, with its northernmost extent meeting Northern Oceania and The Atlantic World at the North Pole. This vast region excludes the eastern, western, and southern extremities of the Eurasian landmass, which spans a significant portion of the Earth's surface.

The Ural Mountains, running approximately north to south, serve as the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia, as well as between Russia proper and Siberia.

For the purposes of this framework, The Great Crossroads includes Mongolia; western China, including Xinjiang and the Tibetan Plateau; the northern half of the Indian subcontinent; Afghanistan; the Iranian Plateau; Mesopotamia; eastern Arabia; the northern Levant; northeastern Cyprus; western and southwestern Anatolia; the Caucasus; Eastern Europe; Siberia; the Eastern Balkans; Eastern Scandinavia; the Baltic Sea basin; and Middle Europe.

• The southwestern boundary runs diagonally from south-central Germany, through the eastern Alps, the Balkans, and western Asia, terminating in the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula in the vast desert known as the Rub’ al Khali.
• The southern boundary divides South India from North India, following the generally recognized demarcation that includes the Narmada River, and separates the Indian Ocean-facing southeastern Arabian coast from the Persian Gulf-focused eastern Arabia.
• The southeastern boundary runs diagonally from the Bay of Bengal, following India’s border with Myanmar, marking the division between South Asia and both Southeast Asia and Eastern Asia.

HistoryAtlas contains 17,580 entries for The Great Crossroads from the Paleolithic period to 1899.

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