200,000-10.000 BCE
200,000 BCE
NEANDERTHALS
In Europe and the Near East, Neanderthals, a new human species adapted to cold conditions, appeared.
Stocky and muscular, Neanderthals hunted large mammals, using spears, at close quarters.
Neanderthals dressed in skins and lived in caves, where they also buried their dead.
Neanderthals probably lived in extended family groups, in rock shelters,and caves.
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Neanderthals made a wide range of tool and weapons.This scraper for preparing skins, was shaped by chipping flakes from the flint with a hummer of bone or antler.
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110.000 BCE
Ice sheets
This period marked the begining of a 100,000 year-long cold phase in the Earth's climate. in which ice sheets periodically spread south from the Arctic and sea levels sank.
In Eurasia, forests gave way to steppe and grassland inhabited by animals adapted to the cold, such as the wooly rhinoceros.
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85,000-70,000 BCE
Into Asia
Modern human, Homo sapiens, moved out of Africa and into Asia. They then spread east across South Asia, keeping to the warmer southern regions. The previous human species in Asia, Homo erectus, had already become extinct.
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50,000 BCE
First sea voyages
Modern human from Asia made the earliest known boat journeys, crossing the sea to settle Australia,. Here they found unfamiliar animals, including the Giant Kangaroo and many large flightless birds, many of these became extinct following the arrival of humans.
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40,000 BCE
Cro-Magnons
The first modern humans in Europe are called Cro-Magnons, after a site in France. They were the first people to make tailored cloths using bone needles.
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39.000 BCE
First artists
Early humans created works of art- cave paintings of animals and cravings of animals and people. They also left images of their own hands on the cave walls, by spitting or blowing pigment over them.
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24,000 BCE
Last Neanderthals
Following period of extreme climate change, Neanderthals became extinct. Their last known outpost was a cave in Gibraltar, south of Spain. With the disappearance of the last Neanderthals, Homo sapiens was the only human species of Earth.
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17,000 YEARS AGO,
FRANCE
The Hall of Bulls in the Lascaux caves, France
Magical Creatures
Around 17,000 years ago in Lascaux, France, early people decorated a network of caves with paintings of 2,000 animals, including horses, aurochs (wild oxen) bison, and stags.
Perhaps these paintings were used in ceremonies to bring good hunting, We do not know. But when they were illuminated by the flickering light of stone lamps, the beasts must have magical powers.
15,000 BCE
Into America
Modern human from Asia crossed into the Americans, following herds of game. They were able to do this because the lower sea levels created a land bridge between the two continents, where today the Bering Strait divides Russia from Alaska.
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14,000 BCE
First pots
Human -gatherers in Japan made the first pots-clay copies of woven baskets called "Jomon" (cord patterned), ware. In most other places, pottery was only invented once people became settled farmers.
If we went back to 100.000 years... there might have been as many as six different kinds of humans on the Earth.
Lucy (a gatherer which was 3 feet tall),
Handy Man (4 feet tall and learned to use tools that helped them survive),
Upright Man (was the first early human found and walked and used fire),
Neanderthals (big, strong, cooked meat), Homosapien (smart, used fire, used better tools),and
Homosapien Sapien
All those other kinds have disappeared, and left us as the sole survivors.
Dr Chris Stringer/History Year by Year/Peter Chrisp, Joe Fullman, Susan Kennedy