4.5 billion to 20,000 BCE
4.5 BILLION TO 20,000 BCE
The Dawn of Time
The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, according to current theory.
10 million years ago there were fifty species of apes living in the world. The Earth was truly a Planet of the Apes, many different species of apes who varied enormously. By 8 million years ago, they had all disappeared in a major extinction event. No one knows why they disappeared, but we do know there was a massive climate change and the tropical forests in Africa were giving way to vast grasslands at this time. The environment was changing out of all recognition and all life had to adapt to this change.
The fourth lesson in history shows that Humanity thrives on catastrophe!
Our earliest known bipedal ancestor is 7 million years old, and the remains come from Chad in Africa. By 4.5 million years ago, our ancestors had 32 cat like teeth. There is evidence that our ancestors evolved via divergence and adaptive radiation in exactly the same way that every other species has evolved on Earth, and there is no reason to believe our species is in anyway ’special’ or different from any other species.
4 million years ago Africa was dominated by plains and savanna’s, and by 3.9 million BCE, Australopithecus Africanus, Afarensis and Paranthropus and others were all exploring bipedally across this extraordinary terrain. ‘Lucy‘ is the best known example so far discovered, but many fossilised footprints exist from this time period, giving researchers a good deal of extra information about gait and lifestyle. It is truly amazing what people can discover from foot prints! Our bipedal ancestors had obviously been using their hands for a very long time at this point, and they must have had a complicated ‘language‘ of different cries and calls, and maybe even the beginnings of society? Tool use, basically early technology, must have been present at this time, and it is interesting to note that brain size does not seem to have been the determining factor, as the Big Brain Theory seems to have been discounted, and cranial capacity is not fully understood. Why would Cro Magnon have a bigger brain than us, and why did Lucy evolve with her small brain before others with bigger brains?
Homo Habilis emerges in Africa about 2.8 million years ago, but humans appear to really take off with Homo Erectus about 1 million years ago. This may well be due to eating meat which speeds calorific energy to the brain, especially if our ancestors were specialising in eating the brain and spinal cords no other predator could access, using stone tools to crack open the skulls and bones. This ’super food’ allows for a special type of growth spurt, and the digestive organs shrink as the brain grows even larger on all those prions and proteins!
70% of the population of Homo Erectus lived by the sea, and pebble tool use, throwing stones and possibly sea rafts are thought to date from this time. Archaeologist have found some of their carved pebbles. There is evidence to suggest that they cared for each other and buried their dead. It is possible that Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis had language, most certainly they would already use complicated calls to differentiate their environment as all apes do, but maybe they had developed an evolutionary edge? It is possible that they adapted to eat anything instead of existing on specialised foods, suggesting competition for food in Africa. Will we ever know? Maybe these adaptions allowed them to survive, especially if they also began to hunt as well as scavenge?
Homo Erectus poured out of Africa into Asia and South East China, probably following the migratory routes of the herds of animals they scavenged or hunted, which roamed freely about at this time following the seasonal cycles of vegetation and availability of pasture. It is believed that our ancestors in Africa continued evolving into different human forms, but remains from Asia and China tend to show the success and continuation of Homo Erectus form for millennia. Homo Habilis and the other species of humans all appear to have become extinct in Africa, possibly due to competition from cleverer humans or from warfare?
No fire pits have been found in association with the remains of Homo Erectus or Homo Habilis, although it is believed that they did use fire in some way and that they cooked their food. It is fascinating to reflect how these early ancestors lived alongside the megabeasts, which quickly begin to become extinct by about 2 million years ago, and it does look as if our ancestors were perfecting the art of hunting, possibly co-operating in packs or using traps. It is also possible that these megabeasts had a very hard time surviving the Yellowstone Super Volcano which erupted 2.1 million years ago, eating eight miles of mountains and over eighty kilometers of land mass! Homo Erectus must have had a survival advantage and ability to adapt to come out of this disaster stronger than the other humans.
Mass migrations of Homo Erectus out of Africa seem to have begun about 1.7 million years ago. 1.4 million years ago, Yellowstone erupted again, and yet again in 640,000 BCE, but Homo Erectus just kept on going. They reached Norfolk in Britain by 700,000 BCE in the form of Homo Heidelburgensis, who inhabited all of Europe by this time. This human type formed the Old Stone Age, using 1st phase flint tools. The Neanderthals become the dominant form in Europe and the surrounding areas by 200,000 BCE with their Moustarian Culture. They left us art carvings and petroglyphs.
The milestone of fire pits is linked with the next sub group of our ancestors, called Homo Sapiens, who evolved around 500,000 years ago, and they also left Africa for Europe by then because examples of their wooden spears dating from 400,000 BCE have incredibly survived in a German coal mine! Homo Sapiens buried their dead and used red ochre and made jewellery and left us notched bones, tempting us to believe they spoke and thought in a ‘modern’ form. There is some evidence to suggest that Neanderthals also behaved in a similiar fashion, and they certainly had fire pits and jewellery and placed flowers beside their dead.
By 150,000 BCE, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, also known as Cro Magnon, evolved in Africa, and they leaf us the magnificant cave paintings and carved figurines and sophisticated stone tools that outstrip and outshine anything that has gone before. DNA studies have located a Mitochondrial Eve in Africa dated between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago. What makes Homo Sapiens Sapiens different from Homo Heidelburgensis and Neanderthal is complex thought abstractions and foresight, social communication and organisational differences, eating salmon ?why didn’t Neanderthal eat them?, and a desire to travel. Neanderthal had become sedentary. Homo Sapien Sapien left Africa in waves of migration from 60,000 to 40,000.
I always wonder why everyone left Africa, was there too much competition there was there too much competition there or were they following the herds migrating in search of new feeding grounds as the ice sheets retreated? We know that the Sahara was forming and climate conditions were changing, which is often the reason for mass human migration, even today. We can all trace our lineage back to this branch of the human family via Mitochondrial Eve, the exact time our modern ancestors evolved. However, we must remember that our human ancestors were hunter gatherers and will be for at least another 150,000 years! They were constantly on the move and any settlements were only temporary. It is fascinating to realise that the Aboriginies in Australia and the Bushmen in Africa began they way of life at this time and they are still living in the same way today, though unfortunately their hunter gatherer lifestyles are being restricted by the current political regimes in both countries today!
In 87,000 BCE the Earth’s magnentic field reversed, but no one really knows why this happens, which it does geologically frequently, nor what it really means for life on Earth.
By 70,000 BCE there was a devastating crisis on Earth when the Toba super volcano erupted, reducing the human population down to an estimated 10,000 or even only 2000 souls! Somehow, Homo Sapiens Sapiens recovered and took over the planet, but it must have been touch and go for a long while. A recent archaeological discovery from Blombos in South Africa reveals a carved stone, the very first deliberate attempt to record ?something? Maybe the shock of Toba caused a leap forward in human understanding?
During the next 60,000 years, the population of Homo Sapiens Sapiens exploded all over the Earth. This is possibly the result of the near extinction, but also the climate changes finally began to work in our favour. Homo Erectus and the Neanderthals died out or we ate them! The jury is still out on this one!
The oldest hearth ever found was in Europe, dating to about 35,000 BCE, it must have been exceptionally cold then! The Basque People are thought to be modern day descendants of the Aurignacian Culture who lived in Europe at this time. Similarly, the Berber People of North Africa are thought to be the modern day descendants of the old populations from the Sahara. All over the world, indigenous populations show the same tenacious survival, even though most of them have no idea just how old their populations really are and would be very suprised if they realised!
Our ancestors left much for us to find, from settlements in the Sahara Desert to beautiful art work. We had been ‘modern humans’ for over 150,000 years, sophisticated, clever survivors with clearly defined culture and a knowledge of this planet stretching back into the dawn of time. And we most probably eradicated everyone else, human or animal! We probably caused the Mammoths to go extinct and saw off the last of the meagbeasts. In Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic, the remains of a mammoth processing centre dating to 26,000 BCE has been excavated, showing evidence of brick making, kiln fired clay figurines and woven cloth manufacture, discovered from the imprint of the cloth onto wet clay which was then fired and preserved. The Earth belonged to us! Finally!
For the last part of this time period, geological and climate changes across the planet were dramatic. The Ice Age finally began to loose its grip and vast areas of land mass became submerged. It is estimated that land areas equivalent to all of the Americas were lost around the world. We do not know what archaeology exists under the oceans that will illuminate this fascinating time in the years to come, but my guess is that future underwater archaeology will completely transform our understanding of history.
Sue :: Oct.17.2006 :: Book Reviews ::