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Homo Sapiens Rises: to 200,000BC

200,000BC: Human speech begins no earlier than about this time.

200,000BC: In 1911 a broken wooden spear shaped earlier than this age is found at Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, UK.

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200,000BC: A recent theory suggests that we're all descended from one African "Eve" who lived some 200,000 years ago. The theory is based on DNA studies from the placentas of 147 women of different racial backgrounds.

200,000BC: Within the past 200,000 years our own species, Homo sapiens, dispersed out of Africa.

200,000BC: It is speculated that the Neandertals and Homo sapiens split from a common ancestor about this time.

200,000-30,000BC: The Neandertals lived in Europe and southwest Asia. In 1996 it was discovered that skulls of Neandertals showed oblong, vertical swellings in the bone along the sides of the nasal hole. Researchers also claimed that their noses were unusually large.

200,000 BC: We find remains of a transitional being hard to classify, as either erectus or Neanderthal. (The Steinheim Skull) (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 150) For the view that 200,000BC is a date for the appearance of Homo sapiens, see http://mirrorh.com/timeline.htm/

Toothpicks, use of: Estimated use as far back as two million years ago, indulged in by Homo erectus, according to Peter Ungar, anthropologist at University of Arkansas and Mark Teaford of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. (Reported 24 June 2000)

240,000BC: First traces of human occupation of Denmark, but settlement is ended by Ice Ages, till about 15,000BC when hunter-gatherers return.

248,000BC: See William H. Calvin, The great Climate Flip-Flop, The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998, Volume 281, No. 1, pp. 47-64.
THE discovery of abrupt climate changes has been spread out over the past fifteen years, and is well-known to readers of major scientific journals such as Science and Nature. The abruptness data are convincing. Within the ice sheets of Greenland are annual layers that provide a record of the gases present in the atmosphere and indicate the changes in air temperature over the past 250,000 years -- the period of the last two major ice ages.

By 250,000 years ago Homo erectus had died out, after a run of almost two million years. By 125,000 years ago Homo sapiens had evolved from our ancestor species -- so the whiplash climate changes of the last ice age affected people much like us. (Greenhouse Timeline)
William H. Calvin, The Great Climate Flip-Flop, The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998, Volume 281, No. 1, pp. 47-64.

Circa: 250,000BC: In Siberia stone tools along a river near Irkutsk have been dated by radioisotope to about this time.

Circa 250,000BC: About this time the human brain size stopped its slow trend toward enlargement. This may correspond with the human attainment of the rudiments of language?

270,000-230,000BC: Other glaciation of Earth.

Circa 280,000BC circa: A mastodon tooth and camel jaw of about this time were found in 1997 in tunnels under Los Angeles in 1997.

300,000BC: Erectus seems to give way to his successor, Homo sapiens.

300,000BC to 250,000BC: Russian Archaeologist Yuri Mochanov of the Yakutish Academy of Sciences announced in 1981 a discovery of human habitation in northern Siberia that dated back to at least 30,000 years. More precise techniques later measured the stone artifacts at the site to 250,000-300,000 years ago.

300,000BC-200,000BC: Swanscombe skull. Fragments of sapiens skull representing Britain's oldest-known human remains.

300,000BC-200,000BC: In the Sierra de Atapuerca fossil remains of 32 people from this time were found at Sima de los Huesos (Pit of Bones) in northern Spain. They represented an early stage in the development of Neandertals. Grooves were observed in the roots immediately under the crowns of rear teeth, probably from the use of toothpicks.

300,000BC to 30,000BC: The Neanderthal man of the type first found in 1856 lived over this period.

300,000BC to 12,000BC: During the periodic Ice Ages the Loess Hills formed along the eastern side of the Missouri River. Westerly winds blow the silty sediments of the melted glaciers along the low walls of the river valley.

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300,000BC-400,000-BC: Man begins to appreciate-learn to use fire. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 56)

340,000-330,000BC: Glaciation of Earth. Neandertals displace Homo erectus in some areas.

400,000BC In 1998 researchers at Duke University, studying hypoglossal canals in fossil skulls, suggested that Neandertals could well have developed speech at this time. (Such research was disputed in 1999.)

400,000BC: Researchers in 2000 found evidence from a Homo erectus skull, that during this period, individuals communicated with each other.

420,000-290,000BC The youngest Homo erectus (from China) dated in this period.

450,000 years ago: Fossilised bones have been found in Norfolk, UK, of two hippos, said op be about 450,000 years old. The artefacts were found in a quarry together with remains of horse, hyena, fish, and rodents. The pictures are of Britain in the Middle Pleistocene period. (World press, reported 3 July 2004)

450,000BC to 380,000BC: Evidence of a wooden hut with a hearth at Terra Amata, near Nice, France, time of Mindel Glaciation. Also near Nice, France, an Acheulian hut dated 500,000-400,000BC a home evidently for Neandertals, with use of a fireplace, and furs, grasses, seaweeds used as bedding.

500,000-250,000BC: Homo sapiens (archaic). Skull of adult male is found by Greek villagers at Petralona, Greece in 1960.

500,000BC: In Boxgrove England, a fossilized rhinoceros shoulder blade with a projectile wound was found recently and dated to this time. Reported by 1997.

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Circa 500,000BC: A human jawbone of about this age, Homo Heidelbergensis, was found in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1907.

500,000BC: Finding a better home for Homo erectus in China?: About 500,000BC, Homo erectus ("Peking Man") walked in a series of caves near today's Beijing. In the 1920s, fossils of this example of pre-Homo sapiens were found near the village of Zhoukoudian - "a museum of the birthplace of humanity"? Now the site (listed as a World Heritage site) is decaying, and in 80 years, one cave has been damaged by rain and weeds, and another is overgrown. A local museum has closed for lack of funds. Money cannot be found for renovations to the site, lately curated by Zhang Shuangquan. UNESCO threatens to "shame" the Chinese Government into taking better care of matters; is this just another example of standard Chinese neglect of history by officials? Many relics of old civilisation by the Yangtze and Yellow rivers are neglected and tourists can't enjoy or inspect them. Director of Chinese Academy of Science, Zhu Ming, puts the costs of repairs for the Peking Man site at Aust$1.1 million. (Reported in world press, 14 August 2001)

By 500,000BC: Ardrey feels that the African ancestors bring to perfection the Acheulian hand-axe. With its "unnecessary symmetry and grace", ie, beauty. About now, Homo sapiens begins to wander in Europe.

500,000BC: Heidelberg Man is seen, in Cold Eurasia, possibly an early appearance of an African-evolved home erectus. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 147) Diet exclusively of uncooked meat (the fats of which allow may brain growth?)

600,000-250,000BC: Homo Heidelbergensis is described in 1996 by Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar in From Lucy to Language: The Record of Human Evolution.

600,000BC: A skull of this age from Bodo, Ethiopia, exhibits the largest nasal width of any Homo fossil.

600,000-500,000BC: The last common ancestor of modern humans and Neandertals lived about this time, probably in Africa.

600,000BC: Earth apparently enters a series of Ice Ages. When the glaciers are most widespread, seas have dropped up to 300 feet.

650,000BC: Ardrey still does not find the deliberate use of fire to be common. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 132)

700,000BC: Mary Leakey finds that a famous Acheulian hand-axe was being made by Homo erectus, while about this time, the magnetic poles of the earth reverse. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, pp. 130-133) The South Pole develops a negative polarity. About now the Arctic seems to freeze over for the first time. Ardrey feels the evidence on use of fire comes from colder areas of Europe and Asia. Soon comes the first wave of the glaciation of Europe. Perhaps soon, Heidelberg Man appears in Germany?
NB: Antarctica is today covered by a sheet of ice about 2000 metres thick.

16 December 2005: 700,000 years ago: Timing of man's odyssey revised PARIS: Early man colonised northern Europe around 700,000 years ago, about 200,000 years sooner than previously thought, British archaeologists believe. The finding will rewrite the odyssey of Homo erectus, the ancestor of modern man, who ventured out of Africa and spread northwards into Eurasia. The established timeline has these humans colonising the southern Caucasus about 1.8 million years ago, then venturing westward along the Mediterranean, reaching Spain and Italy around 800,000 years ago. But, until now, it was thought that bitter cold from a lingering Ice Age thwarted these Stone Age pioneers from moving northwards for hundreds of thousands of years. The earliest evidence of human settlement north of the Alps and the Pyrenees dates from about half a million years ago, thanks to findings at Mauer in Germany and Boxgrove in southern England. That assumption has now been overturned by remarkable finds excavated from eroding coastal cliffs in Suffolk, in eastern England. Around 700,000 years ago, Britain was connected to continental Europe by a “and bridge" that extended the length of what is today the English Channel. Suffolk and the neighbouring county of Norfolk were low-lying areas through which sluggish rivers meandered. depositing a thick layer of mud and sand. The North Sea basin eventually subsided and the shallow coast of East Anglia emerged, exposing a sedimentary layer. called the Cromer Forest-bed Formation. Victorian geologists were the first to spot it, identifying a trove of fossils of extinct mammals, molluscs, beetles, fruits and seeds. Nearly a century and a half later, a team led by Anthony Stuart and Simon Parfitt of University College have taken the discoveries a giant step further. In a paper published yesterday in the British science journal Nature, they report the finding of 32 flint artefacts, retrieved from a layer at Pakefield, Suffolk. The artefacts are sharpedged flakes, some more than 20mm long, that were chipped away from larger pieces of black flint as the humans made tools, they believe. Working in arduous conditions at low tide, the researchers also found an array of plant and insect fossils, including species that could not have survived deep cold. From these species, the scientists calculate that in July, the warmest month, temperatures would have been between 18C and 23C, while in January and February, the coldest months, the mean temperature would have been between -6C and 4C. The fossils suggest that the landscape at the time comprised a meandering river, marshland and grassland that would have provided plenty of food for bisons, lions, wolves and mammoths, among others. The floodplain would have provided a resource-rich environment for early humans, with a range of plant and animal resources," the paper says. As an additional attraction, in an area where good-quality flint was scarce. was the flint-rich river gravels. which provided the raw material for tool manufacture. In a commentary, also published in Nature, Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands, said "Parfitt and his colleagues have struck Stone Age gold". "Along with hippos, rhinos and elephants, early humans were evidently roaming the banks of these rivers. They did so during a warm interglacial period, and much earlier than hitherto thought for this part of Europe." (Reported AFP via The Australian newspaper, 16 December 2005.)

730,0000BC: Lower Pleistocene Period (1.6 million years to 730,000 years ago). The period when Homo erectus populated temperate areas of Africa, Europe and Asia. Their remains have been found in northern China, but not in the northern parts of Eurasia.

788,000 years ago: A reversal occurs of Earth's magnetic field.

800,000BC-780,000BC: Earliest Northern European Human Settlement Discovered in Britain
By Jeremy Hsu, LiveScience Senior Writer per GeneaNet newsletter of 10-7-2010

Ancient humans braved the cold in Britain over 800,000 years ago to create the first known settlement in northern Europe, according to researchers. Their finding predates past evidence of prehistoric humans in Britain by at least 100,000 years. It also suggests that the early humans managed to survive in the cold northern climate, contrary to past thinking.

"We have found stone tools in several horizons, so they were there for at least several generations, if not longer," said Nick Ashton, an archaeologist and curator at the British Museum in London.

More than 70 flint tools and flakes turned up during an archaeological dig at the shore of Happisburgh in the northeastern part of England's Norfolk region. Past evidence had indicated that early humans only moved north during warmer periods, when the northern climate more resembled that of the Mediterranean. But now archaeologists must consider how humans adapted to life near the northern forests, where edible plants and animals became scarcer and wintry conditions presented a greater challenge.

"My hunch is that they had more effective clothing and shelter than we'd previously imagined," Ashton told LiveScience. But he added that it only represents a guess. Summer temperatures would have resembled those of Britain today, Ashton explained. But winter temperatures were probably several degrees lower.

Still, the early humans in Britain had some advantages in their choice of location. Evidence from the Happisburgh site shows that the River Thames once flowed near there, so that freshwater pools and marshes would have appeared on the floodplain along with nearby salt marshes. The flood plains would have also supported large animal prey such as mammoths, rhinoceros and horses, researchers said. That could have supplemented the scarcer prey of the nearby forested region.

"Having a range of resources is a safer environment to live in, whereby if one resource fails, you have others to rely on," Ashton pointed out.

Plant and animal remains from the archaeological site also helped narrow down the time period for archaeologists. For instance, some mammal remains discovered along with the flint tools suggest that the site dates back to at least 780,000 years ago, because those mammals went extinct around roughly that time. Other remains recovered from the site belong to animals that are thought to have evolved only around 1 million years ago. That provides a rough timestamp between 1 million and 780,000 years ago for the site, Ashton said.

Paleomagnetism also helped timestamp the find. Researchers studied the orientation of iron minerals in the ancient river sediments and found that they had a reversed southerly magnetic orientation, as opposed to the northerly orientation that exists in Earth's magnetic field today. The last major magnetic reversal period ended about 780,000 years ago – a fact that again helps narrow down the possible time period for the human presence.

Who lived there

Despite all the evidence surrounding the flint tools, archaeologists still have yet to recover fossilized remains of the toolmakers themselves.

"The best guess is Homo antecessor, which has been found at site of a similar age in northern Spain (Atapuerca)," Ashton noted. "However, as we have no human fossil evidence from Happisburgh, it is only a guess."

Homo antecessor, also known as Pioneer Man, was a hominin species that may have represented a common ancestor for both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

For now, the team led by scientists from the British Natural History Museum in London, the British Museum, University College London and Queen Mary, University of London, plans to push forward and try to find the elusive fossils.

"The next step is to explore other areas of the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts where similar sediments also survive," Ashton said.

More on this research is detailed in the July 7 issue of the journal Nature.

800,000BC: The Haleakala shield volcano on Maui, Hawaii, appears about this time.

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800,000BC: Soleilhac, in the Massif Central of France, is the oldest "unquestionable" site of hominid occupation in Europe, with remains of fauna and tools, but no hominid bones.

800,000BC: A team of fossil hunters has reported 800,000 year-old hominids from the Gran Dolino site in the Atapuerca Mountains in northern Spain. The date was older by 300,000 years than dates for other human remains in Europe. They called this "new species" Homo antecessor. Among modern characteristics were a prominent brow line and multiple roots for premolar teeth.

800,000BC: Some Indonesian and Dutch archaeologist refer to evidence that early hominids in Asia have made it to the island of Flores in the Javan archipelago.

800,000BC: Dating for human remains discovered recently by archaeologists. A site reveals about 80 human bones and bone fragments from two adult females and four children, maybe eaten by other humans, as some bones had marks from sharp stone tools. Around the remains were bones from horses, deer, bison, rhino and possibly elephants. This is possibly the earliest known example of human cannibalism, found in Northern Spain in a cave at Atapuerca. It is possible the specimens were Homo antecessor, (Ancestor Man, who developed into Neanderthal). It is thought that possibly Ancestor Man came from Africa one million years ago, to Europe, and that their fellows who stayed in Africa developed into Homo sapiens? See a recent issue of journal, Science. Meantime, tools made 900,000 years ago were found at an even deeper level of the Atapuerca cave site. (Reported in Sydney, 31 May 1997)

DNA identifies new ancient human dubbed 'X-woman'

By Paul Rincon 25 March 2010
Science reporter, BBC News - about one million years ago - On a seemingly human finger bone unearthed in 2008 at Denisova Cave

Scientists have identified a previously unknown type of ancient human through analysis of DNA from a finger bone unearthed in a Siberian cave, known as Denisoa Cave.

The extinct "hominin" (human like creature) lived in Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago.

An international team has sequenced genetic material from the fossil showing that it is distinct from that of Neanderthals and modern humans.

Details of the find, dubbed "X-woman", have been published in Nature journal.

Ornaments were found in the same ground layer as the finger bone, including a bracelet.

Professor Chris Stringer, human origins researcher at London's Natural History Museum, called the discovery "a very exciting development".

Whoever carried this mitochondrial genome out of Africa about a million years ago is some new creature that has not been on our radar screens so far Svante Paabo Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology "This new DNA work provides an entirely new way of looking at the still poorly-understood evolution of humans in central and eastern Asia."

The discovery raises the intriguing possibility that three forms of human - Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and the species represented by X-woman - could have met each other and interacted in southern Siberia. The tiny fragment of bone from a fifth finger was uncovered by archaeologists working at Denisova Cave in Siberia's Altai Mountains in 2008.

An international team of researchers extracted mitochondrial DNA from the bone and compared the genetic code with those from modern humans and Neanderthals. Mitochondrial DNA comes from the cell's powerhouses and is passed down the maternal line only.

The analysis carried out by Johannes Krause from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues revealed the human from Denisova last shared a common ancestor with modern humans and Neanderthals about one million years ago. This is known as the divergence date; essentially, when this human's ancestors split away from the line that eventually led to Neanderthals and ourselves.

The Neanderthal and modern human evolutionary lines diverged much later, around 500,000 years ago. This shows that the individual from Denisova is the representative of a previously unknown human lineage that derives from a hitherto unrecognised migration out of Africa.

"Whoever carried this mitochondrial genome out of Africa about a million years ago is some new creature that has not been on our radar screens so far," said co-author Professor Svante Paabo, also from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

The divergence date of one million years is too young for the Denisova hominin to have been a descendent of Homo erectus, which moved out of Africa into Asia some two million years ago.

And it is too old to be a descendent of Homo heidelbergensis, another ancient human thought to have originated around 650,000 years ago.

Dr Krause said the ground layer in which the Denisova hominin fragment was found contain tools which are similar to those made by modern humans in Europe.

"We have ornaments, there is a bracelet, so there are several elements in the layers that are usually associated with modern human archaeology," he told BBC News.

"That's quite interesting, but of course, it is hard to prove that the bone is strongly associated to this archaeology, because it is possible that bones could have moved within the site.

"We are also not sure how exactly the excavation was done. It could have come from a deeper layer, so that's hard to say."

The research contributes to a more complex emerging picture of humankind during the Late Pleistocene, the period when modern humans left Africa and started to colonise the rest of the world.

Professor Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, has previously argued: "A time slice at a point in the late Pleistocene would reveal a range of human populations spread across parts of Africa, Eurasia and Oceania.

"Some would have been genetically linked to each other, behaving as sub-species, while the more extreme populations may well have behaved as good species with minimal or no interbreeding."

It was long known that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthals in Europe, apparently for more than 10,000 years. But in 2004, researchers discovered that a dwarf species of human, dubbed "The Hobbit", was living on the Indonesian island of Flores until 12,000 years ago - long after modern humans had colonised the region.

Neanderthals appear to have been living at Okladnikov Cave in the Altai Mountains some 40,000 years ago. And a team led by Professor Anatoli Derevianko, from the Russian Academy of Sciences, has also found evidence of a modern human presence in the region at around the same time.

Prof Stringer commented: "Another intriguing question is whether there might have been overlap and interaction between not only Neanderthals and early moderns in Asia, but also, now, between either of those lineages and this newly-recognised one. The distinctiveness of the mitochondrial DNA patterns so far suggests that there was little or no interbreeding, but more extensive data will be needed from other parts of the genome, or from the fossils, for definitive conclusions to be reached."

Experts have been wondering whether X-woman might have links with known fossil humans from Asia, which have controversial classifications.

"Certain enigmatic Asian fossils dated between 250,000-650,000 years ago such as Narmada (in India), and Yunxian, Dali and Jinniushan (in China) have been considered as possible Asian derivatives of Homo heidelbergensis, so they are also potential candidates for this mystery non-erectus lineage," said Prof Stringer.

"However, there are other and younger fragmentary fossils such as the Denisova ones themselves, and partial skulls from Salkhit in Mongolia and Maba in China, which have been difficult to classify, and perhaps they do signal a greater complexity than we have appreciated up to now."
Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

From one million years ago: Ice sheets oscillate across northern Europe and America.

One million years ago: Australopithecines have lived on earth for four million years, now extinct.

One million years ago, 1-1.5 million years ago, the "Acheulian industry". The finding is that inventions of this period had nothing to do with the modern human brain - and this culture possibly originates in East Africa (Kenya?) (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 131).

1.2 million years ago: Humanity in Spain 1.2 million years ago? Archaeologists have found the jawbone and a tooth, or teeth, of a near-human female, not quite homo sapiens, in Spain. The remains are up to 1.2 million years old. The find may well push back timezoning boundaries by 600,000 years, as previously it was thought that humanity had appeared in Europe 600,000 years ago. (Midday TV news Australia, 27-3-2008)

1-2 million years ago: East Africa's Olduvai Gorge leaves about 40 hominid remains discovered by the Leakeys. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 97).

Early life of the human footprint

Story accessed on 2-9-2011

Earliest 'human footprints' found - Ileret footprint (M Bennett) - Laser scanning was used to plot the exact dimensions of the prints - 1.5 million years ago

The earliest footprints showing evidence of modern human foot anatomy and gait have been unearthed in Kenya. The 1.5-million-year-old footprints display signs of a pronounced arch and short, aligned toes, in contrast to older footprints.

The size and spacing of the Kenyan markings - attributed to Homo erectus - reflect the height, weight, and walking style of modern humans. The findings have been published in the journal Science.

The footprints are not the oldest belonging to a member of the human lineage. That title belongs to the 3.7 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis prints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, in 1978. Those prints, however, showed comparatively flat feet and a significantly higher angle between the big toe and the other toes, representative of a foot still adapted to grasping.

Exactly how that more ape-like foot developed into its modern version has remained unclear. The fossil record is distinctly lacking in foot and hand bones, according to lead author Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University, UK. "The reason is that carnivores like to eat hands and feet," Professor Bennett told BBC News.

"Once the flesh is gone there's a lot of little bones that don't get preserved, so we know very little about the evolution of hands and feet on our ancestors."

The footprints were found near Ileret in northern Kenya. The site, on a small hill, is made up of metres of sediment which the researchers carefully cleared away. What they found was two sets of footprints, one five metres deeper than the other, separated by sand, silt, and volcanic ash.

The team dated the surrounding sediment by comparing it with well-known radioisotope-dated samples from the region, finding that the two layers of prints were made at least 10,000 years apart. Another critical feature that the series of footprints makes clear is how Homo erectus walked.

There is evidence of a heavy landing on the heel with weight transferred along the outer edge of the foot, progressing to the ball of the foot and lifting off with the toes.

"That's very diagnostic of the modern style of walking, and the Laetoli prints don't give that same character," Professor Bennett said. The finding is a critical clue for mapping out the evolution of modern humans, both in terms of physiology and also how Homo erectus fared in its environment.

Homo erectus was a great leap in evolution, showing increased variety of diet and of habitat, and was the first Homo species to make the journey out of Africa.

"There's some suggestion out there that Homo erectus was able to scour the landscape for carcasses and meat ... and was able to get there very quickly, had longer limbs and was much more efficient in terms of long distance travel," Professor Bennett added. "Now we're also saying it had an essentially modern foot anatomy and function, which also adds to that story.

1,700,000 BP: African migration into Europe?

1,800,000 BP: First human use of toothpicks?

1.8 million years ago: Blood from a human/hominid specimen, found on a stone tool in South Africa, with its DNA tested by Australian researcher Dr. Tom Loy. Dr. Loy's DNA testing techniques helped inspire the film Jurassic Park and he also analysed blood residue from the tools of the recently-found, now-famed, Alpine Iceman mummy. (Reported 2 February 2002)

Two million years ago: The first human ancestors to migrate from Africa almost 2 million years ago may have been much less intelligent than is generally thought. New fossils (aged 1.75 million years ago) found in, Dmanisi Georgia, Russia, of homo erectus specimens examined by a team from Georgian Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi, had a brain size of 600 cubic centimetres, as compared with 800 cubic centimetres for other similar specimens and at least 1200 cubic centimetres for modern humans. Leader of research is David Lordkipanidze, who has published a recent article in journal Science. These homo erectus specimens will now be called homo ergaster. Homo ergaster used "pebble-chopper" type tools as found in East Africa, known as Oldowan tools. It now seems that the first exodus of humans from Africa was about two million years ago, not one million years ago, as earlier thought. Also, that the reason these homo ergaster went to Russia was due to an ecological extension of African-like conditions to there, a possibility which reduces the need to discuss new adaptations or human-evolutionary changes. (Reported 6 July 2002)

Two million years ago, a massive volcano called Ngorongoro dominates Olduvai Gorge, where early ancestors of man develop their lifestyle. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 48)

Two million years ago: Hominid remains at the base of the Olduvai Gorge, Kenya, found by the Leakeys, of "small-brained" proto-men. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 20)

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Two million years BC, The human foot completes its evolution as we know it. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 63.) Ape ancestors of humanity by now have moved out of the trees. But (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 140), "the ancestral human hand" has not yet developed sufficiently to permit workmanship.

Two million years ago: Time of Homo habilis, one found specimen of which was killed by a blow to the top of the head. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis)

Two million years ago: North America: Yellowstone volcanic caldera eruption. Could this have been another environmental stress event affecting human evolution?
For more, see a website from Tony Smith at: http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Hist.html -

Two million years ago: The human foot completes its evolution as we know it. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 63, p. 140.) Ape ancestors of humanity by now have moved out of the trees. But "the ancestral human hand" has not yet developed sufficiently to permit workmanship.

Two million years ago: Time of Homo habilis, one found specimen of which was killed by a blow to the top of the head. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis)

Two million years ago: Hominid remains at the base of the Olduvai Gorge, Kenya, found by the Leakeys, of "small-brained" proto-men. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 20)

Two million years ago: A massive volcano called Ngorongoro dominates Olduvai Gorge, where early ancestors of man develop their lifestyle. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 48)

2,340,000 BP: sophisticated stone tools (homo habilis)

2.5 million years ago: The back and forth of ice started 2.5 million years ago, which is also when the ape-sized hominid brain began to develop into a fully human one, four times as large and reorganized for language, music, and chains of inference. Ours is now a brain able to anticipate outcomes well enough to practice ethical behavior, able to head off disasters in the making by extrapolating trends. (Greenhouse Timeline)
William H. Calvin, The Great Climate Flip-Flop, The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998, Volume 281, No. 1, pp. 47-64.

About 2.5 million years ago, appears "1470 Man", (named for a museum archive pigeonhole at Kenya National Museum) overlapping with appearance of Australopithecus (meaning "Southern Ape") in East Africa. This specimen made the first true tools, eg., flint blades. 1470 Man is a hunter, his brain is half the size of modern man's. 1470 Man also overlaps with Homo habilis. 1470 Man is superseded by homo erectus, who are near Nice in Southern France, at Terra Amata. These people near Nice live in oval huts about 50 feet long, by 19 feet wide, edged by rings of boulders, on a site visited irregularly, for short stays only, and rebuilt each visit.

3 million years ago, or more: Discovery of "nine individuals", proto-men, small but straight-limbed, of a hominid type. As discovered by a French group including Yves Coppens and an American, Carl Johanson, about 1974. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 20)

Three million years ago: There used to be a tropical shortcut, an express route from Atlantic to Pacific, but continental drift connected North America to South America about three million years ago, damming up the easy route for disposing of excess salt. The dam, known as the Isthmus of Panama, may have been what caused the ice ages to begin a short time later, simply because of the forced detour? This major change in ocean circulation, along with a climate that had already been slowly cooling for millions of years, led not only to ice accumulation most of the time but also to climatic instability, with flips every few thousand years or so. (Greenhouse Timeline)
William H. Calvin, The Great Climate Flip-Flop, The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998, Volume 281, No. 1, pp. 47-64.

Three million years ago: See views in Steve Stanley, Children of the Ice Age. Harmony Books, 1996. Tony Smith's website from this outlines information on ways that Australopithecus may have died out.
For more, see a website from Tony Smith at: http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Hist.html -

Three million years ago: 1975: In 1975 Mary Leakey discovers the remains of eleven individual hominids, eight adults and three children, judged from their teeth to have been meat-eaters. Between 3.35 million and 3.75 million years old. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 2)

Three million years ago, or more: Discovery of "nine individuals", proto-men, small but straight-limbed, of a hominid type. As discovered by a French group including Yves Coppens and an American, Carl Johanson, about 1974. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 20)

Three million years ago: 1975: In 1975 Mary Leakey discovers the remains of eleven individual hominids, eight adults and three children, judged from their teeth to have been meat-eaters. Between 3.35 million and 3.75 million years old. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 2)

3,000,000 BP: Collision of N and S America initiates a major Ice Age?

3,300,000 BP: Australopithecus skeleton

3,300,000 BP: Meteorite off Argentina causes many extinctions

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3.5 billion years ago - Old Rocks: One researcher's name of interest is Dr. Arthur Hickman, project manager for the Perth-based Geological Survey of Western Australia. One of his tasks is to host scientists from around the world who are finding Western Australia's old rocks to be increasingly fascinating. On such researcher is Washington geologist Roger Buick who works on rocks 2.4 to 3.5 billion years old, looking for evidence of such as molecular fossils in ancient rocks, or changes in oxygen-use of life forms as part of research which will help guide other researchers working on Mars-based projects. A sample of interest might come from eg, the Pilbara Desert, near Marble Bar, about 250 metres down, a core sample of red-and-white banded chert, (a jasper-like rock), about 3.5 billion years old which shows the Earth then had life-sustaining levels of oxygen much like today's. The red colouration comes from iron rusted by oxygen. But it is not known if "life" existed this long ago. (Reported 3 July 2004)

3.5 million years ago? Millennium Ancestor: Apeman find alters history": (Headline in The Weekend Australian). Palaeontologists have found the remains of an "apeman" about six million years old in Kenya's Rift Valley (Tugen Hills, Baringo District, at the foot of a low basalt cliff by a lake). The remains include teeth, a finger bone, a femur, jaw, arm fragments, and are from up-right walking hominids the size of chimpanzees - the earliest known two-legged hominid? Researchers working on the remains are from the College de France in Paris, France's National Museum of Natural History (Brigette Senut), National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Community Museums of Kenya. This discovery if it is confirmed may mean that "Lucy", the famous skeleton of Kenya believed to be that of an ancestor of Homo sapiens, was part of a "dead branch" of the human family tree. Millennium Ancestor is three million years older than "Lucy" (Australopithecines). An article is forthcoming in the French journal, Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences. The Millennium Ancestor find was also announced after some feuding with French researchers and rivals, The Baringo Paleontology Project, a collaboration between Yale University and National Museum of Kenya. (Reported 10 February 2001)

3.5 million years ago? New find on human origins: 3.5 million year-old skull found in Northern Kenya, a "flat-faced human skull", with small teeth, possibly ate fruit and insects, two year recovery effort, much info on human origins now needs restudy, the oldest "reasonably complete" human skull ever found. (TV report on 22 March 2001)

Four billion years ago: A new theory arises in Australia about the origins of life on Earth, as University of Queensland researchers say they have found hard evidence that carbon-rich meteorites bombarded Earth four billion years ago. Other planets besides Earth were also showered at this time. This so-called Heavy Bombardment lasted for 150 million years. The researchers include: Professor Ken Collerson, Ronny Schoenberg, Balz Kamber of the university's new Advanced Centre for Isotope Research Excellence, reported in the latest edition of science journal, Nature. (Reported in Australia by 26 July 2002)

4,500,000 BP: 'Lucy' a human ancestress walks upright; Mediterranean Sea flood

Five million years ago: The species Elephant and Mammoth diverge in evolutionary terms, Mammoths by the way were seen in the present-day area of Mexico City.

29 November-1 December, 1999, Conference held at University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia, from Assoc/Prof Ian Metcalfe, UNE Asia Centre International Conference (UNEAC):
Where Worlds Collide: Faunal and floral migrations and evolution in SE Asia-Australasia.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Prof. Robert Hall, Royal Holloway, London University will present a keynote paper on "Cenozoic plate tectonics and distribution of land and sea in SE Asia".
Ms Penny van Oosterzee, author of the Eureka prize-winning book Where Worlds Collide: The Wallace Line, will present an evening public lecture entitled "Where Worlds Collide: Wallace in Wonderland".
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Covenor and Chairman: A/Prof. Ian Metcalfe, Asia Centre, UNE Other Members: Prof. Kevin Hewison, Director, Asia Centre, UNE Prof. Iain Davidson, Head, School of Human and Environmental Studies, UNE Dr. Mike Morwood, Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, UNE A/Prof. N. Prakash, Botany, UNE

CONFERENCE OBJECTIVES:
SE Asia is in many respects a unique natural laboratory for studying the effects of geological and tectonic processes, and in particular continental terrane movements, orogenesis and continental collisions, on migration and evolution of a wide variety of animal, plant and insect groups. Waxing and waning physical (geological) and biological (biogeographical) interactions between SE Asia and Australasia go back more than 500 million years and one of the main aims of this conference is to improve our understanding of these relationships both temporally and spatially. Some tantalising questions remaining to be answered include:

• Why is Wallace's Line so well defined and what dictated its position?

• Cretaceous placental mammals in Australasia: ancestors of some northern hemisphere groups?

• What role(s) did the continental "Arks" of India and Australia play in determining distribution and evolution of organisms in the SE Asian region?

• o How have tectonics and terrane movements influenced migrations and evolution in SE Asia-Australasia and the present-day biogeographic patterns of the region?

• o What do we know about human dispersals, culture contacts and cultural change in the region?

This conference is designed to provide a forum for answering such questions and to discuss the interaction between physical (geological and tectonic) processes, sea level fluctuations, climate changes, and patterns of migration and evolution in the SE Asian-Australasian region.

THEMES:
The conference will be structured into themes. Final thematic sessions will depend on confirmed papers but likely themes are:

• o Palaeozoic/Mesozoic geology and biogeography. o Cenozoic geology and biogeography. o Primate/Hominoid evolution, migration and biogeography. o Invertebrate evolution and biogeography. o Plant evolution and biogeography. o Wallace's Line. o Human dispersals, cultural contacts and change.

Selected refereed and accepted papers will be published as a thematic book by A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. All other papers, following peer review and acceptance, will be published in electronic form as a collection of UNE Asia Centre UNEAC Papers on the Internet via the UNEAC Web Page and on a CD-ROM.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
For further information regarding registration, accommodation, travel details and conference payments, please contact:
Associate Professor Ian Metcalfe Convenor WHERE WORLDS COLLIDE CONFERENCE Asia Centre University of New England Armidale NSW 2351 AUSTRALIA Tel/Fax: 61 2 67733934 Email: imetcalf@metz.une.edu.au

RELATED SYMPOSIUM - Biogeography of Southeast Asia 2000
A major international symposium on the Biogeography of Southeast Asia will be held from 4 to 9 June 2000, in the vicinity of Leiden, The Netherlands. Emphasis in the program will be placed on invited review papers dealing with various aspects of the biological and geological evolution of the region from the break-up of Pangea to the present. Special sessions will deal with biogeographical and geological methods, biodiversity assessments, dissemination of knowledge and conservation issues. The symposium is a joint enterprise of the National Museum of Natural History/Naturalis, the Rijksherbarium/Hortus Botanicus, both in Leiden, and the Research School of Sedimentary Geology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.
For further information please contact:
Dr Rienk de Jong, National Museum of Natural History, PO Box 9517, NL-2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands Tel: +31 (0) 71 56 87 652 Fax: +31 (0) 71 56 87 666 E-mail: jong@naturalis.nnm.nl Web: http://rulrhb.leidenuniv.nl/ LIST OF INTENDING DELEGATES AND PAPERS

KEYNOTE PAPERS include:
HALL, Robert (U.K.) - Cenozoic evolution of SE Asia and the distribution of land and sea
VAN OOSTERZEE, Penny (Australia) - Where Worlds Collide: Wallace in Wonderland (Public Lecture)
OTHER PAPERS:
BICKEL, Daniel J. (Australia) - Indo-Australian Diptera: why Wallace's Line is not important
BRANDON-JONES, Douglas (U.K.) - Borneo as a biogeographic barrier to Asian-Australasian migration
BRUHL, Jeremy J. (Australia) BUFFETAUT, Eric (France) - The dinosaurs of South East Asia in biogeographical perspective
CLODE, Danielle (Australia) - What made Wallace draw the line? The beginnings of biogeography.
DAVIDSON, Iain (Australia) - The requirements for human colonisation of Australia.
KEAST, Allen (Canada) - Asia - Australia; Sea Levels, Climate and Vertebrate Evolution
KITCHING, Roger & HURLEY, Karen (Australia) - Butterflies and Wallace's Line
MACKNESS, Brian (Australia) - 1. Goannas in the mist: ecological adaptation and specialization where worlds collide. 2. Homonid colonisation of Australia and its effect on megafauna: blitzkreig or brouhaha?
O'SULLIVAN, Paul (Australia) - Advancement of hominids through Indonesia

QUILTY, Patrick G. (Australia - Role of Antarctica as a source of the Australian flora and fauna.

REID, Chris (Australia) - That dashed line again: Wallace & the holey cow of SE Asian biogeography
SIM, Robin (Australia) - The role of mid-Holocene climatic change in the demise of an human population.
SMITH, Jeremy M.B. (Australia) - Did primates including early hominids cross sea gaps in the Wallacean region on natural rafts?
VAN HUET, Sanja (Australia) - King Island, Bass Strait - What's been going on these past 100,000 years??
WANG Xiaofeng (China) - The Hainan terrane: its relationship to SE Asia and Australia in geological evolution and biological migration
WANG Xiang-dong (Japan) - Carboniferous and Permian coral faunas in West Yunnan, southwest China. Implications for the Gondwana/Tethys divide (?)

5.5 Million years ago, The Atlantic Ocean breaks the Straits of Gibraltar and forms the Mediterranean Sea. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 48).

Reported 10 July 2002: Seven million-year-old humanoid skull discovered: Cautious but fascinating claims are being made about a new humanoid skull found in the African Chad Desert, a seven-million-year-old skull now named Toumai. The specimen has about the brain capacity of a chimpanzee, but a human-like set of features, including human-like canine teeth. The queries are, is Toumai a direct or indirect ancestor of modern humanity, is Toumai the fabled "missing link" between humanity and apedom?

7,000,000 BP: Human evolutionary line diverges from chimp (1.7% DNA) [later?]

15 million years ago, remains of Louis Leakey's Miocene ramapithecines. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 100)

15 million years ago: Remains of Louis Leakey's Miocene ramapithecines. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 100)

15 million years ago: Maybe a new ancestor for humanity? Researchers in Kenya have reported finding a 15-million-year-old skeleton of a creature like a modern male baboon, which could be one of our ancient relatives. This find predates other possible common ancestors by several million years. The creature weighed about 25kg, stood 1.2-1.5 metres tall, and had a long, flexible spine, and strong hands. A co-discoverer is US academic, Steve Ward, from an unnamed institution. If this find represents a new genus, it may be called Equatorius. (Reported 28 August 1999)

16,000,000 BP: Human evolutionary line diverges from orangutan?
?,000,000 BP: human line diverges from gorilla (1.9% DNA)

17 million years ago: German scientists say they have found one of the world's oldest-known caches of stored food - now all petrified. Dr. Carole Gee of Bonn University found a cache of fossilised golden chinquapin nuts in a lignite mine near the West German town of Garzweller in 1993, then studied it for ten years. The nuts were probably stored by a hamster or a ground squirrel. (Reported 29-30 January 2003)

25 million years ago: Palaeontology at Riversleigh, a major site in Queensland, Australia, for fossils as ancestors of modern birds and marsupials, also dinosaurs from an earlier period, are found.

30 million years ago: Huge volcanic eruptions in area of Ethiopia, Africa. Plus earthquakes and much rifting off the topography changes the local climate, which develops savannah and leads to extinction of some species. It seems however that hominids/later humans/ got a "kick start" from some of the environmental changes.

37 million years ago: Antarctica begins to freeze. Prior to this, the area had rainforests on coastal plains, rather like today's Central Tasmanian Highlands. An earlier date might be 34 million years ago. A researcher is University of Tasmania research professor, Pat Quilty. Project, an Ocean Drilling Program. (Reported 3 June 2000)

Chicago: Field Museum: The world's most complete dinosaur? Susan Hendrickson is a happy dinosaur-finder. She discovered the world's most complete remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1990 in a South Dakota cliff. The remains were about 90 per cent complete, and form the basis of a new display at Field Museum. Included in the remains is an eardrum bone (stapes). The animal weighed about seven tonnes, but its sex is not yet determined. It is presumed the 12.7m-long animal had a top speed of about 24kmh, walked at about 10kmh, and could not run. The remains are valued at US$8.36 million (Aust $14 million). (Reported 19 May 2000. Check Website: http://www.fieldmuseum.org/)

40,000,000 BP: Genetics: X and Y chromosomes differentiate further

New tune for theory of evolution: US and Swiss scientists have announced that the songbirds of Nn Hemisphere evolved in Australia 45 million years ago. As reported recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Such birds evolved in the western part of the then supercontinent, Gondwana, the area which formed New Zealand, Australia and New Guinea. For the past 200 years, it has been assumed that nightingales, mockingbirds, cardinals, robins and such birds had evolved in Europe or Asia. ()W/end Australian 24-25 July 2004)