Timeline of human evolution
The timeline of human evolution outlines the major events in the evolutionary lineage of the
It includes brief explanations of the various taxonomic ranks in the human lineage. The timeline reflects the mainstream views in modern taxonomy, based on the principle of phylogenetic nomenclature; in cases of open questions with no clear consensus, the main competing possibilities are briefly outlined.
Overview of taxonomic ranks
A tabular overview of the
Rank | Name | Common name | Millions of years ago (commencement) |
---|---|---|---|
Life | 4,200 | ||
Archaea | 3,700 | ||
Domain | Eukaryota | Eukaryotes | 2,100 |
Podiata | Excludes Plants and their relatives | 1,540 | |
Amorphea | |||
Obazoa | Excludes Amoebozoa (Amoebas) | ||
Opisthokonts | Holozoa + Fungi )
|
1,300 | |
Holozoa | Excludes Holomycota | 1,100 | |
Filozoa | Choanozoa + Filasterea | ||
Choanozoa | Choanoflagellates + Animals | 900 | |
Kingdom | Animalia | Animals | 610 |
Subkingdom
|
Eumetazoa | Excludes Porifera (Sponges)
|
|
Parahoxozoa | Excludes Ctenophora (Comb Jellies) | ||
Bilateria | Triploblasts / Worms | 560 | |
Nephrozoa | |||
Deuterostomes | Division from Protostomes | ||
Phylum | Chordata | Chordates (Vertebrates and closely related invertebrates) | 530 |
Olfactores | Excludes cephalochordates (Lancelets)
|
||
Subphylum | Vertebrata | Fish / Vertebrates | 505 |
Infraphylum |
Gnathostomata | Jawed fish | 460 |
Teleostomi | Bony fish | 420 | |
Sarcopterygii | Lobe finned fish | ||
Superclass |
Tetrapoda | Tetrapods (animals with four limbs) | 395 |
Amniota | Amniotes (fully terrestrial tetrapods whose eggs are "equipped with an amnion") | 340 | |
Synapsida | Proto-Mammals | 308 | |
Therapsid | Limbs beneath the body and other mammalian traits | 280 | |
Class | Mammalia | Mammals | 220 |
Subclass | Theria | Mammals that give birth to live young (i.e., non-egg-laying) | 160 |
Infraclass |
Eutheria | Placental mammals (i.e., non-marsupials) | 125 |
Magnorder |
Boreoeutheria | Supraprimates, (most) hoofed mammals, (most) carnivorous mammals, cetaceans, and bats | 124–101 |
Superorder |
Euarchontoglires | Supraprimates: primates, colugos, tree shrews, rodents, and rabbits | 100 |
Grandorder |
Euarchonta | tree shrews |
99–80 |
Mirorder |
Primatomorpha | Primates and colugos | 79.6 |
Order | Primates | Primates / Plesiadapiformes | 66 |
Suborder |
Haplorrhini |
"Dry-nosed" (literally, "simple-nosed") primates: monkeys (incl. apes) |
63 |
Infraorder |
Simiiformes | monkeys (incl. apes) | 40 |
Parvorder |
Catarrhini | "Downward-nosed" primates: apes and old-world monkeys | 30 |
Superfamily | Hominoidea |
lesser apes (gibbons ) |
22-20 |
Family | Hominidae | hominids |
20–15 |
Subfamily | Homininae | Humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas (the African apes)[1] | 14–12 |
Tribe | Hominini | Includes both Homo, Pan (chimpanzees), but not Gorilla. | 10–8 |
Subtribe | Hominina |
Genus Homo and close human relatives and ancestors after hominins |
8–4[2] |
(Genus) | Ardipithecus s.l. | 6-4 | |
(Genus) | Australopithecus | 3 | |
Genus | Homo (H. habilis) | Humans | 2.5 |
(Species) | H. erectus s.l. | ||
(Species) | H. heidelbergensis s.l. | ||
Species | Homo sapiens s.s. |
Anatomically modern humans |
0.8–0.3[3] |
Timeline
million years ago) |
Unicellular life
Date | Event |
---|---|
4.3-4.1 Ga |
The earliest life appears, possibly as protocells. Their genetic material was probably composed of RNA, capable of both self replication and enzymatic activity; their membranes were composed of lipids. The genes were separate strands, translated into proteins and often exchanged between the protocells. |
4.0-3.8 Ga | Prokaryotic cells appear; their genetic materials are composed of the more stable DNA and they use proteins for various reasons, primarily for aiding DNA to replicate itself by proteinaceous enzymes (RNA now acts as an intermediary in this central dogma of genetic information flow of cellular life); genes are now linked in sequences so all information passes to offsprings. They had cell walls & outer membranes and were probably initially thermophiles .
|
3.5 Ga | This marks the first appearance of cyanobacteria and their method of oxygenic photosynthesis and therefore the first occurrence of atmospheric oxygen on Earth.
For another billion years, prokaryotes would continue to diversify undisturbed. |
2.5-2.2 Ga | First organisms to use oxygen. By 2400 Ma, in what is referred to as the Great Oxidation Event, (GOE), most of the pre-oxygen anaerobic forms of life were wiped out by the oxygen producers. |
2.2-1.8 Ga | Origin of the endosymbiosis . Early eukaryotes lost their cell walls and outer membranes.
|
1.2 Ga | Sexual reproduction evolves (mitosis and meiosis) by this time at least, leading to faster evolution[4] where genes are mixed in every generation enabling greater variation for subsequent selection. |
1.2-0.8 Ga |
The Proterospongia (members of the Choanoflagellata) are the best living examples of what the ancestor of all animals may have looked like. They live in colonies, and show a primitive level of cellular specialization for different tasks. |
Animalia
Date | Event |
---|---|
800–650 Ma
|
Urmetazoan: The first fossils that might represent Porifera (sponges ) lineage.
Diploblast: separation from the Ctenophora ("comb jellies") lineage.
Planulozoa/ParaHoxozoa: separation from the Placozoa and Cnidaria lineages.
All diploblasts possess eye-spots evolve.
|
650-600 Ma |
Urbilaterian: the last common ancestor of xenacoelomorphs, gonads connecting just before the posterior orifice. "Cup-eyes" and balance organs evolve (the function of hearing added later as the more complex inner ear evolves in vertebrates). The nephrozoan through-gut had a wider portion in the front, called the pharynx. The integument or skin consists of an epithelial layer (epidermis ) and a connective layer.
|
600-540 Ma |
Most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the An archaic survivor from this stage is the filter feeding like in hemi- and proto-chordates.
|
Chordata
Date | Event |
---|---|
540-520 Ma |
The increased amount of oxygen causes many eukaryotes, including most animals, to become obligate aerobes. The Chordata ancestor gave rise to the closed circulatory system , with highly branched blood vessels.
Olfactores, last common ancestor of tunicates and vertebrates in which olfaction (smell) evolved. Since lancelets lack a heart, it possibly emerged in this ancestor (previously the blood vessels themselves were contractile) though it could have been lost in lancelets after evolving in early deuterostomes (hemichordates and echinoderms have hearts). |
520-480 Ma |
The first thrombocytes.[16]
|
460-430 Ma |
The the first jawed fishes (Gnathostomata); their jaws evolved from the first gill/pharyngeal arch and they largely replaced their endoskeletal cartilage with bone and evolved pectoral and pelvic fins. Bones of the first gill arch became the upper and lower jaw, while those from the second arch became the hyomandibula, ceratohyal and basihyal; this closed two of the seven pairs of gills. The gap between the first and second arches just below the braincase (fused with upper jaw) created a pair of spiracles , which opened in the skin and led to the pharynx (water passed through them and left through gills).
Placoderms had competition with the previous dominant animals, the .
|
430-410 Ma |
Tetrapoda
Date | Event |
---|---|
390 Ma |
Some freshwater lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygii) develop limbs and give rise to the habitats , where they evolved large eyes and spiracles.
Primitive tetrapods ("fishapods") developed from tetrapodomorphs with a two-lobed lobe-finned fish without these shallow-water adaptations.) Tetrapod fishes used their fins as paddles in shallow-water habitats choked with plants and detritus. The universal tetrapod characteristics of front limbs that bend backward at the elbow and hind limbs that bend forward at the knee can plausibly be traced to early tetrapods living in shallow water.[18]
Trackway impressions made by something that resembles Ichthyostega's limbs were formed 390 Ma in Polish marine tidal sediments. This suggests tetrapod evolution is older than the dated fossils of Panderichthys through to Ichthyostega. |
375-350 Ma |
Tiktaalik is a genus of sarcopterygian (lobe-finned) fishes from the late Devonian with many tetrapod-like features. It shows a clear link between Panderichthys and Acanthostega. Acanthostega is an extinct tetrapod, among the first animals to have recognizable limbs. It is a candidate for being one of the first vertebrates to be capable of coming onto land. It lacked wrists, and was generally poorly adapted for life on land. The limbs could not support the animal's weight. Acanthostega had both lungs and gills, also indicating it was a link between lobe-finned fish and terrestrial vertebrates. The dorsal pair of ribs form a rib cage to support the lungs, while the ventral pair disappears.
|
350-330 Ma |
caecilians have none).
|
330-300 Ma |
From amphibians came the first reptiles: Evolution of the amniotic egg gives rise to the amniotes, tetrapods that can reproduce on land and lay glands .
Amniotes have advanced nervous systems, with twelve pairs of cranial nerves, unlike lower vertebrates. They also evolved true sternums but lost their eardrums and otic notches (hearing only by columella bone conduction). |
Mammals
Date | Event |
---|---|
300-260 Ma | Shortly after the appearance of the first reptiles, two branches split off. One branch is the Sauropsida, from which come the modern reptiles and birds. The other branch is Synapsida from which come modern mammals. Both had temporal fenestrae, a pair of holes in their skulls behind the eyes, which were used to increase the space for jaw muscles. Synapsids had one opening on each side, while diapsids (a branch of Sauropsida) had two. An early, inefficient version of diaphragm may have evolved in synapsids.
The earliest "mammal-like reptiles" are the mammals .
The therapsids had temporal fenestrae larger and more mammal-like than pelycosaurs, their teeth showed more serial differentiation, their gait was semi-erect and later forms had evolved a secondary palate. A secondary palate enables the animal to eat and breathe at the same time and is a sign of a more active, perhaps warm-blooded, way of life.[21] They had lost gastralia and, possibly, scales. |
260-230 Ma |
One subgroup of therapsids, the cynodonts, lose alveoli. Erythrocytes and thrombocytes lose their nuclei while lymphatic systems and advanced immunity emerge. They may have also had thicker dermis like mammals today.
The jaws of cynodonts resembled modern mammal jaws; the anterior portion, the dentary, held differentiated teeth. This group of animals likely contains a species which is the ancestor of all modern mammals. Their temporal fenestrae merged with their orbits. Their hindlimbs became erect and their posterior bones of the jaw progressively shrunk to the region of the columella.[22] |
230-170 Ma |
From molars; mammals become diphyodont and possess developed diaphragms and males have internal penises. All mammals have four chambered hearts (with two atria and two ventricles) and lack cervical ribs (now mammals only have thoracic ribs).
epipubic bones , which serve to hold the pouch in modern marsupials (in both sexes).
|
170-120 Ma |
Evolution of live birth ( marsupials. Nipples stemmed out of the therian milk lines. The posterior orifice separates into anal and urogenital openings; males possess an external penis.
Monotremes and therians independently detach the pinna and erect forelimbs. Female placentalian mammals do not have pouches and epipubic bones but instead have a developed placenta which penetrates the uterus walls (unlike marsupials), allowing a longer gestation; they also have separated urinary and genital openings.[23]
|
100-90 Ma | shrews and humans (base of the clade Boreoeutheria; males now have external testicles ).
|
Primates
Date | Event |
---|---|
90–66 Ma |
A group of small, nocturnal, arboreal, insect-eating mammals called flying lemurs. They reduced the number of mammaries to only two pairs (on the chest). Primatomorpha is a subdivision of Euarchonta including primates and their ancestral stem-primates Plesiadapiformes. An early stem-primate, Plesiadapis , still had claws and eyes on the side of the head, making it faster on the ground than in the trees, but it began to spend long times on lower branches, feeding on fruits and leaves.
The Plesiadapiformes very likely contain the ancestor species of all primates.[24] They first appeared in the fossil record around 66 million years ago, soon after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that eliminated about three-quarters of plant and animal species on Earth, including most dinosaurs.[25][26] One of the last Plesiadapiformes is Carpolestes simpsoni, having grasping digits but not forward-facing eyes. |
66-56 Ma | temporal fossae as sight regains its position as the primary sense; eyes became forward-facing. Strepsirrhini contain most prosimians; modern examples include lemurs and lorises. The haplorrhines include the two living groups: prosimian tarsiers, and simian monkeys, including apes. The Haplorrhini metabolism lost the ability to produce vitamin C, forcing all descendants to include vitamin C-containing fruit in their diet. Early primates only had claws in their second digits; the rest were turned into nails .
|
50-35 Ma |
Simians split into infraorders Platyrrhini and Catarrhini. They fully transitioned to diurnality and lacked any claw and tapetum lucidum (which evolved many times in various vertebrates). They possibly evolved at least some of the paranasal sinuses, and transitioned from estrous cycle to menstrual cycle. The number of mammaries is now reduced to only one thoracic pair. Platyrrhines, New World monkeys, have prehensile tails and males are color blind. The individuals whose descendants would become Platyrrhini are conjectured to have migrated to South America either on a raft of vegetation or via a land bridge (the hypothesis now favored[27]). Catarrhines mostly stayed in Africa as the two continents drifted apart. Possible early ancestors of catarrhines include Aegyptopithecus and Saadanius .
|
35-20 Ma |
trichromatic color vision had its genetic origins in this period. Catarrhines lost the vomeronasal organ (or possibly reduced it to vestigial status).
Proconsul was an early genus of catarrhine primates. They had a mixture of Old World monkey and ape characteristics. Proconsul's monkey-like features include thin tooth enamel, a light build with a narrow chest and short forelimbs, and an arboreal quadrupedal lifestyle. Its ape-like features are its lack of a tail, ape-like elbows, and a slightly larger brain relative to body size. Proconsul africanus is a possible ancestor of both great and lesser apes, including humans. |
Hominidae
Date | Event |
---|---|
20-15 Ma | uricase enzyme (present in most organisms).[28]
|
16-12 Ma | Homininae ancestors speciate from the ancestors of the orangutan between c. 18 to 14 Ma.[29]
|
12 Ma | bipedalism )—whereas, among present-day hominids, humans are better adapted for the latter and the others for the former. Danuvius thus had a method of locomotion unlike any previously known ape called "extended limb clambering", walking directly along tree branches as well as using arms for suspending itself. The last common ancestor between humans and other apes possibly had a similar method of locomotion.
|
12-8 Ma | The clade currently represented by humans and the genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos) splits from the ancestors of the gorillas between c. 12 to 8 Ma.[31] |
8-6 Ma |
Hominini: The latest common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees is estimated to have lived between roughly 10 to 5 million years ago. Both chimpanzees and humans have a larynx that repositions during the first two years of life to a spot between the pharynx and the lungs, indicating that the common ancestors have this feature, a precondition for vocalized speech in humans. Speciation may have begun shortly after 10 Ma, but late admixture between the lineages may have taken place until after 5 Ma. Candidates of Hominina or Homininae species which lived in this time period include
Ouranopithecus (c. 8 Ma),
Graecopithecus (c. 7 Ma),
Sahelanthropus tchadensis (c. 7 Ma),
Orrorin tugenensis (c. 6 Ma).
|
4-3.5 Ma |
A member of the It is thought that A. afarensis was ancestral to both the genus Australopithecus and the genus Homo. Compared to the modern and extinct great apes, A. afarensis had reduced canines and molars, although they were still relatively larger than in modern humans. A. afarensis also has a relatively small brain size (380–430 cm³) and a prognathic (anterior-projecting) face. Australopithecines have been found in savannah environments; they probably developed their diet to include scavenged meat. Analyses of |
3.5–3.0 Ma | Kenyanthropus platyops, a possible ancestor of Homo, emerges from the Australopithecus. Stone tools are deliberately constructed.[34]
|
3 Ma | The bipedal Hominina) evolve in the savannas of Africa being hunted by Megantereon. Loss of body hair occurs from 3 to 2 Ma, in parallel with the development of full bipedalism and slight enlargement of the brain.[35]
|
Homo
Date | Event |
---|---|
2.5–2.0 Ma |
Early Homo appears in East Africa, speciating from australopithecine ancestors. The Lower Paleolithic is defined by the beginning of use of stone tools. Australopithecus garhi was using stone tools at about 2.5 Ma. Homo habilis is the oldest species given the designation Homo, by Leakey et al in 1964. H. habilis is intermediate between Australopithecus afarensis and H. erectus, and there have been suggestions to re-classify it within genus Australopithecus, as Australopithecus habilis. Stone tools found at the Shangchen site in China and dated to 2.12 million years ago are considered the earliest known evidence of hominins outside Africa, surpassing Dmanisi in Georgia by 300,000 years.[36] |
1.9–0.8 Ma |
Homo erectus derives from early Homo or late Australopithecus. Homo habilis, although significantly different of anatomy and physiology, is thought to be the ancestor of Homo ergaster, or African Homo erectus; but it is also known to have coexisted with H. erectus for almost half a million years (until about 1.5 Ma).
From its earliest appearance at about 1.9 Ma, H. erectus is distributed in East Africa and Southwest Asia ( H. erectus later migrates throughout Eurasia , reaching Southeast Asia by 0.7 Ma.
It is described in a number of subspecies.[37] Early humans were social and initially scavenged, before becoming active hunters. The need to communicate and hunt prey efficiently in a new, fluctuating environment (where the locations of resources need to be memorized and told) may have driven the expansion of the brain from 2 to 0.8 Ma.
Evolution of dark skin at about 1.2 Ma.[38]
Homo antecessor may be a common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals.[39][40] At present estimate, humans have approximately 20,000–25,000 genes and share 99% of their DNA with the now extinct Neanderthal[41] and 95–99% of their DNA with their closest living evolutionary relative, the chimpanzees.[42][43] The human variant of the FOXP2 gene (linked to the control of speech) has been found to be identical in Neanderthals.[44] |
0.8–0.3 Ma |
Divergence of Neanderthal and Denisovan lineages from a common ancestor.[45] Homo heidelbergensis (in Africa also known as Homo rhodesiensis) had long been thought to be a likely candidate for the last common ancestor of the Neanderthal and modern human lineages. However, genetic evidence from the Sima de los Huesos fossils published in 2016 seems to suggest that H. heidelbergensis in its entirety should be included in the Neanderthal lineage, as "pre-Neanderthal" or "early Neanderthal", while the divergence time between the Neanderthal and modern lineages has been pushed back to before the emergence of H. heidelbergensis, to about 600,000 to 800,000 years ago, the approximate age of Homo antecessor.[46][47] Brain expansion (enlargement) between 0.8 and 0.2 Ma may have occurred due to the extinction of most African megafauna (which made humans feed from smaller prey and plants, which required greater intelligence due to greater speed of the former and uncertainty about whether the latter were poisonous or not), extreme climate variability after Mid-Pleistocene Transition (which intensified the situation, and resulted in frequent migrations), and in general selection for more social life (and intelligence) for greater chance of survival, reproductivity, and care for mothers. Solidified footprints dated to about 350 ka and associated with H. heidelbergensis were found in southern Italy in 2003.[48]
H. sapiens lost the brow ridges from their hominid ancestors as well as the snout completely, though their noses evolve to be protruding (possibly from the time of H. erectus). By 200 ka, humans had stopped their brain expansion. |
Homo sapiens
Date | Event |
---|---|
300–130 ka |
Denisovans emerge from the northern Homo heidelbergensis lineage around 500-450 ka while sapients emerge from the southern lineage around 350-300 ka.[49]
Fossils attributed to H. sapiens, along with stone tools, dated to approximately 300,000 years ago, found at Homo sapiens .
Modern human presence in East Africa (Gademotta), at 276 kya.[51] In July 2019, anthropologists reported the discovery of 210,000 year old remains of a H. sapiens in Apidima Cave, Peloponnese, Greece.[52][53][54]
Patrilineal and matrilineal most recent common ancestors (MRCAs) of living humans roughly between 200 and 100 kya[55][56] with some estimates on the patrilineal MRCA somewhat higher, ranging up to 250 to 500 kya.[57] 160,000 years ago, |
130–80 ka | Eemian ).
Modern human presence in Southern Africa and West Africa.[59] Appearance of mitochondrial haplogroup (mt-haplogroup) L2 .
|
80–50 ka | MIS 4, beginning of the Upper Paleolithic .
Early evidence for behavioral modernity.[60] Appearance of mt-haplogroups |
50–25 ka |
"great leap forward" theory.[69]
Extinction of Homo floresiensis.[70]
M168 mutation (carried by all non-African males).
Appearance of mt-haplogroups U and K .
Paleolithic art .
hybrid populations in Asia and Africa.)
Appearance of Y-Haplogroup .
|
after 25 ka |
Epipaleolithic / Mesolithic / Holocene .
Peopling of the Americas.
Appearance of: Y-Haplogroup .
Various recent divergence associated with environmental pressures,
e.g. ASIP), after 30 ka;[71]
Inuit adaptation to high-fat diet and cold climate, 20 ka.[72]
Extinction of late surviving archaic humans at the beginning of the Holocene (12 ka). Accelerated divergence due to selection pressures in populations participating in the Neolithic Revolution after 12 ka, e.g. East Asian types of ADH1B associated with rice domestication,[73] or lactase persistence.[74][75] A slight decrease in brain size occurred a few thousand years ago. |
See also
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- PMID 22923467.
- S2CID 546365.
- PMID 20089146.
- PMID 28426286.
- S2CID 3329285.
External links
- Palaeos
- Berkeley Evolution
- History of Animal Evolution
- Tree of Life Web Project – explore complete phylogenetic tree interactively
- Human Timeline (Interactive) – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History (August 2016).