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Prehistory comprises all events which took place before the creation of written records. The timeline of prehistory lists events from the evolution of the universe and the Earth to the origin of life and human evolution, up to the invention of writing in approximately 4000 BC. Note that many of these dates are speculative or very rough estimates (approximations). For greater geologic detail, see the articles on the various geological periods.

Human prehistory

Timeline from the beginnings of human evolution to the invention of writing. All dates are approximate and conjectural, obtained through research in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, genetics, geology, or linguistics. They are all subject to revision due to new discoveries or improved calculations.

Stone Age

This timeline encompasses the entirety of the Stone Age. The Stone Age, lasting about 2.5 million years (Ma), during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the manufacture of implements with a sharp edge, a point, or a percussion surface.

Later Stone Age

• 7,000 years ago: late Neolithic civilizations, invention of the wheel and spread of proto-writing.
• 9,000 years ago: Jiahu culture began in China
• 9,500 years ago: Çatal Höyük urban settlement founded in Anatolia
• 9,000-10,000 years ago: In northern Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, cultivation of barley and wheat begins. At first they are used for beer, gruel, and soup, eventually for bread. In early agriculture at this time, the Planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive Plow in subsequent centuries. Around this time, a round stone tower, now preserved to about 8.5 meters high and 8.5 meters in diameter is built in Jericho.
• 11,000 years ago: Emergence of Jericho, which is now one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.
• 12,000 years ago: Land ice leaves Denmark and southern Sweden; start of the current Holocene epoch and Neolithic Age and end of the last Ice Age. Invention of agriculture is the earliest given date for the beginning of the ancient era
• c. 14,800 years ago: The Humid Period begins in North Africa. The region that would later become the Sahara is wet and fertile, and the Aquifers are full.
• c. 16,000 years ago: Wisent sculpted in clay deep inside the cave now known as Le Tuc d'Audoubert in the French Pyrenees near what is now the border of Spain.
• c. 20,000 years ago: Chatelperronian culture in France.
• 21,000 years ago: Last Glacial Maximum
• 22,000 years ago: the oldest known tally stick (the Ishango Bone)
• 25,000 years ago: first colonisation of North America. A hamlet consisting of huts built of rocks and of mammoth bones is founded in what is now Dolni Vestonice in Moravia in the Czech Republic. This is the oldest human permanent settlement that has yet been found by archaeologists.
• c. 26,000 years ago: Women around the world use fibers to make baby-carriers, clothes, bags, baskets, and nets.
• c. 28,000-20,000 years ago: Gravettian period in Europe. Harpoons, needles, and saws invented.
• c. 28,500 years ago: New Guinea is populated by colonists from Asia or Australia.
• 29,000 years ago: extinction of Homo neanderthalensis.
• 30,000 years ago: approximate age of Haplogroup X (mtDNA) and Haplogroup I (mtDNA). A herd of reindeer is slaughtered and butchered by humans in the Vezere Valley in what is today France.
• 31,000 years ago: oldest known cave paintings
• c. 32,000 years ago: Aurignacian culture begins in Europe.
• 35 000 years ago: oldest known figurative art (Venus of Hohle Fels), age of the Aurignacian culture

Middle Stone Age

• 40,000 years ago: Cro-Magnon colonisation of Europe (Upper Paleolithic)
• 50,000 years ago: Modern humans spread from Asia to the Near East; age of Haplogroup B (mtDNA) In the next millennia, these human group's descendants move on to southern India, the Malay islands, Australia, Japan, China, Siberia, Alaska, and the northwestern coast of North America.
• 60,000 years ago: out of Africa migration of modern humans; approximate age of Haplogroup N (mtDNA), Haplogroup C (mtDNA) and Haplogroup A (mtDNA)
• c. 75,000 years ago: Toba Volcano supereruption.
• 80,000 years ago: approximate age of Haplogroup M (mtDNA)
• 90,000 years ago: time of Y-chromosomal Adam
• 100,000 years ago: earliest estimate for the domestication of dogs
• 125,000 years ago: peak of the Eemian Stage interglacial
• 150,000 years ago: time of mitochondrial Eve
• 160,000 years ago: split between Homo sapiens idaltu and Homo sapiens sapiens
• 200,000 years ago: appearance of Homo sapiens in Africa
• 250,000 years ago: appearance of Homo neanderthalensis

Early Stone Age

• 300,000 years ago: Homo sapiens separated from Homo erectus (Middle Paleolithic); approximate age of Canis lupus
• 500,000 years ago: colonisation of Eurasia by Homo erectus
• 700,000 years ago: last reversal of the earth's magnetic field
• 790,000 years ago: earliest demonstrable evidence of the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus
• 1.5 million years ago: earliest possible evidence of the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus
• 2.5 million years ago: start of the Pleistocene epoch and the current Quaternary period; emergence of the genus Homo. Beginning of the Stone Age.

Complex life

Time from the dawn of complex life to the beginnings of the stone age.

Geological eras

Cenozoic

• 2.6 million years ago: current ice age begins
• 3 million years ago: Isthmus of Panama joins North and South America.
• 4.5 million years ago: appearance of the genus Australopithecus
• 5 million years ago: Pliocene epoch begins
• 5.5 million years ago: appearance of the genus Ardipithecus
• 5.4-6.3 million years ago: estimated age of the Homo/Pan (human vs. chimpanzee) split, age of the Hominini tribe
• 18-12 million years ago: estimated age of the Hominidae/Hylobatidae (great apes vs. gibbons) split.
• 20 million years ago: first forms of grass appear
• 24 million years ago: Miocene epoch begins
• 26 million years ago: emergence of the first true elephants
• 34 million years ago: cats begin to evolve
• 36 million years ago: end of Eocene, start of Oligocene epoch
• 40 million years ago: age of the Catarrhini parvorder; first canines evolve
• 49 million years ago: whales return to the water
• 50 million years ago: Africa collides with Eurasia, closing the Tethys Sea. Divergence of cat and dog ancestors.
• 55 million years ago: the island of the Indian subcontinent collides with Asia, thrusting up the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. First known bats.
• 60 million years ago: evolution of the first primates and rodents.
• 65 million years ago: Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period marks the end of the Mesozoic era and the age of the dinosaurs; start of the Tertiary period and the current Cenozoic era.

Mesozoic

• 80 million years ago: Australia splits from Antarctica.
• 90 million years ago: the Indian subcontinent splits from Gondwana, becoming an island continent.
• 130 million years ago: Laurasia and Gondwana begin to split apart as the Atlantic Ocean forms.
• 135 million years ago: end of Jurassic and beginning of Cretaceous Period. First birds.
• 180 million years ago: Pangaea splits into two major continents: Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south.
• 195 million years ago: end of Triassic and beginning of Jurassic Period; first mammals.
• 215 million years ago: first turtles
• 220 million years ago: first crocodilians
• 251.4 million years ago: Permian mass extinction. End of Permian Period and of the Palaeozoic Era. Beginning of Triassic Period, the Mesozoic era and of the age of the dinosaurs.

Paleozoic

• 280 million years ago: end of Carboniferous and beginning of Permian Period. By this time, all contients have fused into the supercontinent of Pangaea.
• 315 million years ago: the evolution of the first reptiles.
• 340 million years ago: beginning of the Carboniferous and the end of Devonian period
• 400 million years ago: beginning of the Devonian and the end of the Silurian period. First insects.
• 420 million years ago: first creature took a breath of air
• 435 million years ago: beginning of the Silurian and the end of the Ordovician period
• 450 million years ago: plants colonize the land.
• 500 million years ago: beginning of the Ordovician and the end of the Cambrian period
• 540 million years ago: beginning of the Cambrian period, the Paleozoic Era and the Phanerozoic (current) Eon. End of the Ediacaran Period, the Proterozoic Eon and the Precambrian Supereon. Time since the Cambrian explosion the emergence of most forms of complex life, including vertebrates, arthropods, echinoderms and molluscs. Pannotia breaks up into several smaller continents: Laurentia, Baltica and Gondwana.

Neoproterozoic

• 575 million years ago: oldest animal fossils
• 580 million years ago: end of a possible Snowball Earth ice age
• 600 million years ago: Early supercontinent, Pannotia forms in the southern hemisphere. First complex multicelled lifeforms.
• 635 mlllion years ago: beginning of the Ediacaran Period.
• 750 million years ago: beginning of a possible Snowball Earth ice age

Formation

Time from the formation of universe to the beginnings of complex life

• 1.8 to 2.1 billion years ago: earliest eukaryotes
• 2.3 billion years ago: first known ice age
• 2.5 billion years ago: End of the Archaean Eon; beginning of the Proterozoic Eon
• 3.7 to 3.9 billion years: age of the Mare Imbrium, the Lower Imbrian epoch
• 3.9 to 4.1 billion years ago: origin of life (cyanobacteria). End of the Hadean Eon and beginning of the Archaean Eon.
• 4.5 billion years: age of the Earth (see: Precambrian)
• 4.6 billion years ago: the solar system begins to form
• 13.2 billion years: age of the oldest known star, HE 1523-0901
• 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years (4e17 seconds): estimated age of the universe according to the Big Bang theory

See also

• Timeline of prehistoric Britain
• Timeline of prehistoric Scotland
• Timeline of the far future
• Detailed logarithmic timeline
• Terasecond and longer

References

1. Kiple, Kenneth F. and Ornelas, Kriemhild Coneè, eds., The Cambridge World History of Food, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 83
2. "No-Till: The Quiet Revolution," by David Huggins and John Reganold, Scientific American, July 2008, pages 70-77.
3. Fagan, Brian M, ed. The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996 ISBN 978-0-521-40216-3 p 363
4. "Shift from Savannah to Sahara was Gradual," by Kenneth Chang, New York Times, May 9, 2008.
5. Stuart, Gene S. (1979). "Ice Age Hunters: Artists in Hidden Cages". Mysteries of the Ancient World. National Geographic Society. pp. 8-€“10. {{cite book}}: C1 control character in |pages= at position 3 (help)
6. Encyclopedia Americana, 2003 edition, volume 6, page 334.
7. Stuart, Gene S. (1979). "Ice Age Hunters: Artists in Hidden Cages". Mysteries of the Ancient World. National Geographic Society. p. 19.
8. James Trager, The People's Chronology, 1994, ISBN 0-8050-3134-0
9. Gene S. Stuart, "Ice Age Hunters: Artists in Hidden Cages." In Mysteries of the Ancient World, a publication of the National Geographic Society, 1979. Pages 11-18.
10. ^ This is indicated by the M130 marker in the Y chromosome. "Traces of a Distant Past," by Gary Stix, Scientific American, July 2008, pages 56-63.
11. "Mount Toba Eruption - Ancient Humans Unscathed, Study Claims". Retrieved 2008-04-20. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

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