Events relating to athens

Amphibians develop lungs, enabling them to live on land as well as in the water

A primate of this period, at ease both in the trees and on the ground, is probably the common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans

Certain primates, in eastern and southern Africa, are by now sufficiently like humans to be classed as hominids

Humans in coastal areas of South Africa extend their diet to include shellfish and other marine sources of food

The last common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals evolves in Africa (possibly the species known as Homo Rhodesiensis)

Humans are by this time living in Britain, in what is now Norfolk, and are making stone tools

Humans evolve who can be classified as Homo sapiens - among them Neanderthal Man

The Middle Palaeolithic era covers the period when Neanderthals and modern humans coexist in Europe and Asia

Fossilized bones found in the caves of Skhul and Qafzeh, in modern Israel, are of anatomically modern humans

The Neanderthals vanish quite suddenly from the fossil record, leaving modern humans as the only surviving members of our species

Somebody in southern Africa cuts grooves in a baboon fibula (the Lebombo bone), suggesting the possibility that prehistoric humans may have had tally-keeping skills

With the sea level falling, a land bridge (known as Beringia) forms between Siberia and Alaska, enabling humans to enter the continent of America

Archaeological evidence reveals that the central plains of north America by now have a widespread human population

During the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age) humans continue to improve their tool-making skills but are still nomads and hunter-gatherers

A canine jaw, discovered in a cave in Mesopotamia, is the earliest evidence of the domestication of dogs

Humans cross from eastern Siberia to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, according to the earliest traces left by the Jomon culture

As the ice cap recedes, hunter-gatherers move up the eastern side of America into Newfoundland and the prairie provinces of Canada

The ending of the most recent ice age, making large prey extinct and the land more fertile, both prompts and enables humans to develop permanent settlements

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