The Beginnings

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Jared M. Diamond– (Chapter 1: Up to the Starting Line)         Human history, as something separate from the history of animals, began in Africa about 7 million years ago (estimates range from 5 to 9 million years ago).       A population of African apes broke up into several populations, of which one proceeded to evolve into several populations, of which one proceeded to evolve into modern gorillas, a second into the two modern chimps, and the third into humans.     The gorilla line apparently split off slightly before the split between the chimp and the human lines.     The evolutionary line leading to us achieved a substantially upright posture by around 4 million years ago, then began to increase in body size and in relative brain size around 2.5 million years ago.               Protohumans are generally known as Australopithecus Africanus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus, which apparently evolved into each other in that sequence.         Homo erectus, around 1.7 million years ago, was close to us modern humans in body size, but its brain size was still barely half of ours.         Stone tools became common around 2.5 million years ago, but they were merely the crudest of flaked or battered stones.         The first human ancestor to spread beyond Africa was Homo erectus, as is attested by fossils discovered on the Southeast Asian island of Java and conventionally known as Java man.                African and European skulls of half a million years ago were sufficiently similar to skulls of us moderns that they are classified in our species, Homo sapiens, instead of in Homo erectus.          The earliest unquestioned evidence of humans in Europe stems from around half a million years ago, but there are claims of an earlier presence.         11,000 B.C. This date corresponds approximately to the beginnings of village life in a few parts of the world, the first undisputed peopling of the Americas, the start of the Pleistocene Era and last Ice Age.         Plant and animal domestication began in at least one part of the world within a few thousand years of the start of the Recent Era 13,000 years ago.