Homo Sapiens Sapiens (Pioneer Plaque) Omo 1 and Omo 2 (Ethiopia, Omuriver) are the earliest fossil evidence for archaic Homo Sapiens, evolved from Homo heidelbergensis around 200 kya.

Around 160 kya Homo sapiens (Homo Sapiens Idaltu) in Ethiopia, Awash River, Herto village, practice mortuary rituals and butcher hippos. Potential earliest evidence of behavioural modernity consistent with the continuity hypothesis including use of red ochre and fishing.

Mitochondrial Eve is a woman that lived in East Africa around 150 kya. She is the statistically expected most recent female ancestor common to all mitochondrial lineages in human alive today. Note that there is no evidence of any characteristic or genetic drift that significantly differentiated her from the contemporary social group she lived with at that time. Her ancestors were Homo sapiens and her mother had the same mtDNA.

Appearance of mitochondrial haplogroup L2 is around 70 kya, behavioral modernity according to the ‘great leap forward’ theory.

Y-Chromosomal Adam lives in Africa around 60 kya. He is the most recent common ancestor from whom all male human Y-chromosomes are descended. Appearance of mitochondrial haplogroups M and N, which participate in migration out of Africa. Homo sapiens that leave Africa in this wave start interbreeding with Neanderthals they encounter.

Migration to south Asia, happens around 50 kya, M168 mutation (carried by all non-African males) begins of the upper Paleolithic with mt- haplogroup u,k.

Migration to Australia and Europe (Cro-Magnan) starts around 40 kya.

The independent Neanderthal lineages die out around 25 kya. Y-haplogroup R2; mt-haplogroup j,x continues.

Around 12 kya – beginning of the Mesolithic/Holocene – Y-haplogroup R1a; mt-haplogroup V, T continues, evolution happens of light skin Europeans (SLC24A5).

Homo floresiensis dies out, leaving Homo sapiens as the only living species of the genus Homo.

Time line of Human evolution (in a nutshell):

Eusthenopteron (385 MYA, Fishlike) > Panderichthys (380 MYA) > Tiktaalik (375 MYA) >Acanthostega (365 MYA) > Ichthyostega (367-362.5 MYA) > Hynerpeton (360 MYA) > Tulerpeton (Devonian) > Westlothiana (350 MYA) > Hylonomus (325 MYA) > Archaeothyris (320 MYA) > Varanops (Mid Permian) > Ericiolacerta (Early Triassic) > Thrinaxodon (Early Triassic) > Megazostrodon (late Triassic to early Jurassic) > Crusafontia (early Cretaceous) > Plesiadapis (58-55 MYA) > Aegyptopithecus (35-33 MYA) >Pierolapithecus catalaunicus (13 MYA) > Sahelanthropus tchadensis (7 MYA) > Australopithecus anamensis (4.2 MYA) > Australopithecus afarensis (3.9-2.9 MYA) > Homo Habilis (2.4-1.6 MYA) > Homo ergaster (1.9-1.4 MYA) > Homo erectus (2 MYA- 400000 BCE) > Homo Sapiens Idaltu (160000 BCE).

Humanity’s ancestors first appeared in the African Rift valley from where they migrated, north, west and south. A current hypothesis is that diverging hominid stock migrated from Africa at two different periods. One lineage of 700000 years ago led to the Neanderthals evolving in the temperate zone of Europe and the Middle East. Another, which evolved in Africa about 100000 years ago, led to modern humans. Around 186000 years ago, an ice age set in, creating arid conditions in Africa. This lasted until about 120000 years ago and prevented the migration of this evolving human out of Africa. By 100000 years ago the Sahara desert was lush, with lakes, streams and vegetation. Plentiful game would have encouraged a wider distribution of early humans. Genetic evidence derived from the amount variation of mitochondrial DNA and an estimated natural rate of evolutionary divergence of this DNA of 3% per millions years, has placed the origin of all modern humans at between 140000 and 290000 years ago (excludes the Neanderthals). Studies of a part of the human chromosome that influences the immune response, suggests that this early population was made up only between 500 and 10000 individuals. Another study of the mitochondrial DNA of 171 people and five geographic populations showed that these people arose from a single African women postulated to have lived about 140000 to 280000 years ago. Further anatomically modern humans arose 100000 to 140000 years ago, and the populations outside Africa had multiple origins. (i.e. multiple colonisations).

There 154000 to 160000 year old human skulls (two adult males and a child) from Ethiopia (dug up near a village called Herto) are currently the oldest known and best-preserved fossils of modern humans’ immediate predecessors. As the Herto skull is slightly larger than those of modern humans (1450 cc, compared with modern human’s average of between 1350 and 1400 cc), they are classified it is a subspecies, Homo sapiens idaltu. Homo sapiens idaltu lived on the shore of a swallow lake created by the dammed Awash River. This lake habitat contained abundant hippos, crocodiles and catfish. The skulls also have blade cut marks.

Migrants, that colonized the rest of the world, left Africa between 90000 and 180000 years ago, and reached China by 68000 years ago, Australia by at least 60000 years ago, Europe by 36000 years ago, and the new world by 12000 years ago. Cann, Stoneking and Wilson’s (1987) study of mitochondrial DNA found a lack of diversity in the Asian population that have been expected had these migrants hybridized with the Homo erectus already in the area. The greatest divergence in DNA of non-African populations occurred 90000 to 180000 years ago suggesting that Homo erectus (Java Man, Peiking Man) did not contribute to our gene pool (as proposed by the multi regional hypothesis to human origins). Modern genetic studies, published as “ The History and Geography of Human Genes” (Luca cavalli-sforza, Paolo Menozzi and Albert Piazza), divides humanity into four major ethnic religious, Africal (Khoisan), Caucasoids (Basque), Mongoloids (American Indian) and Australians (Aborigine),with fossils evidence these recent findings confirm the African origin of humanity. Africans have the greatest genetic distance from the rest of humanity, showing that on the human family tree, the split from the Africans occurred before the other branches. Australian aborigines are genetically the most distant from the Africans.