Story of humans

Humans first evolved from ape-like creatures in Africa. The first hominins (humans or human ancestors) probably appeared between 6 and 7 million years ago. Many later kinds of...

Homo sapiens

Homo sapiens ("wise man")—modern humans—probably evolved from Homo erectus, an earlier type of human, or its descendants. Discoveries of bones, tools and weapons in Africa all...

Stone Age

The Palaeolithic period, or Old Stone Age, describes the time between the first use of simple tools by early human-like creatures (about 3.3 million years ago) to the start of the...

Stone tools

Stone tools made by humans or human ancestors date back more than 3 million years. Many scientists studying human origins, known as palaeoanthropologists, guess that stone tools...

Cave paintings

Stone Age cave paintings have been found all over the world. The earliest examples we know have been recently discovered on Sulawesi, an island in Indonesia...

Neolithic period

The period when human beings learned how to farm the land and started to live in permanent settlements—but still used tools made of stone, bones or wood—is called the Neolithic...

When did people first settle in the Americas?

Homo sapiens—modern people—first arrived in North America possibly around 26,500 years ago; the dates are uncertain. During the Ice Ages, the sea level was lower than it is...

Human evolution A-Z

Stone Age A-Z