[Previous page From 40,000BC to 20,000BC] [You are now on a page filed as: Timelines - From 200,000BC to 40,000BC] [Next page Homo Sapiens Rises - From 200,000BC]

Look for this Home Page navigation button as you travel. This page updated 4 March 2007

www.danbyrnes.com.au

Interested in dates/events in history? Try Hyperhistory: http://www.hyperhistory.com

Link to Lost Worlds at your leisure, if that is your pleasure.

Homo Sapiens Rises: From 200,000BC to 40,000BC

28,000BC: An amateur cave explorer near the hamlet of Cussac, western France's Dordogne area, has last September 2000 made a major find of a cave inhabited in prehistoric times, presenting vivid engravings and several human graves. The engravings may even pre-date the famous paintings of France's Lascaux caves, which date to about 16,000BC. One commentator is Dany Baraud, chief archaeologist at Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs of Aquitaine. Some hundreds of metres of engravings in the new find depict animals including bison, horses and rhinoceros, plus humans. Evidently in France, the finding of graves in a painted cave is unprecedented. (In 1994, a cave was found in the Ardeche region of south-eastern France with drawings and engravings dating to about 30,000BC.) (Reported in The Australian, 6 July 2001)

30,OOOBC: In 1994, a cave is found in the Ardeche region of south-eastern France with drawings and engravings dating to about 30,000BC. (Reported in The Australian, 6 July 2001)

33,00BC or as early as 88,000BC: Human origins: The out-of-Africa theory is being discussed again after new genetic research suggests that 12,000 Asian men from Iran to Papua New Guinea are descended from migrants from Africa who departed as long ago as 98,000BC. The migrating Africans did not interbreed with "archaic" hominid forms such as Peking Man or Java Man, say the international team led by Dr. Li Jin of Fudan University in China. Rather, the African homo sapiens completely replaced earlier populations in East Asia. This latest study, a search for three specific mutations, examined the Y chromosome of of men from 163 populations from India, Siberia, East Asia, China, Taiwan, Indonesia and some South Pacific islands. (The Y chromosome is passed unchanged from father to son.) The three mutations in questions in turn derive from an earlier mutation that arose in men in Africa between 33,000BC and 87,000BC. The findings from this research are tending to be disputed by proponents of the regional continuity theory which contradicts the "out-of-Africa" theory and argues that humanity arose co-incidentally in several regions on earth. (Reported 19-20 May 2001 in Sydney Morning Herald. See a recent issue of journal Science.)

40,000-20,000BP: DNA evidence indicated that four distinct population lineages entered the New World across the Bering Sea during this period.

40,000BC: The oldest Asian Homo sapiens are of about this age (in the opinion of some).

40,000BC: The earliest evidence for personal ornaments appeared in anatomically modern humans about this time.

40,000BC-20,000BC: Cultures in Eastern US and Canada, from original migration of Man from Asia during Pleistocene, possibly a big-game hunting tradition, Minnesota to Louisiana. Also active 8000BC and further.

40,000-20,000BC: Man is possibly entering the Americas via the Bering Strait crossing, time of an Ice Age? Better toolkits in use by 6000BC.

Advertisement

40,000BC to 25,000BC: An explosion in the numbers of new types of tools being used. About 35,000BC, Cro-Magnon Man, painter of the Paleolithic caves of Southern France and Northern Spain. And note that one commentator says one painted bull is seventeen-feet long, with lines and form that give it "immense presence".

40,000-30,000BC: Cro-Magnon Man settled Europe at the height of the Wurm glaciation, water levels 200-300 feet lower than present levels. The landbridge to Alaska from Siberia is as wide as France.

40,000BC: Modern Homo Sapiens or home sapiens sapiens. And the simpler view is that Neandertals evolved into Cro-Magnon, who lived 40,000BC to 20,000BC. Modern Europeans, Caucasoid, are descended from Cro-magnons, though we have a different, more overlapping bite than their teeth had. Not until about 15,000BC was the barbed harpoon invented, used with a spearthrower, used even as in Australia.

40,000BP: Stone figurines, ostrich-eggshell beads.

From 40,000BC: Blade industries in Near East, Asia west to Europe, to north west Africa, in two waves, and south to Cape of Africa.

For timelines for Antiquity 45,000BC to 3501BC, Check Website:
http://www. mediahistory.com/time/prehist.html/

41,000BC: Scholars surmise that diggers in Africa's Swaziland begin to seek iron about this time.

40,700BC: In 1992 rock engravings in South Australia are carbon dated at 42,700 years.

43,000BC: A flute-like instrument made of bear bone was found by archaeologist Janez Dirjec at the Divje Babe site in the valley of the Idrijca River in Slovenia. It was believed to be about 45,000 years old.

Circa 43,000BC: About this time some seven women led to the descendants of the population of modern Europe. In 2001 geneticist Bryan Sykes authored The Seven Daughters of Eve. (Such issues are well-discussed in Shreeve, Neandertal)

44,000BC approx: About now, Australia's megafauna are becoming extinct, but does this coincide in any way with the time when people first arrived in Australia? Or with a shift in climate? Now, 28 sites across Australia have been examined. A finding is that 46,000 years ago was a mild period climatically, so the disappearance of megafauna was not due to aridity. Or did humans kill off the megafauna - which is said to have included some of the biggest reptilian and mammalian carnivores which ever existed? Australia had a marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex) which weighed about 160kg and was possibly as ferocious as the Sabre-toothed Tiger. The T.carnifex especially lived on a large marsupial, the diprotodon, about as big as a rhinoceros. Also part of megafauna was an "enormous wombat", Phascolonus gigas. There was also a large bird, called The Thunderbird, which weighed up to 500kg and was possibly a carnivore or at last "an over-engineered vegetarian". The idea that humans wiped out Australian megafauna in as little as 500 years after their arrival has been retailed by controversial Australian museum director and author, Tim Flannery. However, a museum research fellow in Australia, Dr Richard Fullagar, plumbs for megafauna surviving till about 28,000BC. (Reported 9 June 2001. See a recent issue of journal Science.)

44,000BP: Mediterranean population spurt.

45,000BC, Humans begin to enter south-west Europe, from near east, seem to be the modern Basques and Scandinavians, modern skeletons, tools of bones, fishhooks, needles, harpoons, spear throwers, bows and arrows, nets lines and snares, first cave art, statues, musical instruments.

47,000BC-40,000BC: Skull at Mt Carmel, Palestine, during the Riss-Wurm interglacial. four varieties of Homo Sapiens, (Homo sapiens sapiens, homo sapiens neandertalensis, who buried their dead ceremoniously and were cold-adapted for the Wurm ice age, (named after site on the German river, Neander) Homo sapiens soloensis, and Homo sapiens rhodesiensis; after 30,000 years; no cultural connections are found between Neandertals and Cro-Magnon.

48,000BC: England: "Neandertal butchery site": Newly-discovered at Norfolk, Eastern England, the remains of four mammoths, (two adults, two juvenile) a wooly rhino, a reindeer and a spotted hyena, along with 50,000 year-old flint tools. Leader of the team of archaeologists involved is David Miles, chief archaeologist of English Heritage, who says the find is of international significance. It is uncertain however if the Neandertals scavenged from dead animals, or deliberately killed them for food. (Reported 29 June 2002 in Sydney Morning Herald)

Circa 48,000BC: Charcoal from camp fires in the Pedra Faruda site of Piaui state, Brazil, were carbon dated in 1987 to this time.

48,000-44,000BC: In Australia about 85% of the land-dwelling megafauna weighing over 100 pounds went extinct about this time. It was later suspected that systematic burning of the forests by humans contributed to the extinction. Some 55 species died off including the 230-pound flightless "thunder bird" called Genyornis.
NB: The largest bird ever to walk the Earth: The mihirung, a bird in Australia standing three metres tall, weighing half a tonne. Its descendants still live in the Northern Territory's Kakadu National Park. It has remained an obscure scientific anomaly, and could be termed "a prehistoric giant goose of the wooded heart of Australia". Bones of the bird were first found by explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell in the 1830s in sandstone near Alcoota Station north-east of Alice Springs.
See Peter Murray and Patricia Vickers-Rich, Magnificent Mihirungs: The Colossal Flightless Birds of the Australian Dreamtime. University of Indiana Press, 2003-2004. Art by Peter Trusler.

48,000BC: A find is made in 1972 at the 50,000 year-old site of Hortus in southern France, where evidence suggests that humans might have worn a complete leopard hide as a costume. Here, and at a Yugoslavian site named Krapina, there might even be evidence, scattered bones, of ritualized cannibalism. For this time frame, evidence also arises from Monte Circeo near Rome about a possible Neandertal lifestyle. An isolated Neandertal skull is found in what seems to be a circle of stones. the base of the skull has been smashed, possibly to extract the brains. (Shreeve, Neandertal)

50,000BC to 30,000BC is the "garden of eden period" for modern Homo Sapiens. In north west Africa and Near East, as Homo Sapiens swamped and replaced older and more archaic subspecies of Homo and inherited the earth. Shreeve in his book on Neandertals suggests that about 48,000BC, the world population of Homo sapiens plus Neadertals might be about 1.3 million, in "Eurasia". The question arises, did modern humanity and Neandertals interbreed?

50,000-77,000 years ago: Thinking backwards to high talent: When did modern human talents of complex and abstract thinking arise? About 77,000 years ago, twice as early as previously thought, in the opinion of anthropologist Christopher Henshilwood, leader of a research team working in Southern Africa.
A discovery involves intricate geometric carvings which "may overturn much current thinking in anthropology". The suggestion is that modern human behaviour evolved in Africa rather than Europe. The artifacts - about 40,000 years older than European rock art - are pieces of red rock etched with geometric shapes of an evidently symbolic intent - parallel lines in a cross-hatched design. Modern humanity evolved in Africa about 100,000 years ago, not spreading to Europe till 50,00 years ago, when they displaced Neandertals.
Sceptics however suggest that the artifacts are not widespread in Africa, and might even be the work of a lone genius who left no legacy. Supporting the pro-European view on development is palaeoanthropologist at Stanford University, Richard Klein, who suggests that 50,000 years ago, mankind experienced a behavioural revolution which led to improved hunting/gathering abilities, a population boom, worldwide migration and some artistic expression. (Reported 12-2-2002 in Australian newspapers from a current/recent issue of the journal Science online - Incidentally, Howard Bloom in his book, The Global Brain, notes that between 77,000 and 60,000 years ago, early humans in Australia were engraving rows of symbolic circles in local stone.)

50,000 BC, first human settlement in America re evidence in South Carolina, maybe by sea from Africa or Europe, beating other dates by 35,000 years.

50,000BC: The first settlers reach Australia, possibly they came in bamboo rafts from Indonesia and also from southern China.

50,000BC: Homo sapiens sapiens, man the doubly wise, appeared about this time. In 2000, DNA evidence indicated that modern man evolved out of Africa as recently as this time.

50,000BC: The Stone Age culture of Papua New Guinea goes back this time.

50,000-40,000BC: Homo sapiens (Neandertal). Skull of adult male found by D. Peyrony and L. Capitan at La Ferrassie, France in 1909. Neandertal is the German site of discovery in 1856.

50,000-40,000BC: A Homo neandertalensis skull was found at the Amud cave in Israel in 1961.

50,000-20,000BC: Archaeologists have identified evidence of stone age technology in Aq Kupruk, and Hazar Sum. Plant remains at the foothill of the Hindu Kush mountains indicate, that North Afghanistan was one of the earliest places to domestic plants and animals.

50,000BC: Archaeology finds little technology as far back as 40,000 BC, other than the crudest stone tools; and any language not much more than calls with modifiers, eg modifiers about distances of a danger, etc, being used; each new stage of words literally created new perceptions and attentions, giving rise to cultural changes to be later be noted in the archaeological record.

Approx 50,000 years to 1971: discovery on the Philippines Island of Mindanao of "the gentle Tasady", in ancestral caves, users of pebble tools, food gatherers, not meat eaters, been told by their ancestors they must always go back to the cave at night, in sense that ancestors established everything and were not questioned. A heritage of 50,000 years. (The Tasady story later found to be a hoax?)

50,00BC-60,000BC: Explosive growth in human numbers? In 1993, Harry Harpending and others at Pennsylvania State University devise a new method of analysing mitochondrial DNA data and find explosive growth in numbers for this period - a demographic prehistory for Homo sapiens. (Shreeve, Neandertal)

Circa 53,000BC: The first humans migrated to Australia from the islands of Indonesia.

53,000-45,000BC: Australia's early human population wiped out the continent's megafauna over this period.

53,000-27,000BC: Pre-human fossils from a site on the Solo River near the Javanese town of Ngandong were dated in 1996 to this period, and identified as belonging to the species of Homo erectus. Brain size was equivalent to modern humans. (Estimated number of cells in the human brain - 10,000 million.)

58,0000BC: Approx: The Mungo Man controversy on the genetics of human origins breaks out: Australia was enlivened on 9 January 2001 to read reports of far-reaching new research by Australian scientists on the origins and dispersal of humanity, globally, which counters the orthodox "Out of Africa" theory of human origins.
The scientific argument is extremely complicated and multi-disciplinary, but it does seem as though arguments will never be the same again. Crucial to the arguments are views on the origins of Australia's Aboriginal people.
Evidence used is basically some flakes from the skull of Mungo Man, remains found in 1974 in New South Wales by Australian Jim Bowler. Later, Mungo Man (scientifically called LM3) was radiocarbon-dated at about 28,000-32,000 years old, a view which supported opinions that Aboriginals had been in Australia for up to 40,000 years. By the mid-1980s, better radiocarbon-dating techniques pushed LM3's dates to about 36,000BC. In 1999, LM3 again caused excitement, since his dates were more like 58,000BC, or, 56,000-68,000 BP (Before present). This trebled the "human settlement time" of the Australian continent. But other evidence arising by the late 1990s tended to support the "Out of Africa" theory of human origins, which suggests that fully-modern Homo sapiens arose in Africa, and then dispersed elsewhere, 150,000-100,000 years ago. As they dispersed they displaced (possibly killed?) earlier or more archaic people, Neandertals or the earlier-arising Homo erectus. However, Mungo Man is anatomically modern, but his DNA does not match ours. His genes are now extinct.
So, by 2001, Australian researchers are proposing a Regional Continuity argument of human origins, which suggests that from about 1.5 million years ago, waves of people began migrating from Africa, becoming "a single evolving species". These forms of humanity continually interbred, and became ourselves. Mungo Man was "a modern man" but his genetic lineage is now extinct, which may in turn suggest that some other human (non-Neandertal) genetic lines became extinct before modern man appeared between 100,000BC-150,000BC?
Significantly, research on Mungo Man involves analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is passed down only the maternal line. However, the argument will continue for a long time. It now seems, Mungo Man's lineage should stand as firmly in the history of humanity as the stockily-built Neandertal, and Java Man. (Those interested should find a copy of The Australian newspaper, 9 January 2001)

Note: Mungo Man was buried ceremonially, carefully placed in a grave, with hands crossed over the pelvis, his body sprinkled with red ochre, before being covered with earth.
Australian researchers commenting on or involved in the Mungo Man controversy include:
Jim Bowler, geomorphologist, Melbourne University, who in 1974 discovered "Mungo Man" in the Willandra Lakes region of south-western NSW.
Dr. Alan Thorne, anthropologist, Australian National University, Canberra, co-founder of new theory of Regional Continuity
Alan Mann, anthropologist, University of Pennsylvania
Gregory Adcock, doctoral student, Australian National University, using facilities of CSIRO Plant Industry, Australia, now at Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris.
Jim Peacock, molecular biologist/plant geneticist, CSIRO Plant Industry, Australia
Colin Groves, physical anthropologist, Australian National University
John Mitchell, human geneticist, La Trobe University, Melbourne,
Simon Easteal, evolutionary geneticist, Australian National University, John Curtin School of Medical Research
A formal paper will soon be published in US journal, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.
(Reported cross-media with great excitement in Australia on 9 January 2001)

Advertisement

58,000 years ago? To 9000BC approx: Saga of Hobbits continues: Hobbits may be earliest Australians? As this website often mention, the origins of Australia's Aboriginal people remains a mystery. And in 2004, from the Indonesian island of Flores just near the North-West coast of Western Australia, came news from a team largely of Australian archaeologists that a new species of humanity, homo floriensis (little people, Hobbits) has been discovered. They became extinct about 11,000 years ago. The saga of, or, about, the Hobbits now continues as archaeologist Mike Morwood from University of New England now suggests that one-metre tall Hobbits, who were wiped out by difficulties with volcanoes, may have lived also in Australia. Speaking at a public lecture in Perth, Morwood has suggested that Hobbits arrived in Australia more than 60,000 years ago, pre-dating arrival of a first wave of Aboriginals. And when they larger Aboriginals arrived, they pushed out or competed-out the Hobbits? Scpeticism has arrived on this from no less than members of Morwood's own work-team. Given the climate, how would artefacts be found of Hobbit-life in northern Australia? How would they have survived? (The Australian, 8 December 2005):

60,000BC, Diaspora of humans reaches China, via south east Asia,

60,000BP: Human diaspora reaches China via South East Asia; dog and wolf are now distinct.

60,000BC: At Shanidar, a large cave in the Zagros mountains of northeastern Iraq soil samples from a grave of a [Neandertal] man of this time indicated pollen grains from 8 different types of flowers, some of them used for medicinal purposes. When excavated by Ralph Solecki of Columbia University, the remains are found of nine Neandertals, with some evidence of "spirituality". One man has received wounds to head and body meaning he had a withered arm and was blind in one eye. In 1971, Solecki published his book, Shanidar: The First Flower People. (Shreeve, Neandertal)

60,000BC: A Neandertal from Kebara cave (Israel) shows an age of 60,000 years. An Israeli-French team working in Israel uses the technique of thermoluminescence to study the relationship between early humans and Neandertals. Shreeve in his book on Neandertals notes that about 58,000BC in the Levant area at least was one of the coldest periods of the Ice Age, for the Qafzeh-Skhul people. At this time, did Homo sapiens co-exist in the same area with Neandertals?

60,000-10,000BC: The Acheulian Age or early Stone Age culture lasted over this period. (Encyclopedia of Africa, 1976, p.165)

60,000BC: Custom of head deformation, also seen amongst Ancient Mesoamericans, seen as early as 60,000BC in the Near East, as found with Neandertal skulls in the Shanidar cave of Northern Iraq. (James/Thorpe).

60,000BC-58,000BC: One of the earliest ceremonial burials found is a "suttee and flowers" burial at (cave?) Shanidar in northern Iraq.

68,000BC: Beginning of the last glacial cycle before the Present Era. A long cold snap is the result.

68,000BC approx: Two Neandertal skulls from France of this time are found. They had a hypoglossal canal the size of modern humans, which was thought to be indicative of speech. By now, Neandertals have spread over much of Europe and Western Asia. (See Shreeve, Neandertal)

One website says that about 70,000BC is a catastrophic volcanic eruption, a “volcanic winter” which seems tied to a rapid genetic divergence in humans, and maybe many [different?] sorts of hominids are killed? Between 60,000BC to 40,000BC is the great leap forward, the anthropological big bang, use of first standardized stone tools, first jewellery, first painting, cause of the innovation remains unknown, could have been brain size, also have better developed vocal equipment. Perhaps, in general, humanity suddenly can use symbols and symbolic communication far more effectively?

70,000BC: Early Wurm Glaciation of Europe. For information on a Toba Explosive Volcanic Eruption which throws 800 cubic kilometres of ash into the ear - a stress event which may have genetically bottlenecked the evolving human population to low numbers, see a website from Tony Smith at: http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Hist.html -

70,000BC-8,000BC: The period 70,000BC down to the 8000BC is the dawn of language; period called Late Pleistocene; weather changes cause human and animal migration; hominid population exploded from the African heartland to the Eurasian subarctic, then the Americas and Australia; man here called Late Neandertal. About 60,000BC, latest radiocarbon dates for handaxes in Africa.

70,000BC: Bering Strait land bridge in use, till about 30,000BC. What are reasons why/how Mongoloid stock populated Americas?

71,000 BP: Volcanic winter may accelerate human evolution?

73,000BC, Demise of the great Wurm Ice Sheet, and coincides with the demise of the Acheulian crafts. To be replaced by culture known as the Mousterian as used by Neandertal. Almost 40 per cent of Neandertals died before puberty. Neandertal practices include murder and cannibalism. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 148.)

Circa 74,000BC: The major Toba volcanic eruption occurred in Sumatra.

50,000-77,000 years ago: Thinking backwards to high talent: When did modern human talents of complex and abstract thinking arise? About 77,000 years ago, twice as early as previously thought, in the opinion of anthropologist Christopher Henshilwood, leader of a research team working in Southern Africa.
A discovery involves intricate geometric carvings which "may overturn much current thinking in anthropology". The suggestion is that modern human behaviour evolved in Africa rather than Europe. The artifacts - about 40,000 years older than European rock art - are pieces of red rock etched with geometric shapes of an evidently symbolic intent - parallel lines in a cross-hatched design. Modern humanity evolved in Africa about 100,000 years ago, not spreading to Europe till 50,00 years ago, when they displaced Neandertals.
Sceptics however suggest that the artifacts are not widespread in Africa, and might even be the work of a lone genius who left no legacy. Supporting the pro-European view on development is palaeoanthropologist at Stanford University, Richard Klein, who suggests that 50,000 years ago, mankind experienced a behavioural revolution which led to improved hunting/gathering abilities, a population boom, worldwide migration and some artistic expression. (Reported 12-2-2002 in Australian newspapers from a current/recent issue of the journal Science online - Incidentally, Howard Bloom in his book, The Global Brain, notes that between 77,000 and 60,000 years ago, early humans in Australia were engraving rows of symbolic circles in local stone.)

78,000BC: Russia: First inhabitants are Neandertals, who are succeeded by modern man circa 35,000BC.

78,000BC: About 1962, French archaeologists at Regourdou find the remains of what might have been a "bear cult" conducted by Neandertals. The bones of a brown bear have been carefully arranged. (Shreeve, Neandertal)

78,000BC: Stone-age hunters and herders live in the Middle Danube Plain (where Hungary broadly is).

80,0000-70,000BC: The human population declined suddenly according to evidence from the mutation rate of mitochondria evaluated in 2000. The survivors provided the gene pool for all humans thereafter.

80,000BP: Human use of intentional burial begins about now?

80,000BC: True European Neandertal man of Europe lived 80,000BC to 40,000BC, with a large brain, large front teeth, protruding face and nose; debate as to if he is man's ancestor, and one argument is that some Neandertals in West Asia evolved into Modern Man and replaced European Neandertals by spreading across Europe.

88,000BC, approx: A drop in temperature, and as shown by drilling of ice cores in Greenland Ice Cap, within a century, all of Canada affected, much of American Mississippi Valley, all Soviet Union area, much of China, and the areas of Australia and Argentina which now grow cereals. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 173)

90,000BC: Humans migrated into the Levant if not Europe proper by this time.

90,000BC: Potassium-argon dating and thermoluminescence can be used to date pieces of pottery back to about this time.

98,000BC: Stone tools survive from the Kirkuk area, Iraq, now held in a museum in Iraq.

100,000BC: About this time another major earthquake in Hawaii caused a large tsunami that crossed the Pacific in 4 hours and up the shoreline of Japan for 300 yards. [see 200,000BP]

100,000BC-50,000BC: The 200-pound Genyornis newtoni, an ostrich-like bird, and the 25-foot Megalonia lizard were among the megafauna that flourished in Australia during this period.

100,000BC: Neandertal people begin to bury their dead "respectfully".

100,000BC: Spear-like tools are found in eastern Zaire near Lake Rutanzige. Three sites along the Semlike River in the Katanda region of Africa's Great Rift Valley show tools made from the rib bones of large mammals. The tools have rows of barbs cut along one edge of the bone. New testing techniques for age determination were used; i.e. thermoluminescence, electron spin resonance, and uranium series dating. The three ranges were: 180,000-75,000; 160,000-89,000; and 173,000-139,000.

100,000BC: Small stone tools found in Gaojia near Fengdu on the banks of the Yangtze indicate a tool workshop. More than a 1,000 tools have been found and were probably used to collect roots.

From 100,000BC, Early Man appears in Americas.

100,000BC-98,000BC: Archaeologists working in a mountainous eastern Eifel area west of Coblenze, Rhineland Palatinate, had discovered a skull cap (calvaria), of a Neandertal, in an extinct volcano crater. One researcher is Coblenze archaeologist Axel von Berg. The edge of the skull is scarred with cuts up to one centimetre long. Three tools made of flint and quartz are also found nearby. The skull belonged to an older Neandertal, and may have been stripped of skin and flesh for ritual reasons. Germany has so far only produced about six skeletal remains of Neandertal, which lived in Europe/Asia between 120,000 and 30,000 years ago. The remains of about 30 have been found so far. Reported 3 September, 1997.
Meanwhile... at Gibraltar, Neandertal man lived on roast nuts, olives, rabbit grilled on a pine fire. The last Neandertals lived on Gibraltar till about 40,000 years ago, and also ate red deer and wild goat. A researcher on Gibraltar is Prof. Chris Stringer, Natural History Museum in London. He suspects that numbers of Homo sapiens and Neandertal overlapped for up to 15,000 years. (On food, reported 15 March 1997)

Classifications from skeletons: Early Pleistocene is 1 million to 500,000 years ago, Australopithecine, Middle Pleistocene period is 500,000 to 100,000 years ago, Pithecanthropi, and Late Pleistocene, from 100,000 years ago. Being Homo. (W. H. McNeil, p. 19.)

100,000BC: Hunters live in limestone caves of Eastern Spain.

100,000BC: Possible occupation of Japan, period not yet accurately fixed. (Pottery use there from 12,000BC, preceding farming.)

100,000BC: Wooden tools used at Kalambo Falls, borders of Tanzania and Zambia.

100,000BC to 40,000 years ago: Neandertal Man in West Germany. Dispute as to whether they evolved into Modern Man.

100,000BC to 60,000BC: Beginning of last glacial period, handaxes of Acheulian type still being made in Eastern Mediterranean caves. Fossil skull here. Some Mousterian tools of the kind found in Europe are found in Israel and Iraq, associated with Neandertal-type men. those at Mount Carmel, closer to modern man than Neandertal. Latest culture of last Ice Age in East Mediterranean is called Natufian; reaping and grinding of corn, use of domestic sheep; and wheat found in Northern Iraq.

From 100,000BC: Early Man appears in Americas.

100,000BC: Use of hearths for fire-using by "hominids is still sporadic, rather than common in human-habitated areas. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 56). " (Hominid is a man-tending, not an ape-tending being - Ardrey)

100,000BC: (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 145), Neandertal appears in "cold but unglaciated" areas around now. The first Neandertals are around Steinheim in Germany, Charente in France, Saccopastore in Italy. Neandertal confronts the Wurm Ice Sheet. This ice sheet had effect for nearly 70,000 years.

114,000BC: Controversial data from the Jinmium rock-shelter in northern Australia suggests humans may have reached the continent at this time.

110,000BC: A Homo sapiens skull of this time was later found near the Kebara site in Israel. It had a hypoglossal canal the size of modern humans, which was thought to be indicative of possibilities of speech.

110,000BC: An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field has occurred.

115,000BC: Early Wisconsin Glaciation of North America.

118,000BC: Appearance of the Neandertal species of humankind. (See Shreeve, Neandertal)

120,000BC: End of the Middle Pleistocene. Middle Pleistocene began 700,000 years ago.

120,000BC: A Chinese fossil skullcap, named Maba, is stored in Beijing at the Institute. of Vertebrate Paleontology.

120,000BP: The Ice Age that began around 186,000BC recedes at about this time.

120,000-80,000BC: Bone fragments from this period of Neandertals from the Moula-Guercy cave site in France were reported in 1999 to show evidence of cannibalism.

120,000-60,000BC: The Klasies River Mouth fossils, found in caves in a bluff overlooking the Indian Ocean on the southern tip of (Africa) the continent. Although fragmented, the fossils indicated presence of early modern man.

120,000-10,000BC: In Thailand the site at Chiang Saen indicates long term occupation that dates back to the late Pleistocene.

120,000BC: An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field has occurred.

124,000BC: The hippopotamus still grazes in Britain. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 172).

125,000BC: Neandertal Homo sapiens indicates that brain size and organization were basically modern. The Neandertals were the first people known to bury their dead. The Neandertals spread all across Europe, the Middle East, and western and central Asia.

125,000 BP: Scientists in 2000 identified human stone tools of this time from a fossil reef along the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. They identified the area as the "world's first oyster bar."

128,000BC: Middle Pleistocene Period: (730,000 to 128,000 years ago). Period when Archaic Homo sapiens appeared, plus Neandertal Man. Archaeological digs in southern Siberia and the northern Pacific coast show evidence that these form of early humans lived there as early as 200,000BC.

130,000BP: Humans first acquire chins!??

133,000BC: According to global oxygen isotope records, the second last glacial cycle, which is called Stage 6, reaches its coldest extremes between 135,000 and 130,00 years ago. (Shreeve, Neandertal)

130,000BC: The "first true Homo sapiens" appears about this time from Ethiopia. It is described in 1996 by Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar in: "From Lucy to Language: The Record of Human Evolution." Shreeve in his book on Neandertals suggests that between 130,000 and 10,000 years ago, conditions in Africa, but what, favoured the evolution of a more modern-looking people. Some went north and east into the Levant, where they evidently stopped and went no further; some went to areas known as Border Cave and Klasies River Mouth.

130,000-30,000BC: The Middle Stone Age.

Seaside living, Eritrea: It now seems that humans have been living by the sea and using boats for at least 125,000 years. The earliest known seaside settlement has been identified via the use of stone tools on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. Further work may help establish how humans fanned out from Africa to settle in other parts of the world? The finding was made by Dr. Robert Walker of the Centre of Scientific Investigation in Ensenada, Mexico. Humans were also living at the same time in Israel, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the Sudan. The new finding supports the "out of Africa" theory of single human evolution. Humans reached Australia at least 60,000 years ago, and modern humans are thought to have reached Europe about 45,000 years ago, to live beside Neandertals. (Reported in world press 6 May 2000)

130,000BC-117,000BC (Earth is a warm period now. Scientists have known for some time that the previous warm period started 130,000 years ago and ended 117,000 years ago, with the return of cold temperatures that led to an ice age. (Greenhouse Timeline)
William H. Calvin, The Great Climate Flip-Flop, The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998, Volume 281, No. 1, pp. 47-64.

140,000BP: Diaspora from Africa; dogs domesticated?

Circa 150,000BC: In 1980 evidence of Aboriginal habitation in Australia were discovered in charcoal remains deep in the bed of the Great Barrier Reef and dated to this time.

Advertisement

150,000BC-100,000BC: Beginning of the period in Africa when early forms of humanity (leading to Homo sapiens) begin to move to other areas, leading to the dispersal of people on all continents.

Circa 135,000-150,000BC: Humans moved out beyond Africa. In 1987 the Mitochondrial Eve, the single female ancestor of all humans (Homo sapiens), was dated to this time - or even earlier, to 200,000BC. By which time, Homo erectus had long left Africa for elsewhere. (See Shreeve, Neandertal, p. 67, where "the Eve group" of people departing Africa for its north and east could be dated at 48,000BC? But, might Eve have been a member of Homo erectus?)

160,000-130,000BC: Glaciation of Earth which begins what some term the African/Oceanic Ice Age Civilization. Modern humans displace Neandertals in Africa and Oceanic Areas.
For more, see a website from Tony Smith at:
http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Hist.html/

World news release of 14 June 2003: The oldest-known fossils of modern human beings have been found in Ethiopia, reports science journal, Nature. Three skulls estimated to be 160,000 years old show a mix of primitive and modern features suggesting they are of our immediate ancestors. Also adding weight to the "out of Africa" theory of human origins.

186,000BP: Human footprints that dated back to this time were discovered along Langebaan Lagoon some 60 miles north of Cape Town, South Africa, in Sep, 1995. The 117,000-year-old prints were cut out and moved to the South African Museum in 1998.

200,000BP: Appearance of genetic "Eve"?
200,000BC: A recent theory suggests that we're all descended from one African "Eve" who lived some 200,000 years ago. The theory is based on DNA studies from the placentas of 147 women of different racial backgrounds. The "Eve hypothesis". (See Shreeve, Neandertal)

200,000BC: Human speech began no earlier than about this time.

200,000BC: In 1911 a broken wooden spear shaped earlier than this age was found at Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, UK.

200,000BC: Within the past 200,000 years our own species, Homo sapiens, dispersed out of Africa.

200,000BC: It is speculated that the Neandertals and Homo sapiens split from a common ancestor about this time.

200,000BC-30,000BC: The Neandertals lived in Europe and southwest Asia. In 1996 it was discovered that skulls of Neandertals showed oblong, vertical swellings in the bone along the sides of the nasal hole. Researchers also claimed that their noses were unusually large.

200,000 BC: We find remains of a transitional being hard to classify, as either erectus or Neandertal. (The Steinheim Skull) (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 150) For the view that 200,000BC is a date for the appearance of Homo sapiens, see http://mirrorh.com/timeline.htm/

Toothpicks, use of: Estimated use as far back as two million years ago, indulged in by Homo erectus, according to Peter Ungar, anthropologist at University of Arkansas and Mark Teaford of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. (Reported 24 June 2000)

240,000BC: First traces of human occupation of Denmark, but settlement is ended by Ice Ages, till about 15,000BC when hunter-gatherers return.

Circa: 250,000BC: In Siberia stone tools along a river near Irkutsk were dated by radioisotope to about this time.

Circa 250,000BC: About this time the human brain size stopped its slow trend toward enlargement. This may correspond with the human attainment of the rudiments of language?

270,000-230,000BC: Other glaciation of Earth.

Circa 280,000BC circa: A mastodon tooth and camel jaw of about this time were found in 1997 in tunnels under Los Angeles in 1997.

300,000BC: Homo erectus seems to give way to his successor, Homo sapiens. By about now, erectus has moved from warm temperate areas to the northern, colder and more arid steppe lands, moving as far west as Britain as well. They seem to have been in company with many other species, lions, leopards, hyenas and wolves. Was all such movement merely a response to environmental conditions? It is even thought that erectus may have left Africa as early as two million years ago. (Shreeve, Neandertal)

300,000BC to 250,000BC: Russian Archaeologist Yuri Mochanov of the Yakutish Academy of Sciences announces in 1981 a discovery of human habitation in northern Siberia that dates back to at least 30,000 years. More precise techniques later measured the stone artefacts at the site to 250,000-300,000 years ago.

300,000BC-200,000BC: Swanscombe Skull: Fragments of sapiens skull representing Britain's oldest-known human remains.

300,000BC-200,000BC: In the Sierra de Atapuerca, fossil remains of 32 people from this time were found at Sima de los Huesos (Pit of Bones) in northern Spain. They represented an early stage in the development of Neandertals. Grooves were observed in the roots immediately under the crowns of rear teeth, probably from the use of toothpicks.

300,000BC to 30,000BC: The Neandertal man of the type first found in 1856 lived over this period.

300,000BC to 12,000BC: During the periodic Ice Ages the Loess Hills formed along the eastern side of the Missouri River. Westerly winds blow the silty sediments of the melted glaciers along the low walls of the river valley.

300,000BC-400,000-BC: Man begins to appreciate-learn to use fire. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 56)

340,000-330,000BC: Glaciation of Earth. Neandertals displace Homo erectus in some areas.

400,000BP: Humans hunt horses with spears in Germany?

400,000BC In 1998 researchers at Duke University, studying hypoglossal canals in fossil skulls, suggested that Neandertals could well have developed speech at this time. (Such research was disputed in 1999.)

400,000BC: Researchers in 2000 found evidence from a Homo erectus skull, that during this period, individuals communicated with each other.

420,000-290,000BC The youngest Homo erectus (from China) dated in this period.

450,000BC to 380,000BC: Evidence of a wooden hut with a hearth at Terra Amata, near Nice, France, time of Mindel Glaciation. Also near Nice, France, an Acheulean hut dated 500,000-400,000BC a home evidently for Neandertals, with use of a fireplace, and furs, grasses, seaweeds used as bedding.

500,000-250,000BC: Homo sapiens (archaic). Skull of adult male is found by Greek villagers at Petralona, Greece in 1960.

500,000BC: In Boxgrove England, a fossilized rhinoceros shoulder blade with a projectile wound was found recently and dated to this time. Reported by 1997.

Circa 500,000BC: A human jawbone of about this age, Homo Heidelbergensis, was found in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1907.

500,000BC: Finding a better home for Homo erectus in China?: About 500,000BC, Homo erectus ("Peking Man") walked in a series of caves near today's Beijing. In the 1920s, fossils of this example of pre-Homo sapiens were found near the village of Zhoukoudian - "a museum of the birthplace of humanity"? Now the site (listed as a World Heritage site) is decaying, and in 80 years, one cave has been damaged by rain and weeds, and another is overgrown. A local museum has closed for lack of funds. Money cannot be found for renovations to the site, lately curated by Zhang Shuangquan. UNESCO threatens to "shame" the Chinese Government into taking better care of matters; is this just another example of standard Chinese neglect of history by officials? Many relics of old civilisation by the Yangtze and Yellow rivers are neglected and tourists can't enjoy or inspect them. Director of Chinese Academy of Science, Zhu Ming, puts the costs of repairs for the Peking Man site at Aust$1.1 million. (Reported in world press, 14 August 2001)

By 500,000BC: Ardrey feels that the African ancestors bring to perfection the Acheulian hand-axe. With its "unnecessary symmetry and grace", ie, beauty. About now, Homo sapiens begins to wander in Europe.

500,000BC: Heidelberg Man is seen, in Cold Eurasia, possibly an early appearance of an African-evolved home erectus. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 147) Diet exclusively of uncooked meat (the fats of which allow may brain growth?)

600,000-250,000BC: Homo Heidelbergensis is described in 1996 by Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar in From Lucy to Language: The Record of Human Evolution.

600,000BC: A skull of this age from Bodo, Ethiopia, exhibits the largest nasal width of any Homo fossil.

600,000-500,000BC: The last common ancestor of modern humans and Neandertals lived about this time, probably in Africa.

600,000BC: Earth apparently enters a series of Ice Ages. When the glaciers are most widespread, seas have dropped up to 300 feet.

650,000BC: Ardrey still does not find the deliberate use of fire to be common. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 132)

Between one million and 700,000 years ago, Homo erectus (as with the Out of Africa theory) spreads across the warm temperate zones of Mediterranean Europe and Asia as far as Indonesia. (Or, Sundaland, which spread possibly as far north as Japan depending on sea levels?). (Shreeve, Neandertal)

700,000BC: Mary Leakey finds that a famous Acheulian hand-axe was being made by Homo erectus, while about this time, the magnetic poles of the earth reverse. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, pp. 130-133) The South Pole develops a negative polarity. About now the Arctic seems to freeze over for the first time. Ardrey feels the evidence on use of fire comes from colder areas of Europe and Asia. Soon comes the first wave of the glaciation of Europe. Perhaps soon, Heidelberg Man appears in Germany?

730,0000BC: Lower Pleistocene Period (1.6 million years to 730,000 years ago). The period when Homo erectus populated temperate areas of Africa, Europe and Asia. Their remains have been found in northern China, but not in the northern parts of Eurasia.

788,000 years ago: A reversal of Earth's magnetic field.

800,000BC: The Haleakala shield volcano on Maui, Hawaii, appears about this time.

800,000BC: Soleilhac, in the Massif Central of France, is the oldest "unquestionable" site of hominid occupation in Europe, with remains of fauna remains and tools, but no hominid bones.

800,000BC: A team of fossil hunters has reported 800,000 year-old hominids from the Gran Dolino site in the Atapuerca Mountains in northern Spain. The date was older by 300,000 years than dates for other human remains in Europe. They called this "new species" Homo antecessor. Among modern characteristics were a prominent brow line and multiple roots for premolar teeth.

800,000BC: Some Indonesian and Dutch archaeologist refer to evidence that early hominids in Asia have made it to the island of Flores in the Javan archipelago.

800,000BC: Dating for human remains discovered recently by archaeologists. A site reveals about 80 human bones and bone fragments from two adult females and four children, maybe eaten by other humans, as some bones had marks from sharp stone tools. Around the remains were bones from horses, deer, bison, rhino and possibly elephants. This is possibly the earliest known example of human cannibalism, found in Northern Spain in a cave at Atapuerca. It is possible the specimens were Homo antecessor, (Ancestor Man, who developed into Neandertal). It is thought that possibly Ancestor Man came from Africa one million years ago, to Europe, and that their fellows who stayed in Africa developed into Homo sapiens? See a recent issue of journal, Science. Meantime, tools made 900,000 years ago were found at an even deeper level of the Atapuerca cave site. Reported in Sydney, 31 May, 1997.

From 1 million years ago: Ice sheets oscillate across northern Europe and America.

Advertisement

1 million years ago: Australopithecines: have lived on earth for four million years, now extinct.

1 million years ago, 1-1.5 million years ago, the "Acheulian industry". The finding is that inventions of this period had nothing to do with the modern human brain - and this culture possibly originates in East Africa (Kenya?) (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 131).

1-2 million years ago: East Africa's Olduvai Gorge leaves about 40 hominid remains discovered by the Leakeys. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 97).

1.6 million years ago: As found in 1975 by a Richard Leakey team, "an advanced, large-brained skull of Homo erectus. At the time is current a hominid with a relatively smaller brain, Australopithecus boisei, a fact which seems to blow away any theory re humanity as a single species.

1.8 million years ago: Blood from a human/hominid specimen, found on a stone tool in South Africa, with its DNA tested by Australian researcher Dr. Tom Loy. Dr. Loy's DNA testing techniques helped inspire the film Jurassic Park and he also analysed blood residue from the tools of the recently-found, now-famed, Alpine Iceman mummy. (Otzi, see notes elsewhere here) (Reported 2 February 2002)

Two million years ago, a massive volcano called Ngorongoro dominates Olduvai Gorge, where early ancestors of man develop their lifestyle. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 48)

Two million years ago: Hominid remains at the base of the Olduvai Gorge, Kenya, found by the Leakeys, of "small-brained" proto-men. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 20)

Two million years BC, The human foot completes its evolution as we know it. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 63.) Ape ancestors of humanity by now have moved out of the trees. But (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 140), "the ancestral human hand" has not yet developed sufficiently to permit workmanship.

Two million years ago: Time of Homo habilis, one found specimen of which was killed by a blow to the top of the head. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis)

Two million years ago: Yellowstone volcanic caldera eruption. Could this have been another environmental stress event affecting human evolution?
For more, see a website from Tony Smith at: http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Hist.html -

Two million years BC: The human foot completes its evolution as we know it. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 63, p. 140.) Ape ancestors of humanity by now have moved out of the trees. But "the ancestral human hand" has not yet developed sufficiently to permit workmanship.

Two million years ago: Or as long ago as 2.5 million years ago? Time of Homo habilis, (noted as a tool-maker) one found specimen of which was killed by a blow to the top of the head. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis) The first habilis specimens - both skull and body parts - were found in 1986 at Olduvai Gorge, by a team led by Donald Johanson. Habilis was about three and a half feet tall. Evolutionist Binford has tried to spell the end of the habilis reputation as a skilled hunter by regarding them as "marginal scavengers".

2 million years ago: Hominid remains at the base of the Olduvai Gorge, Kenya, found by the Leakeys, of "small-brained" proto-men. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 20)

2 million years ago: A massive volcano called Ngorongoro dominates Olduvai Gorge, where early ancestors of man develop their lifestyle. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 48)

About 2.5 million years ago, appears "1470 Man", (named for a museum archive pigeonhole at Kenya National Museum) overlapping with appearance of Australopithecus (meaning "Southern Ape") in East Africa. This specimen made the first true tools, eg., flint blades. 1470 Man is a hunter, his brain is half the size of modern man's. 1470 Man also overlaps with Homo habilis. 1470 Man is superseded by homo erectus, who are near Nice in Southern France, at Terra Amata. These people near Nice live in oval huts about 50 feet long, by 19 feet wide, edged by rings of boulders, on a site visited irregularly, for short stays only, and rebuilt each visit.

3 million years ago, or more: Discovery of "nine individuals", proto-men, small but straight-limbed, of a hominid type. As discovered by a French group including Yves Coppens and an American, Carl Johanson, about 1974. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 20)

Three million years ago: See views in Steve Stanley, Children of the Ice Age. Harmony Books, 1996. Tony Smith's website from this outlines information on ways that Australopithecus may have died out.
For more, see a website from Tony Smith at: http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Hist.html -

Three million years ago: 1975: In 1975 Mary Leakey discovers the remains of eleven individual hominids, eight adults and three children, judged from their teeth to have been meat-eaters. Between 3.35 million and 3.75 million years old. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 2)

Three million years ago, or more: Discovery of "nine individuals", proto-men, small but straight-limbed, of a hominid type. As discovered by a French group including Yves Coppens and an American, Carl Johanson, about 1974. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 20)

Three million years ago: 1975: In 1975 Mary Leakey discovers the remains of eleven individual hominids, eight adults and three children, judged from their teeth to have been meat-eaters. Between 3.35 million and 3.75 million years old. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 2)

3.5 million years ago? Millennium Ancestor: Apeman find alters history": (Headline in The Weekend Australian). Palaeontologists have found the remains of an "apeman" about six million years old in Kenya's Rift Valley (Tugen Hills, Baringo District, at the foot of a low basalt cliff by a lake). The remains include teeth, a finger bone, a femur, jaw, arm fragments, and are from up-right walking hominids the size of chimpanzees - the earliest known two-legged hominid? Researchers working on the remains are from the College de France in Paris, France's National Museum of Natural History (Brigette Senut), National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Community Museums of Kenya. This discovery if it is confirmed may mean that "Lucy", the famous skeleton of Kenya believed to be that of an ancestor of Homo Sapiens, was part of a "dead branch" of the human family tree. Millennium Ancestor is three million years older than "Lucy" (australopithecines). An article is forthcoming in the French journal, Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences. The Millennium Ancestor find was also announced after some feuding with French researchers and rivals, The Baringo Paleontology Project, a collaboration between Yale University and National Museum of Kenya. Reported 10 February 2001.

3.5 million years ago? New find on human origins: 3.5 million year-old skull found in Northern Kenya, a "flat-faced human skull", with small teeth, possibly ate fruit and insects, two year recovery effort, much info on human origins now needs restudy, the oldest "reasonably complete" human skull ever found. (TV report on 22 March 2001)

Circa 1978 - Late 1970s: Mary Leakey and her team at Laetoli find footprints as preserved in volcanic ash that indicate the movement of a human-like being capable of bi-pedalism - four million-years-old. (Shreeve, Neandertal)

5 million years ago: The species Elephant and Mammoth diverge in evolutionary terms, Mammoths by the way were seen in the present-day area of Mexico City.

29 November-1 December, 1999, Conference held at University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia, from Assoc/Prof Ian Metcalfe, UNE Asia Centre International Conference (UNEAC):
Where Worlds Collide: Faunal and floral migrations and evolution in SE Asia-Australasia.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Prof. Robert Hall, Royal Holloway, London University will present a keynote paper on "Cenozoic plate tectonics and distribution of land and sea in SE Asia".
Ms Penny van Oosterzee, author of the Eureka prize-winning book Where Worlds Collide: The Wallace Line, will present an evening public lecture entitled "Where Worlds Collide: Wallace in Wonderland".
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Convenor and Chairman: A/Prof. Ian Metcalfe, Asia Centre, UNE Other Members: Prof. Kevin Hewison, Director, Asia Centre, UNE Prof. Iain Davidson, Head, School of Human and Environmental Studies, UNE Dr. Mike Morwood, Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, UNE A/Prof. N. Prakash, Botany, UNE

CONFERENCE OBJECTIVES:
SE Asia is in many respects a unique natural laboratory for studying the effects of geological and tectonic processes, and in particular continental terrane movements, orogenesis and continental collisions, on migration and evolution of a wide variety of animal, plant and insect groups. Waxing and waning physical (geological) and biological (biogeographical) interactions between SE Asia and Australasia go back more than 500 million years and one of the main aims of this conference is to improve our understanding of these relationships both temporally and spatially. Some tantalising questions remaining to be answered include:

• Why is Wallace's Line so well defined and what dictated its position?

• Cretaceous placental mammals in Australasia: ancestors of some northern hemisphere groups?

• What role(s) did the continental "Arks" of India and Australia play in determining distribution and evolution of organisms in the SE Asian region?

• o How have tectonics and terrane movements influenced migrations and evolution in SE Asia-Australasia and the present-day bio-geographic patterns of the region?

• o What do we know about human dispersals, culture contacts and cultural change in the region?

This conference is designed to provide a forum for answering such questions and to discuss the interaction between physical (geological and tectonic) processes, sea level fluctuations, climate changes, and patterns of migration and evolution in the SE Asian-Australasian region.

Advertisement

THEMES:
The conference will be structured into themes. Final thematic sessions will depend on confirmed papers but likely themes are:

• o Palaeozoic/Mesozoic geology and bio-geography. o Cenozoic geology and bio-geography. o Primate/Hominoid evolution, migration and bio-geography. o Invertebrate evolution and bio-geography. o Plant evolution and bio-geography. o Wallace's Line. o Human dispersals, cultural contacts and change.

Selected refereed and accepted papers will be published as a thematic book by A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. All other papers, following peer review and acceptance, will be published in electronic form as a collection of UNE Asia Centre UNEAC Papers on the Internet via the UNEAC Web Page and on a CD-ROM.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
For further information regarding registration, accommodation, travel details and conference payments, please contact:
Associate Professor Ian Metcalfe Convenor WHERE WORLDS COLLIDE CONFERENCE Asia Centre University of New England Armidale NSW 2351 AUSTRALIA Tel/Fax: 61 2 67733934 Email: imetcalf@metz.une.edu.au

RELATED SYMPOSIUM - Bio-geography of Southeast Asia 2000
A major international symposium on the Bio-geography of Southeast Asia will be held from 4 to 9 June 2000, in the vicinity of Leiden, The Netherlands. Emphasis in the program will be placed on invited review papers dealing with various aspects of the biological and geological evolution of the region from the break-up of Pangea to the present. Special sessions will deal with biogeographical and geological methods, biodiversity assessments, dissemination of knowledge and conservation issues. The symposium is a joint enterprise of the National Museum of Natural History/Naturalis, the Rijksherbarium/Hortus Botanicus, both in Leiden, and the Research School of Sedimentary Geology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.
For further information please contact:
Dr Rienk de Jong, National Museum of Natural History, PO Box 9517, NL-2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands Tel: +31 (0) 71 56 87 652 Fax: +31 (0) 71 56 87 666 E-mail: jong@naturalis.nnm.nl Web: http://rulrhb.leidenuniv.nl/ LIST OF INTENDING DELEGATES AND PAPERS

KEYNOTE PAPERS include:
HALL, Robert (U.K.) - Cenozoic evolution of SE Asia and the distribution of land and sea
VAN OOSTERZEE, Penny (Australia) - Where Worlds Collide: Wallace in Wonderland (Public Lecture)
OTHER PAPERS:
BICKEL, Daniel J. (Australia) - Indo-Australian Diptera: why Wallace's Line is not important
BRANDON-JONES, Douglas (U.K.) - Borneo as a bio-geographic barrier to Asian-Australasian migration
BRUHL, Jeremy J. (Australia) BUFFETAUT, Eric (France) - The dinosaurs of South East Asia in biogeographical perspective
CLODE, Danielle (Australia) - What made Wallace draw the line? The beginnings of bio-geography.
DAVIDSON, Iain (Australia) - The requirements for human colonisation of Australia.
KEAST, Allen (Canada) - Asia - Australia; Sea Levels, Climate and Vertebrate Evolution
KITCHING, Roger & HURLEY, Karen (Australia) - Butterflies and Wallace's Line
MACKNESS, Brian (Australia) - 1. Goannas in the mist: ecological adaptation and specialization where worlds collide. 2. Homonid colonisation of Australia and its effect on megafauna: blitzkreig or brouhaha?
O'SULLIVAN, Paul (Australia) - Advancement of huminids through Indonesia

QUILTY, Patrick G. (Australia - Role of Antarctica as a source of the Australian flora and fauna.

REID, Chris (Australia) - That dashed line again: Wallace & the holey cow of SE Asian bio-geography
SIM, Robin (Australia) - The role of mid-Holocene climatic change in the demise of an human population.
SMITH, Jeremy M.B. (Australia) - Did primates including early hominids cross sea gaps in the Wallacean region on natural rafts?
VAN HUET, Sanja (Australia) - King Island, Bass Strait - What's been going on these past 100,000 years??
WANG Xiaofeng (China) - The Hainan terrane: its relationship to SE Asia and Australia in geological evolution and biological migration
WANG Xiang-dong (Japan) - Carboniferous and Permian coral faunas in West Yunnan, southwest China. Implications for the Gondwana/Tethys divide (?)

5.5 Million years ago, The Atlantic Ocean breaks the Straits of Gibraltar and forms the Mediterranean Sea. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 48).

15 million years ago, remains of Louis Leakey's Miocene ramapithecines. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 100)

15 million years ago: Maybe a new ancestor for humanity? Researchers in Kenya have reported finding a 15-million-year-old skeleton of a creature like a modern male baboon, which could be one of our ancient relatives. This find predates other possible common ancestors by several million years. The creature weighed about 25kg, stood 1.2-1.5 metres tall, and had a long, flexible spine, and strong hands. A co-discoverer is US academic, Steve Ward, from an unnamed institution. If this find represents a new genus, it may be called Equatorius. (Reported 28 August 1999)

37 million years ago: Antarctica begins to freeze. Prior to this, the area had rainforests on coastal plains, rather like today's Central Tasmanian Highlands. An earlier date might be 34 million years ago. A researcher is University of Tasmania research professor, Pat Quilty. Project, an Ocean Drilling Program. Reported 3 June 2000.

66 million years ago: Dinosaur with Heart?: Could a dinosaur fossil possibly contain the remains of a heart? Meaning, were dinosaurs warm-blooded? Some American researchers think yes. US researchers have been working on an artefact from a Thescelosaurus (a pony-sized plant-eater roaming the US 66 million years ago that is not from the lineage of dinosaurs that produced birds) - a grapefruit-sized reddish-brown heart, as denoted by 3D computerised images The heart may have had a four-chamber structure and a single aorta. One researcher is Dr. Dale Russell, North Carolina State Museum of Natural Science. (Reported 22 April, 2000. See a recent issue of the journal, Science) Check Website: http://www.dinoheart.org

Chicago: Field Museum: The world's most complete dinosaur? Susan Hendrickson is a happy dinosaur-finder. She discovered the world's most complete remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1990 in a South Dakota cliff. The remains were about 90 per cent complete, and form the basis of a new display at Field Museum. Included in the remains is an eardrum bone (stapes). The animal weighed about seven tonnes, but its sex is not yet determined. It is presumed the 12.7m-long animal had a top speed of about 24kmh, walked at about 10kmh, and could not run. The remains are valued at US$8.36 million (Aust $14 million). Reported 19 May 2000. Check Website: http://www.fieldmuseum.org

Advertisement

5.5 Million years ago: The Atlantic Ocean breaks the Straits of Gibraltar and forms the Mediterranean Sea. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 48).

15 million years ago: Remains of Louis Leakey's Miocene ramapithecines. (Ardrey, Hunting Hypothesis, p. 100)

25 million years ago: Palaeontology at Riversleigh, a major site in Queensland, Australia, for fossils as ancestors of modern birds and marsupials, also dinosaurs from an earlier period, are found.

30 million years ago: Huge volcanic eruptions in area of Ethiopia, Africa. Plus earthquakes and much rifting off the topography changes the local climate, which develops savannah and leads to extinction of some species. It seems however that hominids/later humans get a "kick start" about now.

[Top of Page]

Now return to the Lost Worlds Index
For more, see a timeline website at: http://mirrorh.com/timeline.html/

Stop Press: For late entries

A great page on hominid news is at: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/recent.html/

Many notes above are from: Robert Ardrey, The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man. Fontana/Collins, 1976.

Compiler's note: Few of the titles cited here can begin to explain the settlement of Australia's Aboriginal people, which began 40,000-60,000 years ago, if not earlier. Here, Australian history in the present context remains a conundrum for world science. Various views compete for attention. One view is that once they arrived in a 40,000-60,000-years-ago timeframe, the Aboriginal people killed off, or helped to kill off, Australia's rather spectacular megafauna. (A similar view has been held that this happened in North America, and in fact, this view is said to have been imported to Australia from the US.) This argument says little about the origins of such humans. A small group of Australian academics plumb for a view that Australian Aboriginals are descended from a hybrid of modern humans and the million-year-old, more primitive Java Man.
Consider: "Nowhere else is the record for modern human origins so deeply, utterly entangled as it is in Australasia. At the heart of the knot is a weird duality in the fossil record itself. While some of the early modern humans from Australia look much like people today, others bear all the markings of a more robust kind of human, with thick skull bones, swollen browridges, and huge teeth, even bigger than those of Homo erectus in some specimens." ... Australia poses special problems for the Out-of-Africa scenario..."
See James Shreeve, The Neandertal Enigma: Solving the Mysteries of Modern Human Origins. New York, William Morrow and Co., 1996 softback edn., p. 100.

View these domain stats begun 18 December 2005