From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Prehistory Timeline

At Olduvai Gorge, a steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley, Tanzania, prehistoric hominins of the Lower Paleolithic manufactured stone tools.

These rough flake tools, discovered in the twentieth century CE, are characterized as Oldowan. They are also characterized as Mode 1 industries.

"The earliest archaeological deposit, known as Bed I, has produced evidence of campsites and living floors along with stone tools made of flakes from local basalt and quartz. Since this is the site where these kinds of tools were first discovered, these tools are called Oldowan. It is now thought that the Oldowan toolmaking tradition started about 2.6 million years ago. Bones from this layer are not of modern humans but primitive hominid forms of Paranthropus boisei and the first discovered specimens of Homo habilis" (Wikipedia article on Olduvai Gorge, accessed 04-04-2009).

"Oldowan tool use is estimated to have begun about 2.5 million years ago (mya), lasting to as late as 0.5 mya. For about 1 million years exclusively Oldowan sites are found. After 1.5 mya Acheulean sites make their appearance in the archaeological record, but this does not mean Oldowan sites are no longer found. It is thought that Oldowan tools were produced by several species of hominins ranging from Australopithecus to early Homo. 'Oldowan' therefore does not properly refer to a culture, but to a very simple tradition of tool manufacture that was in use for a long time" (Wikipedia article on Oldowan, accessed 04-04-2009).

Primitive shaped stone tool artifacts closely resembling Olduwan technology were found with Australopithecus garhi remains dating back roughly 2.5 and 2.6 million years, discovered in the Bouri Formation, an area in the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia in 1996 by a research team led by Ethiopian paleontologist Berhane Asfaw and American paleontologist Tim White. Those hominin remains are believed to be a human ancestor species, and the final missing link between the Australopithecus genus and the human genus, Homo. The tools associated with A. garhi may be older than those made by Homo habilis, which is thought to be a possible direct ancestor of more modern hominins.

For a long time anthropologists assumed that only members of early genus Homo had the ability to produce sophisticated tools, and the crude ancient tools associated with Austropithecus garhi apparently lack several techniques that are generally seen in later forms Olduwan and Acheulean. About 3,000 stone artifacts found in another site in Bouri, Ethiopia were estimated to be 2.5 million years old.

"Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, the current ice age or simply the ice age, refers to the period of the last few million years (2.58 Ma to present) in which permanent ice sheets were established in Antarctica and perhaps Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets have occurred elsewhere (for example, the Laurentide ice sheet). The major effects of the ice age were erosion and deposition of material over large parts of the continents, modification of river systems, creation of millions of lakes, changes in sea level, development of pluvial lakes far from the ice margins, isostatic adjustment of the crust, and abnormal winds. It affected oceans, flooding, and biological communities. The ice sheets themselves, by raising the albedo, effected a major feedback on climate cooling.

"During the Quaternary Period, the total volume of land ice, sea level, and global temperature has fluctuated initially on 41,000- and more recently on 100,000-year time scales, as evidenced most clearly by ice cores for the past 800,000 years and marine sediment cores for the earlier period. Over the past 740,000 years there have been eight glacial cycles. The entire Quaternary Period (2.58 Ma) is referred to as an ice age because at least one permanent large ice sheet — Antarctica — has existed continuously. There is uncertainty over how much of Greenland was covered by ice during the previous and earlier interglacials. During the colder episodes — referred to as glacial periods — large ice sheets also existed in Europe, North America, and Siberia. The shorter and warmer intervals between glacials are referred to as interglacials.

"Currently, the earth is in an interglacial period, which marked the beginning of the Holocene epoch. The current interglacial began between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, which caused the ice sheets from the last glacial period to begin to disappear. Remnants of these last glaciers, now occupying about 10% of the world's land surface, still exist in Greenland and Antarctica. Global warming has exacerbated the retreat of these glaciers" (Wikipedia article on Quaternary Glaciation, accessed 07-10-2010).

During the Lower Paleolithic era prehistoric hominins manufactured stone tools, characterized scientifically as Acheulean (Acheulian), across Africa and much of West Asia and Europe. Acheulean tools are typically found with Homo erectus remains.

"The Mode 2 (eg Acheulean or Biface) toolmakers also used the Mode 1 flake tool method but supplemented it by also using wood or bone implements to pressure flake fragments away from stone cores to create the first true hand-axes. The use of a soft hammer made from wood or bone also resulted in more control over the shape of the finished tool. Unlike the earlier Mode 1 industries, the core was prized over the flakes that came from it. Another advance was that the Mode 2 tools were worked symmetrically and on both sides (hence the name Biface) indicating greater care in the production of the final tool" (Wikipedia article on Stone tool, accessed 04-04-2009).

"Providing calendrical dates and ordered chronological sequences in the study of early stone tool manufacture is difficult and contentious. Radiometric dating, often potassium-argon dating, of deposits containing Acheulean material is able to broadly place the use of Acheulean techniques within the time from around 1.65 million years ago to about 100,000 years ago. The earliest accepted examples of the type, at 1.65 m years old, come from the West Turkana region of Kenya although some have argued for its emergence from as early as 1.8 million years ago.

"In individual regions, this dating can be considerably refined; in Europe for example, Acheulean methods did not reach the continent until around one million years ago and in smaller study areas, the date ranges can be much shorter. Numerical dates can be misleading however, and it is common to associate examples of this early human tool industry with one or more glacial or interglacial periods or with a particular early species of human. The earliest user of Acheulean tools was Homo ergaster who first appeared almost 2 million years ago. Not all researchers use this formal name however and instead prefer to call these users early Homo erectus. Later forms of early humans also used Acheulean techniques . . . .

"It was the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history and more than one million years ago it was Acheulean tool users who left Africa to first successfully colonize Eurasia. Their distinctive oval and pear-shaped handaxes have been found over a wide area and some examples attained a very high level of sophistication suggesting that the roots of human art, economy and social organisation arose as a result of their development. Although it developed in Africa, the industry is named after the type site of Saint Acheul, now a suburb of Amiens in northern France, where some of the first examples were identified in the 19th century" (Wikipedia article on Achulean, accessed 04-04-2009).

♦ "These kinds of Acheulean artifacts, as they are known, have been found in Africa dating back about 1.5 million years. But in Europe, the oldest hand axes that had been found dated to only half a million years ago. Scientists have wondered why it took so long for early humans with such refined toolmaking to show up in Europe.

"Now research from two sites in southeastern Spain provides an answer: it didn’t take that long, after all.

"Using paleomagnetic dating, Gary R. Scott and Luis Gibert of the Berkeley Geochronology Center in California have determined that rather than being about 200,000 years old, the two sites, Solano del Zamborino and Estrecho del Quípar, are about 760,000 and 900,000 years old, respectively."

"Dr. Gibert said the finding, which was published in Nature, adds to mounting evidence that humans migrated to Europe from Africa earlier than previously thought.

" 'The question is, which route did they follow?' he said. Rather than coming through the Middle East and then westward, Dr. Gibert said he is convinced they came across at Gibraltar. 'We think the Gibraltar straits were a permeable barrier,' he said. 'It’s a provocative interpretation, but I think there is enough information to support it' " (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/science/08obaxe.html?scp=1&sq=stone%20tools&st=cse, accessed 09-12-2009).

Footprints from Koobi Fora, Kenya, discovered by Jack Harris, Brian Richmond, David Braun in 2007 at the Homo erectus site of Ileret  are "the oldest undisputed evidence of hominins (probably Homo erectus) walking in an efficient style like we do."

"A key question about human origins concerns when our style of upright walking became fully modern. Today, we walk with a long stride and a spring-like mechanism in the arch of our foot that makes our walking very energetically efficient. In 2007, Drs. Harris, Richmond, Braun, and colleagues discovered the first of many footprints made by our early hominin relatives 1.51-1.53 million years ago at the site of FwJj14E at Ileret, Kenya. The prints show evidence of a well-developed arch in the foot, that contributes to efficient walking, and evidence of a long stride ending in a propulsive 'toe-off' like the characteristic toe-off of modern people. More footprints were found in 2008-2009, so Smithsonian researchers Drs. Richmond and Behrensmeyer, and their colleagues, are optimistic that this site will yield more footprints and shed more light on the origin of human walking and running" (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/footprints-koobi-fora-kenya, accessed 05-10-2010).

Experiments and microscopic studies show that the ends of bone tools found in Swartkrans, Republic of South Africa, were used by early humans to dig in termite mounds.

"Through repeated use, the ends became rounded and polished. Termites are rich in protein and would have been a nutritious source of food for Paranthropus robustus" (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/bone-tools, accessed 05-10-2010).

"The earliest hearths are at least 790,000 years old, and some researchers think cooking may reach back more than 1.5 million years. Control of fire provided a new tool with several uses—including cooking, which led to a fundamental change in the early human diet. Cooking released nutrients in foods and made them easier to digest. It also rid some plants of poisons.

"Over time, early humans began to gather at hearths and shelters to eat and socialize. As brains became larger and more complex, growing up took longer—requiring more parental care and the protective environment of a home. Expanding social networks led, eventually, to the complex social lives of modern humans" (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/hearths-shelters, accessed 05-10-2010).

Fire-altered stone tools found in 2004 at Gesher Benot-Ya’aqov, Israel by a team led by Naama Goren-Inbar include stone tools scorched by fire close to concentrations of burnt seeds and wood, indicative of early hearths

Evidence from a former Thames river bed excavation site at Happisburgh in East Anglia, England, about 220 kilometers northeast of London, which was exposed by coastal erosion, including 78 knapped flint artefacts that the research team think were used by hunter-gatherers to pierce and cut meat or wood, suggests that early humans were living in the cold climate of northern England between 780,000 and 950,000 years ago.

It is believed that the earliest humans moved to Europe from Africa around 1.8 million years ago, possibly crossing from Africa to Gibralter by a land bridge. It is also possible that early humans later crossed from Europe to Britain by a land bridge.  Recent evidence indicates that humans lived in Spain at Solano del Zamborino and Estrecho del Quípar, between roughly 780,000 and 950,000 years ago. Prior to the discovery of the Happisburgh site it was believed that early humans did not have the ability to adapt to the cold climates, similar to modern day Scandinavia, that would have existed at the site at this early date. Nor was it known that early humans lived in Britain at this early date. So far there is no evidence that these early humans in Britain had mastered the use of fire for heating or cooking, though evidence from sites in the Middle East suggests that fire was used by other early humans at this date. 

"But because they were adapted to a warmer climate, archaeologists have so far believed that they didn't get as far north as Happisburgh — a comparatively cold, inhospitable place. Other studies at archaeological sites in Germany and France have shown signs of human activity in the north around the same time, but the dating of these sites is perhaps not as well established as that at Happisburgh.  

"The dating of the Happisburgh site is based on a combination of methods. The artefacts were entombed in sediment that records a reverse in the polarity of the Earth's magnetic field — the north and south poles switching places — at the time that they were laid down. The last polarity reversal is known to have been 780,000 years ago, making it probable that the Happisburgh artefacts are at least that old. . . ." (http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100707/full/news.2010.338.html, accessed 07-08-2010).

No human fossil remains were found at the site yet, though the botanical and animal evidence found there is very rich in detail.

Locating evidence of human habitation in a relatively cold and inhospital climate at this date is likely "to prompt a re-evaluation of the adaptations and capabilities of early humans" (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128361420, accessed 07-08-2010).

Simon A. Parfitt, Nick M. Ashton et al. "Early Pleistocene human occupation at the edge of the boreal zone in northwest Europe," Nature 466, 8 July 2010.

♦ You can watch a Nature video concerning these discoveries at this link:

http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/thefirstbritons/index.html

A fragment of a horse shoulder blade discovered by a team led by Mark Roberts at Boxgrove, England "contains a semicircular wound made by a weapon such as a spear, indicating it was killed by early humans. Other horse bones from the same site have butchery marks from stone tools" (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/punctured-horse-shoulder-blade. accessed 05-10-2010).

Naturally occurring pigments such as ochres and iron oxides were used as colorants since prehistoric times. Archaeologists uncovered evidence that early humans used paint for aesthetic purposes such as body decoration. Pigments and paint grinding equipment believed to be between 350,000 and 400,000 years old were reported in a cave at Twin Rivers, near Lusaka, Zambia.

Three wooden spears found at Schöningen, Germany, by Hartmut Thieme in 1995, along with stone tools and the butchered remains of more than 10 horses, are thought to date from c. 400,000 BCE.

"Hunting large animals was a risky business. Long spears were thrust into an animal, enabling our ancestors to hunt from a somewhat safer distance than was possible with earlier weapons" (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/oldest-wooden-spear, accessed 05-10-2010).

Kyle S. Brown, a doctoral student at the University of Cape Town, and colleagues publish "Fire as an Engineering Tool of Early Modern Humans," Science, 14 August 2009: 325, 859-62.

"The controlled use of fire was a breakthrough adaptation in human evolution. It first provided heat and light and later allowed the physical properties of materials to be manipulated for the production of ceramics and metals. The analysis of tools at multiple sites shows that the source stone materials were systematically manipulated with fire to improve their flaking properties. Heat treatment predominates among silcrete tools at ~72 thousand years ago (ka) and appears as early as 164 ka at Pinnacle Point, on the south coast of South Africa. Heat treatment demands a sophisticated knowledge of fire and an elevated cognitive ability and appears at roughly the same time as widespread evidence for symbolic behavior" (Science).

Brown et al report finding stone tools that show signs of being heated to about 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat-treating, most likely by burying a stone under a fire, made a stone easier to knap, or shape into a tool by striking it with another stone.

"Archaeologists were studying several sites on the South African coast, with artifacts dating from 72,000 to 164,000 years ago that would have been made by modern humans from the African Middle Stone Age. Mr. Brown, an archaeological knapper who tries to replicate ancient tools, said they noticed that blades found at the site, made from a stone called silcrete, did not match silcrete obtained from outcroppings in the area. 'We realized we were missing something,' he said.

"They experimented by heat-treating some of the stone themselves. 'When we pulled it out of the fire and flaked it, it did look like the kind of stone we were finding at our site,' Mr. Brown said. Their findings are published in Science.

"The researchers had to show that the tools they found were intentionally heated to improve workability, not accidentally through a bushfire or other means. They found tools in areas where there was no evidence of burning. And they conducted tests on some of the artifacts, including one that showed that flaked surfaces had a glossiness that occurs only when the stone has been heated, proving that the stones were heated first and then worked into tools" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18obfire.html?_r=1&hpw).

♦ "The find also adds weight to the argument that modern humans were acting in sophisticated ways long before they came to Europe about 35,000 years ago--and that they were engaged in far more complex behavior than were the Neandertals who lived at the same time, says anthropologist Alison Brooks of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. 'This is another piece of evidence that modern humans had made a lot of discoveries that Neandertals had not' "(http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/813/1).

Nassarius shell beads found in Skhūl, Israel are thought to be the earliest surviving forms of human adornment.

Stone or bone projectile points, such as those found in Omo Kibish, Ethiopia, attached to spears or darts, enabled humans to exploit fast-moving prey like birds and large, dangerous prey like mammoths.

The oldest intentional burial site was discovered in 1933 by R. Neuville at Qafzeh, Israel.  The remains of as many as 15 individuals were found in a cave, along with 71 pieces of red ocher and ocher-stained stone tools. The ocher was found near the bones, suggesting it was used in a ritual" (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/oldest-intentional-burial, accessed 05-10-2010).

In 1988 Allison Brooks and John Yellin discovered a bone harpoon point in Katanda, Republic of Congo.

"Humans in Central Africa used some of the earliest barbed points, like this harpoon point, to spear huge prehistoric catfish weighing as much as 68 kg (150 lb)–enough to feed 80 people for two days. Later, humans used harpoons to hunt large, fast marine mammals" (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/katanda-bone-harpoon-point, accessed 0510-2010)

Nassarius gibbosulus shell beads were discovered in Grotte des Pigeons, Taforalt, Morocco more than 40 km (25 mi) from the Mediterranean Sea, where they originated. "By 40,000 years ago, humans were transporting decorative shells—and perhaps trading them—over areas of more than 500 km (310 mi)" (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/ancient-shell-beads, accessed 05-10-2010). 

Pieces of ochre rock decorated with geometric patterns found at Blombos Cave in South Africa, nearly 200 miles from Cape Town, in 2002, have been dated to the Middle Stone Age, equivalent to the European Middle Paleolithic.

"Despite well over 100 years of research and debate, the origins of art remain contentious. In recent years, abstract depictions have been documented at southern African sites dating to approx 75 kyr [75,000 years] before present (bp) and the earliest figurative art, which is often seen as an important proxy for advanced symbolic communication, has been documented in Europe as dating to between 30 and 40 kyr [30-40,000 years before present]. Here I report the discovery of a female mammoth-ivory figurine in the basal Aurignacian deposit at Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany during excavations in 2008. This figurine was produced at least 35,000 calendar years ago, making it one of the oldest known examples of figurative art. This discovery predates the well-known Venuses from the Gravettian culture by at least 5,000 years and radically changes our views of the context and meaning of the earliest Palaeolithic art" (Nicholas J. Conard, "A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany," Nature, 459, 248-252 (14 May 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature07995).

You can watch a Nature video presentation on this discovery by American archaeologist Nicholas Conard from the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tübingen, at: http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/prehistoricpinup/, (accessed 05-14-2009.)

The small figurine has been called The Venus of Schelklingen (Venus of Hohle Fels). was found near Schelklingen, Germany.  Belonging to the early Aurignacian, at the very beginning of the Upper Paleolithic and the earliest presence of Homo sapiens (Cro-Magnon) in Europe, "the discovery of the Venus of Schelklingen pushes back the date of the oldest prehistoric sculpture, and the oldest known figurative art altogether, by several millennia, establishing that works of art were being produced throughout the Aurignacian.

"The figurine was discovered in September 2008 in a cave called Hohle Fels (Swabian German for "hollow rock") near Schelklingen, some 15 kilometres (9 mi) west of Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, by a team from the University of Tübingen led by Prof. Nicholas Conard, who reported their find in Nature.

"The figurine, made of a mammoth tusk, is a representation of the female body, putting emphasis on the vulva and the breasts, and is consequently assumed to be an amulet related to fertility. In place of the head, the figurine has a perforation so that it could be worn as a pendant. Archaeologist John J. Shea suggests it would have taken "tens if not hundreds of hours" to carve. The figurine was found in the cave hall, about 20 metres (66 ft) from the entrance, and about 3 metres (10 ft) below the current ground level. It was broken into fragments, of which six have been recovered, with the left arm and shoulder still missing" (Wikipedia article on Venus of Schelklingen, accessed 05-14-2009).

• In 2003 Nicholas Conard reported the discovery of a carved waterbird looking something like a diving cormorant, and a carved horse head from the same Hohle Fels cave. These are thought to date from 31,000 to 28,000 BCE:

N.J. Conard, "Palaeolithic ivory sculptures from southwestern Germany and the origins of figurative art," Nature 426 (2003) 830–832.

The Lebombo bone, the oldest known mathematical artifact, is a tally stick with 29 distinct notches that were deliberately cut into a baboon's fibula. It was discovered within the Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains of Swaziland.

The Lebombo bone resembles the calendar sticks still used by Bushmen in Namibia.

 A bone flute with five finger holes, carved from the hollow bone of a gryphon (griffon) vulture, and found in 2009 at Hohle Fels Cave in the hills west of Ulm, Germany, is the most complete of the musical instruments so far recovered from the caves in the region. A three-hole flute carved from mammoth ivory was uncovered from another cave in the area, as well as two flutes made from the wing bones of a mute swan.

"In an article published online by the journal Nature, Nicholas J. Conard of the University of Tübingen, in Germany, and colleagues wrote, 'These finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe.'

"Although radiocarbon dates earlier than 30,000 years ago can be imprecise, samples from the bones and associated material were tested independently by two laboratories, in England and Germany, using different methods. Scientists said the data agreed on ages of at least 35,000 years old.

"Dr. Conard, a professor of archaeology, said in an e-mail message from Germany that 'the new flutes must be very close to 40,000 calendar years old and certainly date to the initial settlement of the region.'

"Dr. Conard’s team said that an abundance of stone and ivory artifacts, flint-knapping debris and bones of hunted animals were found in the sediments with the flutes. Many people appeared to have lived and worked there soon after their arrival in Europe, assumed to be around 40,000 years ago and 10,000 years before the native Neanderthals were to become extinct" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/science/25flute.html?scp=1&sq=nicholas%20j%20conard&st=cse).

You can listen to a melody played on a replica of a prehistoric flute at The New York Times link.

Eliso Kvavadze, Ofer Bar-Yosef and 5 co-authors publish "30,000-Year-Old Wild Flax Fibers," Science 11 September 2009, 325, no. 5946, 1359; DOI: 10.1226/Science.1175404.

The abstract reads:

"A unique finding of wild flax fibers from a series of Upper Paleolithic layers at Dzudzuana Cave, located in the foothills of the Caucasus, Georgia, indicates that prehistoric hunter-gatherers were making cords for hafting stone tools, weaving baskets, or sewing garments. Radiocarbon dates demonstrate that the cave was inhabited intermittently during several periods dated to 32 to 26 thousand years before the present (kyr B.P.), 23 to 19 kyr B.P., and 13 to 11 kyr B.P. Spun, dyed, and knotted flax fibers are common. Apparently, climatic fluctuations recorded in the cave’s deposits did not affect the growth of the plants because a certain level of humidity was sustained."

The flax fibers were discovered following examination of clay extracted from the cave deposits, leading the archaeologists to speculate that they were the remains of manufactured items which long since disintegrated:

"Some of the fibers were twisted, indicating they were used to make ropes or strings. Others had been dyed. Early humans used the plants in the area to color the fabric or threads made from the flax.

"The items created with these fibers increased early humans chances of survival and mobility in the harsh conditions of this hilly region. The flax fibers could have been used to sew hides together for clothing and shoes, to create the warmth necessary to endure cold weather. They might have also been used to make packs for carrying essentials, which would have increased and eased mobility, offering a great advantage to a hunter-gatherer society

" 'This was a critical invention for early humans. They might have used this fiber to create parts of clothing, ropes, or baskets—for items that were mainly used for domestic activities,' says Bar-Yosef.

" 'We know that this is wild flax that grew in the vicinity of the cave and was exploited intensively or extensively by modern humans.'

"The items created with these fibers increased early humans chances of survival and mobility in the harsh conditions of this hilly region. The flax fibers could have been used to sew hides together for clothing and shoes, to create the warmth necessary to endure cold weather. They might have also been used to make packs for carrying essentials, which would have increased and eased mobility, offering a great advantage to a hunter-gatherer society" (http://www.physorg.com/news171811682.html, accessed 09-12-2009).

Much of the earliest recorded information consists of paleolithic cave paintings and Cro-Magnon mobiliary art, including bones with talley marks. The purposes of this art may never be fully understood.

[In 1970 Alexander Marshack published his innovative Notation dans les gravures du Paléolithique Supérieur. He argued that talley marks on certain bones represented a system of proto-writing, and proposed the controversial theory that notches and lines carved on certain Upper Paleolithic bone plaques were in fact notation systems, specifically lunar calendars notating the passage of time. Using microscopic analysis, Marshack showed that seemingly random or meaningless notches on bone were sometimes interpretable as structured series of numbers.  Marshack expanded upon these ideas in his book, The Roots of Civilization (1972).]

♦ The oldest cave paintings confirmed by radiocarbon dating are in the Chauvet Cave discovered in the Ardèche region of France in 1994. Paintings in the Chauvet Cave date as early as 30,000 BCE. Because many cave paintings are in deep caves, often in inaccessible locations, it has been suggested that they may not have been for public display, but might have been revealed to cognoscenti by elders of a tribal community.

The so-called Lionheaded Figurine, a zoomorphic /anthropomorphic sculpture 29.6 cm high, 5.6 cm wide and 5.9 cm thick. carved out of mammoth ivory, was discovered in 1939 in a cave named Stadel-Höhle im Hohlenstein in the Lonetal, Swabian Alb, Germany.

"Due to the beginning of the Second World War, it was forgotten and only rediscovered thirty years later. The first reconstruction revealed a humanoid figurine without head. During 1997 through 1998 additional pieces of the Sculpture were discovered and the head was reassembled and restored."

"The sculpture shares certain similarities with French cave wall paintings, which also show hybrid creatures. The French paintings, however, are several thousand years younger than the German sculpture.

"After this artifact was identified, a similar, but smaller, lion-headed sculpture was found, along with other animal figures, in another cave in the same region of Germany. This leads to the possibility, that the lion-figure played an important role in the mythology of humans of the early Upper Paleolithic"(Wikipedia article on Lion man, accessed 05-14-2009).

The figurine is preserved in the Ulmer Museum in Ulm, Germany, which maintains a website for the figurine, with a video at this link: http://www.loewenmensch.de/lion_man.html, accessed 05-14-2009).

The Venus of Dolní Věstonice (Czech: Věstonická Venuše), a ceramic Venus figurine, found at a Paleolithic site in the Moravian basin south of Brno,  is, together with a few others from nearby locations,  the oldest known ceramic in the world, predating the use of fired clay to make pottery. It is 111 millimeters (4.4 inches) tall, and 43 millimeters (1.7 inches) at its widest point, and is made of a clay body fired at a relatively low temperature.

"The palaeolithic settlement of Dolní Věstonice in Moravia, then Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic has been under systematic archaeological research since 1924, initiated by Karel Absolon. In addition to the Venus figurine, figures of animals - bear, lion, mammoth, horse, fox, rhino and owl - and more than 2,000 balls of burnt clay have been found at Dolní Věstonice.

"The figurine was discovered on July 13, 1925 in a layer of ash, broken into two pieces. Once on display at the Moravian Museum in Brno, it is now protected and only rarely accessible to the public. Last time it was exhibited in the National Museum in Prague from 2006-10-11 till 2007-09-02 as a part of the exhibition Lovci mamutů (The Mammoth Hunters).  Scientists periodically examine the statuette. A tomograph scan in 2004 found a fingerprint of a child estimated at between 7 and 15 years of age, fired into the surface; the child who handled the figurine before it was fired is considered by Králík, Novotný and Oliva (2002) to be an unlikely candidate for its maker" (Wikipedia article on Venus of Dolní Vestonice, accessed 05-14-2009).

Bone and ivory needles found in  Xiaogushan, Liaoning Province, China, were used to sew warm, closely fitted garments.

Mathematics began with the earliest records of attempts to quantify time. The Ishango Bone, a notched talley stick discovered in the Congo (Zaire) in 1960 by Jean de Heinzelin de Braucourt, and now preserved in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, represents, according to Alexander Marschak, a six-month lunar calendar. It is among the earliest known mathematical objects. Other lunar calendars from about the same date have been discovered on other bones such as the Isturitz Baton, and possibly in cave paintings in Lascaux and elsewhere.

The Venus of Lespugue, an ivory Venus figurine discovered by René de Saint-Périer in 1922 in the Rideaux cave of Lespugue (Haute-Garonne) in the foothills of the Pyrenees, is approximately 6 inches (150 mm) tall. It is preserved at the Musée de l'Homme.

"According to textile expert Elizabeth Wayland Barber, the statue displays the earliest representation found of spun thread, as the carving shows a skirt hanging from below the hips, made of twisted fibers, frayed at the end" (Wikipedia article on Venus of Lespugue, accessed 05-14-2009). 

Barber, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times (1994) 44.

The Venus of Willendorf, an 11.1 cm (4 3/8 inches) high statuette of a female figure, was discovered in 1908 by archaeologist Josef Szombathy at a paleolithic site near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria near the city of Krems. It is preserved in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna.

For a long time this sculpture, carved from an oolitic limestone not local to its area, and tinted with red ochre, was thought to be the earliest sculpture of a human.

Since the figure's discovery and naming, several similar statuettes and other forms of art have been discovered, including earlier examples. They are collectively referred to as Venus figurines, although they pre-date the mythological figure of Venus by thousands of years. The purposes of these carvings have been subject to much speculation.

The Venus of Brassempouy or La Dame de Brassempouy,  a fragmentary ivory figurine from the Upper Palaeolithic, Gravettian industry, discovered in the Grotte du Pape at Brassempouy, France in 1892, by Édouard Piette, is one of the earliest known realistic representations of a human face. 

"She is 3.65 cm high, 2.2 cm deep and 1.9 cm wide. Her face is triangular and seems tranquil. While forehead, nose and brows are carved in relief, the mouth is absent. A vertical crack on the right side of the face is linked to the internal structure of the ivory. On the head is a checkerboard-like pattern formed by two series of shallow incisions at right angles to each other; it has been interpreted as a wig, a hood, or simply a representation of hair.

"Even though the head was discovered so early in the development of modern archaeology that its context could not be studied with all the attention it would have deserved, there is no doubt that the Venus of Brassempouy belonged to an Upper Palaeolithic material culture, the Gravettian (29,000–22,000 BP), more precisely the Middle Gravettian, with "Noailles" burins circa 26,000 to 24,000 BP.

"She is more or less contemporary with the other Palaeolithic Venus figurines, such as those of Lespugue, Dolní Věstonice, Willendorf, etc. Nonetheless, she is distinguished among the group by the realistic character of the representation" (Wikipedia article on Venus of Brassempouy, accessed 05-14-2009).

The Venus of Brassempouy is preserved in the Musée d'Archéologie nationale, Saint-Germain-En-Laye.

Randall White, "The women of Brassempouy: A century of research and interpretation," Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 13.4, December 2006:251ff.

"There are no certain ways to date individual cylcons. The oldest cylcon/message stone found in a dateable archaeological context is about 20,000 years old. The simple line motifs of the oldest cylcons represent the earliest art of the Aborigines, from a very early period of occupation. In Australian nomenclature this is the colonizing period, or early Stone Age, ca. 50,000/40,000-3,000 BC. With the earliest rock-carvings and paintings, the cylcons represent the oldest form of communication and art; and they represent the oldest religion still observed. Only 2 Aborigines have been able to communicate their name of the cylcons: Yurda, and Wommagnaragnara (Heart of the snake), respectively. Other uses as tallies are possible, such as counting of dead people, warriors, emus, measures of nardo seeds, or mapping purposes counting day-marches in various directions. Later the use could also change to other magic rituals, some involving the chipping off smaller flakes, and the practical use for pounding and crushing. Much more research is needed before the cylcons' real age and significance can be properly understood and appreciated.

"The term cylcon is derived from the title of R. Ethridge's publication: The Cylindro-conical and Stone Implements of Western New South Wales and their significance. Ethnological Series No. 2, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of New South Wales, 1916:1-41" (http://www.schoyencollection.org/religionsLiving.html, accessed 03-06-2009)

Early humans may have made bags from skin long ago. By around 24,000 BCE they were weaving plant fibers to make cords and perhaps baskets. The oldest known pottery, from Japan’s Jomon culture, Lake Anenuma, Honshu, Japan, is about 18,000 years old.

The Holocene interglacial, a geological interval of warmer global average temperature that separates glacial periods within an ice age, begins.

"Human civilization, in its most widely used definition, dates entirely within the Holocene. The word anthropocene is sometimes used to describe the time period from when humans have had a significant impact on the Earth's climate and ecosystems to the present" (Wikipedia article on Holocene, accessed 07-10-2010).

The eight so-called founder crops of agriculture— plant species domesticated by early Holocene (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region of southwest Asia— form the basis of systematic agriculture in the Middle East, North Africa, India, Persia and (later) Europe. They include flax, three cereals and four pulses (legumes), and are the first known domesticated plants.

First emmer wheat and einkorn wheat were domesticated, then hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch (an ancient grain legume crop), chick peas and flax. These eight crops occur more or less simultaneously on Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites in the Levant, although the consensus is that wheat was the first to be sown and harvested on a significant scale.

According to one theory about the origins of counting and writing developed by Denise Schmand-Besserat, around 8000 BCE the Palaeolithic notched tallies representing the simplest form of counting — in one-to-one correspondence — were superseded by Neolithic tokens in various geometric forms suited for concrete counting. This invention is thought to have been used for about 5000 years prior to the use of abstract numbers which led to writing about 3500 BCE, and then to mathematics about 2600 BCE. Tokens followed basic geometric forms, such as spheres, tetrahedrons, cones, cylinders, discs, quadrangles, triangles. They were first kept in baskets, leather pouchs, clay bowls, and later within clay bullas. 

Horse domestication revolutionized transportation, accelerated communication, and transformed warfare in prehistory.  Yet the identification of early domestication processes has been problematic.

In a paper published in the journal Science on March 6, 2009 archaeologist Alan K. Outram and seven co-authors published "three independent lines of evidence demonstrating domestication in the Eneolithic Botai Culture of Kazakhstan, dating to about 3500 B.C.E. Metrical analysis of horse metacarpals shows that Botai horses resemble Bronze Age domestic horses rather than Paleolithic wild horses from the same region. Pathological characteristics indicate that some Botai horses were bridled, perhaps ridden. Organic residue analysis, using δ13C and δD values of fatty acids, reveals processing of mare's milk and carcass products in ceramics, indicating a developed domestic economy encompassing secondary products" (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5919/1332, accessed 03-06-2009).

Prior to discovery of this evidence horse domestication was thought to have occurred around 2500 BCE.

♦ Before horses were domesticated it appears that prehistoric people mainly killed horses for food.  One of the most celebrated collections of horse and reindeer bones was found beneath the precipice at the paleolithic site of Solutré in France.  Though prehistoric people primarily hunted the reindeer for food and other necessities of life, an explanation for the immense deposit of bones at Solutré is that prehistoric people stampeded reindeer and horses over the cliff as a means of killing them.

British paleontologist William Buckland publishes Reliquiae diluvianae; or, Observations on the Organic Remains Contained in Caves, Fissures, and Diluvial Gravel, and on Other Geological Phenomena, Attesting the Action of an Universal Deluge.

Among the most notable aspects of this elegant pioneering work on the exploration of so-called "bone caves," was Buckland's report, and illustrations, of the discovery in Paviland Cave (Goat's Hole) in Wales of a human skeleton. The skeleton was associated with the bones of extinct animals. Though Buckland initially presumed that the skeleton was male, he later revised his presumption to female because of an ivory bracelet found with the skeleton. Since the bones were stained with ochre, the skeleton became known as the "Red Lady of Paviland." This incomplete skeleton Buckland considered “anterior to, or coeval with, the Roman invasion of this country” (p. 92), Though Buckland did not recognize its ancient age, the skeleton was, much later, recognized as the first genuine human fossil skeleton discovered by a scientist.

“Decades before the establishment of human antiquity or evolutionary theory, it suggested questions about human origins to science. In fact, Aldhouse-Green has playfully pointed out that our Paleolithic European forebears should be called Pavilandians instead of Cro-Magnons because the Red Lady has priority of nearly forty years over the discoveries made in France” (Sommer, Bones and Ochre. The Curious Afterlife of the Red Lady of Paviland [2007] 2-3).

Danish archaeologist, Christian Jurgensen Thomsen, the first curator of the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, edits and publishes a guidebook to the national museum entitled Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed.

In this small book Thomsen formulated a method of classifying the museum’s archeological collections according to whether the artifacts were made of stone, bronze or iron. He claimed that these three groupings represented three chronologically successive archeological ages; this was the genesis of the Three-Age system, “the basic chronology that now underpins the archaeology of most of the Old World” (Rowley-Conwy, From Genesis to Prehistory. The Archaeological Three Age System and its Contest Reception in Denmark, Britain, and Ireland [2007] 1).

The second chapter of the guide, contributed by Thomsen, described his dating scheme and applied it to the monuments and antiquities of the North. Thomsen defined the three ages as follows:

"The Age of Stone, or that period when weapons and implements were made of stone, wood, bone, or some such material, and during which very little or nothing at all was known of metals. . . .

"The Age of Bronze, in which weapons and cutting implements were made of copper or bronze, and nothing at all, or but very little was known of iron or silver. . . .

"The Age of Iron is the third and last period of the heathen times, in which iron was used for those articles to which that metal is eminently suited, and in the fabrication of which it came to be employed as a substitute for bronze" (Thomsen, Guide to Northern Archaeology [1848], pp. 64–68).

Thomsen was a scholar with a background in the history of numismatics rather than a field archaeologist. He based his study of artifacts on the associations between stylistic change, decoration and context, topics which may have interested him initially through his numismatic researches. Thomsen recognized the importance of examining objects from "closed finds," allowing him to determine the common associations of artifacts for various periods which he divided into his Three-Age system. Thomsen’s assistant. archaeologist Jens J. A. Worsaae, later demonstrated the stratigraphic succession of the stone, bronze and iron ages in Denmark through archeological fieldwork.

An English translation of Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed, by the Earl of Ellesmere, was published in 1848. Spencer, Ecce homo (1986) no. 3.488.

French writer, archeologist, and antiquary Jacques Boucher de Perthes privately publishes De l'industrie primitive ou des arts à leur origine in 1846. This was Boucher de Perthes's first work on the ancient stone implements discovered at Abbeville where he was Director of customs. 

In 1837, following the lead of Casimir Picard, Boucher de Perthes began investigating Abbeville’s rich archeological and paleontological sites. He donated some of the products of his early excavations to the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris, directed by the geologist Pierre-Louis Cordier. It wan response to a request by Cordier in a letter dated 12 July 1840 that Boucher de Perthes made his first discovery of an “antediluvian” stone tool, a biface Paleolithic axe found in 1840 in the Menchecourt quarry outside of Abbeville. The layer of sand in which the stone axe was found also contained the bones of extinct mammalian species, indicating that the axe was coeval with these species. The Menchecourt axe, and other “antediluvian” artifacts found in nearby sites, convinced Boucher de Perthes that humanity was very much older than had previously been supposed.  

Boucher de Perthes attempted to alert the scientific community to his findings via correspondence with Cordier and other prominent scientists, but was ignored. Undiscouraged, he kept up with his excavations, and also began writing De l’industrie primitive, in which he described and illustrated with simple line drawings the results of his first decade of excavation, and made the case for the antiquity of the human species based on the stratigraphic relationship between “antediluvian” stone tools and the bones of extinct mammals. In 1846 he had a very small edition of this work printed, which must have been intended mostly for presentation to colleagues such as Cordier. In that same year Boucher de Perthes sent the manuscript of De l’industrie primitive to the Académie des Sciences in the hope of a favorable review. The Académie appointed a five-man commission, headed by Cordier, to prepare an evaluation of Boucher de Perthes’ work; in the end, however, the Académie declined to issue a report.

Boucher de Perthes had wanted to publish De l’industrie primitive in 1847, but held up publication pending approval of the Académie. After receiving Cordier’s polite but negative response in 1849 Boucher went ahead and re-issued the volume with a new title, Antiquités celtiques et antédiluviennes, referencing the ancient age of to which the antiquities belonged—a time before the Biblical flood. The printed title page was dated 1847, but a pasted-in printed note opposite stated that “this work, printed in 1847, could not, because of circumstances, be published until 1849.” 

Unti about 1860 Boucher de Perthes faced enormous opposition to his views of prehistoric man. In his 1860 paper reviewing Boucher de Perthes’ discoveries, the English archaeologist and geologist John Evans summarized the difficulties that beset Boucher de Perthes in gaining the acceptance for his discoveries by the scientific establishment:

"It is now some years since a distinguished French antiquary, M. Boucher de Perthes, in his work, entitled ‘Antiquités Celtiques et Antédluviennes’ called attention to the discovery of flint implements fashioned by the hand of man in the pits worked for sand and gravel in the neighbourhood of Abbeville, in such positions, and at such a depth below the surface of the ground, as to force upon him the conclusion that they were found in the very spots in which they had been deposited at the period of the formation of beds containing them. The announcement by M. Boucher de Perthes, of his having discovered these flint implements under such remarkable circumstances, was, however, accompanied by an account of the finding of many other forms of flint of a much more questionable character, and by the enunciation of theories which by many may have been considered as founded upon too small a basis of ascertained facts. It is probably owing to this cause that, neither in France nor in this country, did the less disputable nor completely substantiated discoveries of M. de Perthes receive from men of science in former years the attention to which they were justly entitled" (Evans, "Flint Implements in the Drift,” Archaeologia XXXVIII [1860], 2).

English geologist Charles Lyell publishes in London The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man with Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation. The publisher's advertisements inserted at the back of the first edition are dated January 1863.

Though he had been slow to accept evolutionary theory, and long remained skeptical about the question of human origins, Lyell became convinced in the late 1850s of the antiquity of man by the increasing number of discoveries of man-made flint tools found alongside the fossil remains of extinct animals. After collecting and analyzing the evidence for several years, Lyell made the case for human antiquity in his Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, a work in which he also announced his acceptance of Darwin’s theory of evolution as “the best explanation yet offered of the connection between man and those animals which have flourished successively on the earth.” Lyell’s decision to include in this work the argument for evolution by natural selection, as well as information concerning the relationship between man and the primates, raised the level of scientific controversy concerning the whole issue of human antiquity, which had previously been developing mainly on the basis of geological, paleontological, and archaeological evidence without direct reference to the larger issues of evolution. The book also took the topics out of the confines of scientific journals and brought them to a much larger audience through Lyell’s superb powers of exposition.

Through the many reviews of this book published in popular magazines and newspapers, the public was treated to even more information on the topic. It is probably because of the success of Lyell’s work, along with those of Huxley, John Lubbock, that Darwin chose to bypass the subject of human antiquity in the Descent of Man (1871), writing:

“The high antiquity of man has recently been demonstrated by the labours of a host of eminent men, beginning with M. Boucher de Perthes; and this is the indispensable basis for understanding his origin. I shall, therefore, take this conclusion for granted, and may refer my readers to the admirable treatises of Sir Charles Lyell, Sir John Lubbock, and others.”

English biologist, paleontologist  and evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley publishes in London Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature. The first issue of the edition contained publisher’s advertisements dated February 1863.

On February 18, 1863, Darwin wrote to Huxley, “Hurrah the monkey book has come!” (quoted in Desmond, Huxley, The Devils’ Disciple [1994] 312). Man’s Place in Nature was the first book to directly address the evidence for human evolution from primates. Together with Lyell’s Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, which was published a few weeks earlier, Man’s Place in Nature was also the first book to consider the role of prehistoric human remains as evidence for human evolution. While Lyell approached the topics primarily from the geological point of view, Huxley approached the subjects mainly from the point of view of comparative anatomy.

Concerning Huxley’s work, Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man: “Prof. Huxley, in the opinion of most competent judges, has conclusively shewn that in every visible character man differs less from the higher apes, than these do from the lower members of the same order of primates.” (p.3).

Sometimes called “Darwin’s bulldog”, Huxley enjoyed involvement in scientific controversy that more cautious scientists such as Darwin preferred to avoid. Like Lyell’s Antiquity of Man, Huxley’s book took topics which had previously been confined mostly to scientific journals and brought them to the attention of the reading public. Because Huxley’s and Lyell’s books were often reviewed together in popular magazines, this tended to generate even further controversy.

French lawyer archaeologist and paleontologist Edouard Lartet and English banker ethnologist Henry Christy publish "Cavernes du Périgord. Objets gravés et sculptés des temps pré-historiques dans l’Europe occidentale" in Revue archéologique. 

In 1863 Lartet and Christy began systematically examining the caves in the Périgord region of France, and found incontrovertible evidence for the existence of Paleolithic mobiliary art. This 37-page paper with two lithographed plates and illustrations within the text, describing the results of those researches, is the founding work on Upper Paleolithic art, and one of the earliest publications to illustrate Paleolithic mobiliary art. It may also be the only joint publication of Lartet and Christy issued before Christy’s premature death at the age of 55.

In two papers published in 1861 Lartet had illustrated two prehistoric bones with carved representations of animals that had for many years been considered “Celtic”. In those papers, which reflect Lartet’s earliest interest in this topic, he argued that these carvings, which had been previously discovered by others, were indeed examples of prehistoric art.

English banker, politician, naturalist and archaeologist John Lubbock publishes in London Pre-Historic Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages.

After delivering a series of lectures at the Royal Institution on “The Antiquity of Man” in the summer of 1864, Lubbock organized his material into a book that addressed not only the topic of human antiquity but the larger issues of the lives and cultures of people in the Stone Age. A masterpiece of scientific exposition, Pre-historic Times became his best-known work, in which he coined the terms “Paleolithic” and “Neolithic” to distinguish between the earlier and later Stone Age periods. He wrote:

"From the careful study of the remains which have come down to us, it would appear that Pre-historical Archaeology may be divided into four great epochs.

"First, that of the Drift; when man shared the possession of Europe with the Mammoth, the Cave bear, the Wooly-haired rhinoceros, and other extinct animals. This we may call the ‘Paleolithic’ period.

"Secondly, The later or polished Stone age; a period characterized by beautiful weapons and instruments made of flint and other kinds of stone, in which, however we find no trace of the knowledge of any metal, excepting gold, which seems to have been sometimes used for ornaments. This we may call the ‘Neolithic ‘period.

"Thirdly The Bronze age, in which bronze was used for arms and cutting instruments of all kinds.

"Fourthly, The Iron age, in which that metal had superseded bronze for arms, axes, knives, etc; bronze, however still being in common use for ornaments, and frequently also for the handles of swords and other othersm, but never for the blades. Stone weapons, however, of many kinds were still in use during the age of Bronze, and even during that of Iron. So that the mere presence of a few stone implements in not in itself sufficient evidence, that any given ‘find’ belongs to the Stone age" (p. 3).

In contrast to some of the other early researchers in these fields who focused on the geology of the prehistoric sites, in finding the artifacts, and in studying the artifacts themselves, Lubbock studied the artifacts of Stone Age cultures in order shed light on the function of ancient implements as part of an overall attempt to reconstruct what life might have been like in the Stone Age. In order to gain further insight into life in prehistoric times he also studied the lives of a wide variety of non-western peoples, some of whose lives and cultures appeared to him to provide strong analogs to life during the Stone Age.

His book incorporates five earlier published papers, all of which appeared in The Natural History Review: “On the Kjökkenmöddings: Recent geological-archaeological researches in Denmark” (October 1861); “On the evidence of the antiquity of man, afforded by the physical structures of the Somme Valley” (January 1862); “On the ancient lake habitations of Switzerland” (July 1862); “North American archaeology” (January 1863); and “Cave-men” (July 1864). To these previously published papers Lubbock added three chapters devoted to the customs and beliefs of primitive races. In a final chapter he summed up his conclusions on the origins of man and of civilization.

Pre-Historic Times may be the most influential work on archaeology of the nineteenth century. It remained a standard work for over 50 years, with the seventh and final edition appearing just after Lubbock’s death in 1913.

Charles Darwin publishes a 2-volume work entitled The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. 

Twelve years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Darwin made good his promise to “throw light on the origin of man and his history” by publishing The Descent of Man in which he compared man’s physical and psychological traits to similar ones in apes and other animals, and showed how even man’s mind and moral sense could have evolved through processes of natural selection.

In discussing man’s ancestry, Darwin did not claim that man was directly descended from apes as we know them today, but stated that the extinct ancestors of Homo sapiens would have to be classed among the primates. This statement was widely misinterpreted by the popular press, and caused a furor second only to that raised by the Origin. Darwin also added an essay on sexual selection, i.e. the preferential chances of mating that some individuals of one sex have over their rivals because of special characteristics, leading to the accentuation and transmission of those characteristics.

Darwin originated of the single-origin hypothesis in paleoanthropology.

"In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is the mainstream model describing the origin and early dispersal of anatomically modern humans. The theory is called the (Recent) Out-of-Africa model in the popular press, and academically the recent single-origin hypothesis (RSOH), Replacement Hypothesis, and Recent African Origin (RAO) model. The hypothesis that humans have a single origin (monogenesis) was published in Charles Darwin's Descent of Man (1871). The concept was speculative until the 1980s, when it was corroborated by a study of present-day mitochondrial DNA, combined with evidence based on physical anthropology of archaic specimens" (Wikipedia article on Recent African origin of modern humans, accessed 05-15-2010).

Darwin wrote in a section of The Descent of Man entitled "On the Birthplace and Antiquity of Man":

"In each great region of the world the living mammals are closely related to the extinct species of the same region. It is, therefore, probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man's nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere. But it is useless to speculate on this subject, for an ape nearly as large as a man, namely the Dryopithecus of Lartet, which was closely allied to the anthropomorphous Hylobates, existed in Europe during the Upper Miocene period; and since so remote a period the earth has certainly undergone many great revolutions, and there has been ample time for migration on the largest scale."

In spite of Darwin's suggestion, few if any 19th century researchers on human origins searched in Africa for evidence. It was not until Raymond Dart's highly controversial discovery of the first African hominin (hominid), Australopithecus africanus, in 1925 that serious attention began to paid to the African origins of mankind.

Scientists from the Mammoth Genome Project report the genome-wide sequence of the woolly mammoth, an extinct species of elephant that was adapted to living in the cold environment of the northern hemisphere. It is the first sequence of the genome of an extinct animal.This opens up the possibility of reconstructing species from the last ice age

"They sequenced four billion DNA bases using next-generation DNA-sequencing instruments and a novel approach that reads ancient DNA highly efficiently."

'Previous studies on extinct organisms have generated only small amounts of data," said Stephan C. Schuster, Penn State professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and the project's other leader. "Our dataset is 100 times more extensive than any other published dataset for an extinct species, demonstrating that ancient DNA studies can be brought up to the same level as modern genome projects' (quoted from Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News accessed 11-21-2008).

" 'By deciphering this genome we could, in theory, generate data that one day may help other researchers to bring the woolly mammoth back to life by inserting the uniquely mammoth DNA sequences into the genome of the modern-day elephant,' Stephan Schuster of Pennsylvania State University, who helped lead the research, said in a statement." (quoted from Reuters 11-19-2008, accessed 11-21-2008)