Last evidence of giant animals in Australia and New Guinea. Human presence (Aborigines) likely played a role (extermination and/or ecosystem alteration) in the disappearance of the Megafauna: giant kangaroos, cow-sized rhinoceros-like marsupials (diprotodonts), a leopard-like marsupial, a 200-kg flightless bird, several impressively large reptiles such as one-ton lizards, giant pythons, and land crocodiles. Something similar will also happen in the Americas with the arrival of the first Asian colonizers (now American Indians).

Chauvet Cave, southern France. It is part of a series of hunting scenes painted on cave walls in prehistoric Europe. Other sites include Lascaux Cave, also in southern France (15,000 BC), and Altamira Cave in southern Spain (16,500 BC). The scenes often include animals defecating. It is speculated that this indicated they were fleeing from human attack for hunting purposes.

The first “Europeans” emerged as hybrids between dark-skinned humans from Africa and the white-skinned, red-haired, and blue-eyed Neanderthals already present on the European continent. Soon after, an artistic culture flourished in Europe, including depictions of animals and people on cave walls and the first musical instruments. Evidence for this comes from the skull remains found at Pestera cu Oase in Romania, at the Iron Gate of the Danube: the so-called Danubian Corridor, which allows one to easily cross the Carpathian Mountains and enter Europe. The human remains at Pestera cu Oase clearly resemble both Sapiens and Neanderthals and are therefore a hybrid. Genetic analysis of the remains reveals large portions of Neanderthal DNA, including the entire chromosome 12. Experimental evidence points to Sapiens-Neanderthal hybridization occurring only four to six generations before the individuals found at Pestera cu Oase. A blink of an eye for evolutionary time. No trace of Neanderthal DNA has been found in the male Y chromosome. So somewhere in Romania, 38,000 years ago, Sapiens men and Neanderthal women had sex, and the children were raised and in turn were able to grow and reproduce. Conversely, it is possible that there was also sex between Sapiens women and Neanderthal males, but the children either were not born or, following Haldane’s rule, hybrid offspring with two different chromosomes (which in mammals are males) are more likely to be sterile, according to statistical studies conducted by J.B.S. Haldane and published in 1922. Some Neanderthal characteristics, such as light skin, probably served these hybrids well, who were able to thrive in cold Europe. Pale skin allowed sunlight to penetrate, allowing the creation of vitamin D. Several recent studies of 50 fossils found throughout Europe dating from 37,000 to 14,000 years ago reveal that all Europeans of that period were descendants of the population found at Pestera cu Oase in Romania. During this period (37,000-14,000 years ago), the percentage of Neanderthal DNA was about 6%, but then gradually decreased to about 2% today, although 20% to 40% of the entire DNA genome survived in Homo sapiens in different individuals in Asia and Europe.

Hohlenstein-Stadel, Swabian Jura, Germany. In 1939, a 30-cm-tall artifact, half man, half lion, was found in a deep cave. It dated back 40,000 years, when Neanderthals lived in Europe. The Venus of Hohle Fels, dating back to the same period, was also found at the same site. It is the oldest depiction of a human being. A flute, the oldest musical instrument, was also found. The Swabian Jura is evidence of a process of self-domestication among humans, who focused on peaceful interpersonal interactions.

The entire human population on the planet probably lived in bands, with no evidence of tribes, chiefdoms, kingdoms, or states, which would instead begin to emerge in the next 30,000-40,000 years. By 11,000 BC, however, bands were still the most widespread form of organization. The social organization of our ancestors, however, was likely highly varied, if only because, physically, they were much, much more heterogeneous than the human race is today. Today, we are a uniform species, but this uniformity is not particularly ancient.

key factor that should give pause when comparing today’s nutritional needs with those of the Paleolithic is our species’ “ethology” and social habits. In the absence of cars, roads, elevators, smartphones, firearms, and all that technology does for us, the men and women who lived 40,000 or 20,000 years ago were much more physically active. The separation of roles was minimal, and women contributed as much as men to the hunt. Catching a large herbivore was not easy, and the entire village had to contribute, including the elderly, children, and pregnant women. Even gathering reeds or oats in the middle of the Arctic tundra for a few carbohydrates required great effort. The prey they caught were wild species low in fat, and the plants had seeds and tubers much smaller than today’s selectively harvested ones, which are difficult to harvest. The situation is very different for domesticated animals, selected over the last 10,000 years to provide as much fat and protein as possible, or for cultivated plants that produce abundant carbohydrates with relatively little effort. Modern chickens descend from an Asian species much smaller than a modern broiler, and eating chicken breast today is very different from eating a coot in the Paleolithic era, in terms of fat and protein intake and calories expended to obtain food.

First signs of the spread of the language

First evidence of the use of throwing weapons by Homo sapiens

Homo Sapiens in Europe

genetic mutation made symbolic thought possible for humans, which in turn made language possible. There are, however, debates about whether this “Cognitive Revolution” occurred almost suddenly (according to, for example, Noah Harari, among others) or very gradually (according to, for example, Clive Finlayson, among others). It seems certain, however, that it occurred at least for Neanderthals as well, and that some elements may have passed from Neanderthals to modern Homo sapiens.

The discovery of a child’s tooth and stone tools in a cave in southern France suggests that Homo sapiens was in Western Europe around 54,000 years ago. This is several thousand years earlier than previously thought, indicating that the two species could have coexisted for long periods. The research was published in the journal Science Advances. The artifacts were discovered in a cave known as Grotte Mandrin in the Rhone Valley by a team led by Professor Ludovic Slimak of the University of Toulouse: “We are now able to demonstrate that Homo sapiens arrived 12,000 years earlier than expected, and this population was then replaced by other Neanderthal populations. And this literally rewrites all our history books.”

Homo Sapiens in the Far East

Migration of Homo sapiens tribes to India (crossing the Strait of Hormuz) and then to Southeast Asia and Indonesia; the tribes originated from the Horn of Africa.

Scholz’s binary star, discovered in 2013 AD and composed of a red dwarf and a brown dwarf, both very faint in luminosity and mass, passes just 52,000 AU (Astronomical Units = Earth-Sun distance) from the Sun (0.8 light-years). They are therefore undoubtedly interacting with the outer layers of the Oort Cloud, a repository of dormant comets, launching a certain number (perhaps several million) on the long journey (a couple of million years!) into the inner Solar System, while others may have been captured and still others ejected into interstellar space or even ultimately into extragalactic space.

Bands of Homo sapiens are leaving Africa for a second time, this time permanently. And they won’t just reach Eurasia, but also the Americas, Australia, and the Moon…

Siberia. A hybrid between a Neanderthal (mother) and a Denisovan (father) has been born. The discovery will be made in 2018 by Viviane Slon and Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Cro-Magnon man in Europe

Carmel Mountains, present-day Israel. Small groups of Homo sapiens live in the Skhul and Qafzeh caves. In nearby caves just a few kilometers away, the Tabun and Kebara Caves, small groups of Neanderthals lived 55,000 years later. According to Svante Paabo, this is evidence that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals may have come into contact in the Middle East before spreading to Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas. Here in the Middle East, they interbred, leaving 2% of Neanderthal genes in human DNA.

Bands of Homo sapiens set foot in the Middle East, in the Levant (present-day Lebanon and Syria), but were unable to establish permanent settlements. Bands of Neanderthals were already present in the area.

First evidence of complex human symbolic behavior, what we call culture. For example, evidence has been found in South Africa and other parts of Africa of the expressive use of ochre and shells.

First evidence of Homo sapiens mining for minerals or stones

First evidence of the use of bone tools by Homo sapiens

The world’s human population is entering a bottleneck, perhaps shrinking to just 20,000 individuals.

Large Magellanic Cloud. A supernova explodes. Its 10^39 neutrinos travel 170,000 km before some of them reach a small blue planet, where eleven are captured by Kamiokande, an underground facility in Japan, and eight neutrinos are captured deep within the Homestake gold mine, New Jersey, by the IMB experiment.

Bruniquel Cave, southwestern France. A group of Neanderthals constructed two complexes of approximately 400 stalactite structures, carefully and precisely split and stacked one on top of the other. The article on this discovery was published in 2016. The site is located more than 300 meters from the cave entrance, so it was in total darkness unless artificially illuminated. The work was certainly aided by the use of torches or fire, abundant traces of which were found around the stalactite artwork. The purpose of the work remains unknown, but it may have been used for some form of ritual, or perhaps, more simply, as the foundation for some form of shelter or hut.

Homo sapiens, having evolved in Africa about 300,000 years ago, reached the region where Israel is now located, where it encountered Neanderthals, with whom it created a Sapiens-Neanderthal hybrid. However, this hybrid did not initially continue toward Europe, not until about 60,000 years ago, when a second push out of Africa spread Homo sapiens to Asia and then, 37,000 years ago, to Europe. Almost simultaneously, the Neanderthals became extinct in Europe.

Global warming

First evidence of the use of painting by Homo Sapiens

Possible rising North Sea levels could spill over the Dover Cliffs and open the English Channel, turning the “British Peninsula” into an island.

The giant moose thrives in Europe: it is 2m tall and its antlers extend for 3.6m; it is extinct due to human hunting.

Kessem Cave, Rosh Haayim, present-day Israel. In a cave, a group of humans feed on butchered and roasted meat, seeds, and roots, breathing in the smoke from the fire. Four teeth from one of them were found in 2015, with traces of tartar, plaque, and decay.

There are probably fewer than 10,000 Homo Sapiens specimens in Africa.

Appearance of Neanderthals in Europe and Western Asia

Mindel Glaciation

Homo Heidelbergensis in Europe

Gunz Glaciation

Heat exchange between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres is increasing, probably thanks to the North Atlantic Conveyor (the Gulf Stream); this leads to an increase in the thermal oscillation between glaciations and periods of global warming and, perhaps, to a change in the shape of the Earth’s orbit.