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The Theory of Evolution

Limpopo, South Africa

The Makapans Cave and nearby archaeological and fossil sites are situated on the farm Makapansgat, 19 km north of Mokopane. It was here in 1948 that the fossil remains of Australopithecus africanus, a 3, 5 million-year-old ape-man, were found by Raymond Dart. In more recent years South Africa has once again captured the world’s attention with the discoveries of human remains at the Klasies River Caves along the Eastern Cape coast. Human remains with anatomically modern features have been found, dating well over 100 000 years old. If these dates are correct, then it is in Southern Africa that the world's oldest remains of our own species, Homo sapiens, have been found - some 60 000 years before their arrival in Europe and Asia.

Paranthtropus are a group of hominids that existed at the same time as the Australopithecines.

About 2 million years ago:

Ape-like creatures develope enough intelligence to make stone implements. Probably living in Africa. Primitive man spreads to Asia and Europe.The more recent Homo Genus is thought to arise about two million years ago and contains sequentially such representatives as Homo habilis, Homo erectus, archaic Homo sapiens, the Neanderthals, the Cro-Magnons, and finally modern man, sometimes designated as Homo sapiens.

About 1.5 - 2 million years ago:

Homo habilis....it is believed that Homo erectus itself developed from Homo habilis. The H.habilis is believed to be the first "true humans". Evolution of Homo habilis into the "erectines,"a range of human species often collectively referred to as Homo erectus".

About 28 000 - 1.8 million years ago:

Homo erectus....the immediate evolutionary predecessors of Homo sapiens are known as Homo erectus, whose skeletal remains have been found on several continents and are known by several different popular names such as "Java Man" and "Peking Man". Although Homo erectus walked upright like humans, used fire, and made crude stone tools, its brain capacity was somewhat smaller than that of a modern human. The more "primitive" Australopithecus had finally become extinct.

About 20 000 - 800 000 years ago:

Homo Sapiens ( Archaic )....man's immediate predecessor. Archaic H. sapiens seems to have succeeded at the expense of its ancestor, H. erectus.

Homo Neanderthal....It's mostly accepted that the Neanderthals did not evolve directly into later Europeans or any other living people, but were replaced by the dispersing moderns, who nonetheless interbred and mixed culturally with the Cro-Magnon

As the homo species like homo erectus, homo neanderthalis, homo heidelbergenesis and ancient homo sapiens made further advances in creativity and productivity, they all felt a natural need to pen down their thoughts. This led to the cave painitngs and carvings. All of those paintings can be interpreted as diary entries as you may see that the paintings and carvings simply depict what the early men "did" i.e. hunting, using tools etc.

Homo sapiens ( Modern )

"The 'Recent African Origin' theory rests on a more scientific basis according to which all non-African populations descended from a Homo sapiens ancestor that evolved in Africa from Homo erectus 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. These ancestors then spread throughout the world, replacing the archaic Homo-populations, the Neanderthals and the Homo erectus. The viewpoint is that all genetic lineages derive from a recent common African ancestor and that non-African populations should carry a subset of the genetic variations present in modern African populations. But a more fascinating theory to me was the one of hybridization. It proposes some gene flow between modern humans that migrated from Africa with the archaic populations of the Neanderthals and the Homo erectus outside Africa. So, the evolution of modern humans could have been due to a blending of modern characters derived from the recent African populations with local characteristics of the archaic populations. From Homo erectus to Homo sapiens in Africa, the humans spread across a broad geographical region and rapidly increased in population in the past 50,000-100,000 years." (An Exploration into Early Human Migration)