Themes > Science > Life Sciences > Physical Anthropology > Pre-Historic Man > Who's Who of Early Man

 

Time Period  Name Quick Glimpse    
About
3 million B.C.

Australopithecus
"Southern Ape" 

 Human-like hominids
Lucy
Basic traits of humans. Special because he could stand up. Main physical difference between early man and apes are the hands.

About
2 million B.C


Homo Habilis
"Handy Man"       

 First true humans
Stone tools - the first tool-maker
Lived in Africa
Taller, had a larger brain
About
1.5 million B.C.

Homo Erectus
"Upright Man"

 Made and controlled fire
The first hunters
Traveled over land bridges from Africa, to begin to populate the world, about 1 million years ago
About
500,000 B.C.

Homo Sapiens
"Wise Man"
& Neandertals

 Neandertals Buried their dead with ceremony.
Stone-tipped spears, bone needles, bone fish hooks, sewed their clothes from animal skins, warm boots

 

About
25,000 B.C. until about 10,000 B.C.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens &
"Moderns"

 

 Cave Paintings
Cro-Magnon & "Moderns"
Bow and arrows, well constructed huts with central hearths for fires; necklaces & pendants, cave art, little statues made from ivory, antler, bone; tools and weapons for hunting and fishing, oil lamps. Used honey to sweeten food. End of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago.


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