ABSTRACT
It is estimated that the universe as we know it came into existence about fifteen billion years ago. The age of the planet Earth is estimated at about five billion years. Hominid ancestors appeared about two and a half million years ago. Homo sapiens emerged about forty thousand years in the past, then surviving our Neanderthal cousins. The human species engaged mostly in hunting, gathering, and scavenging until around twelve to ten thousand years ago, when the first agricultural settlements began to appear.
