ABSTRACT
Genetic measurements indicate that the ape lineage, which would lead to Homo sapiens, diverged from the lineage that would lead to chimpanzees (the closest living relative of modern humans) around ve million years ago. It is assumed that the Australopithecus genus, which was likely the rst ape to walk upright, eventually gave rise to genus Homo. Anatomically, modern humans arose in Africa about 200,000 years ago and reached behavioral modernity about 50,000 years ago. Modern humans spread rapidly from Africa into the frost-free zones of Europe and Asia around 60,000 years ago. The rapid expansion of humankind to North America and Oceania took place at the climax of the most recent Ice Age, when temperate regions of today were extremely inhospitable. Yet humans had colonized nearly all the ice-free parts of the globe by the end of the Ice Age, some 12,000 years ago. Other hominids such as Homo erectus had been using simple wood and stone tools for millennia, but as time progressed, tools became far more rened and complex. At some point, humans began using re for heat and cooking. They also developed language in the Paleolithic period and a conceptual repertoire that included systematic burial of the dead and adornment of the living. Early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures made from wood and bone. During this period, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers and were generally nomadic.
