3.3 million years · one continuous record
All of Human History
Every invention, discovery and turning point, laid out on a single coiling spiral — the centre is three million years ago, the rim is today. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom, or jump straight to a year.
In view · 3.3 million BCE – 2026
60 entriesEarliest stone tools
Sharp-edged flakes and cores knapped from river cobbles at Lomekwi, predating the genus Homo.
East Africa
Oldowan tool industry
A systematic tradition of choppers, scrapers and hammerstones associated with Homo habilis.
Africa
Percussion flaking at Lomekwi
Hominins struck large cobbles with hammerstones to produce heavy cutting flakes, a technique older than the Oldowan refinements.
East Africa
Homo habilis and the enlarging brain
Fossils from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania show a hominin with a markedly larger braincase associated with stone tool debris.
East Africa
Homo erectus disperses out of Africa
Long-limbed, endurance-walking hominids spread across Eurasia.
Africa and Eurasia
Acheulean handaxe
The symmetrical teardrop biface, made to a mental template rather than by opportunistic flaking.
Africa
Systematic butchery with stone flakes
Cut-marked animal bones across East Africa show hominins routinely dismembering large carcasses with sharpened flakes.
East Africa
Controlled use of fire
Hearths at Wonderwerk and Gesher Benot Ya'aqov show deliberately maintained fire.
Africa and Levant
Ochre processing for symbolic use
Hominins ground red ochre into powder, likely for body decoration and hide treatment.
Africa
Hearths at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov
Repeated burnt clusters at an Israeli lakeside site record deliberate, maintained fires and cooked plant foods.
Levant
Hafted spears
Stone points bound to wooden shafts, as at Kathu Pan.
Southern Africa
Wooden throwing spears
The Schoeningen spears, balanced javelins of spruce, preserved in waterlogged sediment.
Central Europe
Prepared-core Levallois technique
Knappers shaped a core in advance so a single blow released a predetermined flake.
Africa and Eurasia
Long-distance obsidian exchange
Middle Stone Age groups in the Olorgesailie basin carried volcanic glass tens of kilometres from its source.
East Africa
Earliest Homo sapiens fossils
Remains from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco push the origin of our species back across the whole African continent.
North Africa
Clothing and tailored hides
Genetic dating of body lice suggests regular clothing use by this period.
Africa
Shellfish harvesting at Pinnacle Point
Coastal caves in South Africa preserve the earliest systematic use of marine food and tidal timing.
Southern Africa
Deliberate burial of the dead
Groups at Qafzeh and Skhul interred bodies with grave goods.
Levant
Pigment workshops
Ochre-processing kits with abalone shell containers at Blombos Cave.
Southern Africa
Shell bead ornaments
Perforated Nassarius shells from Blombos Cave were strung and worn as personal decoration.
Southern Africa
Engraved abstract designs
Cross-hatched ochre blocks from Blombos, made with intent and repetition.
Southern Africa
Peopling of Australia
Occupation at Madjedbebe in Arnhem Land shows humans established across open water in Sahul.
Australia
Bow and arrow
Microlithic points at Sibudu Cave bearing impact fractures consistent with arrows.
Southern Africa
Ostrich eggshell water flasks
Engraved eggshell containers let foragers carry water across dry country.
Southern Africa
Seafaring to Sahul
Deliberate open-water crossings carried people to Australia and New Guinea.
Southeast Asia and Oceania
Bone flutes
Vulture-bone and mammoth-ivory flutes from the Swabian Jura, tuned to a scale.
Central Europe
Sulawesi cave art
Ochre paintings of warty pigs and hunting scenes rank among the oldest figurative art known.
Southeast Asia
Figurative cave painting
Ochre animal figures at Sulawesi, Chauvet and El Castillo.
Eurasia and Southeast Asia
Tally marks on bone
Notched bones such as the Lebombo and Ishango records suggest systematic counting.
Africa
Ceramic firing
The Venus of Dolni Vestonice, fired clay figurines made before pottery vessels.
Central Europe
Spun fibre and textiles
Impressions of twisted cordage and woven netting in fired clay.
Central Europe
Eyed sewing needle
Fine bone needles allowed close-fitted, layered clothing.
Siberia
Fired ceramic figurines
The Venus of Dolni Vestonice was baked from loess clay long before pots were made.
Central Europe
Wild cereal grinding at Ohalo II
Charred barley and wheat grains with grinding stones show cereal processing millennia before farming.
Levant
Pottery vessels
Cooking pots from Xianrendong Cave, made by foragers long before farming.
East Asia
Jomon pottery
Hunter-gatherers in the Japanese archipelago made cord-marked cooking vessels among the world's oldest.
Japan
Peopling of the Americas
Coastal and interior routes carried people from Beringia into two continents.
Americas
Domestication of the dog
Wolves entering the human niche become companions, guards and hunting partners.
Eurasia
Bread before agriculture
Charred flatbread crumbs at Shubayqa in Jordan were baked from wild cereals and tubers.
Levant
Gobekli Tepe
Monumental carved stone enclosures raised by people who had not yet farmed.
Anatolia
Fig cultivation at Gilgal
Parthenocarpic figs found in the Jordan Valley could only be propagated by human cuttings.
Levant
Agriculture
Wheat, barley, lentils and peas brought under cultivation in the Fertile Crescent.
Fertile Crescent
Emmer and einkorn wheat domesticated
Farmers in the Fertile Crescent selected non-shattering wheat strains.
Fertile Crescent
Domestication of sheep and goats
Herded flocks provide meat, milk, wool and hide on demand.
Southwest Asia
Rice domestication in the Yangtze
Communities along the middle and lower Yangtze began selecting and sowing wild rice.
China
Squash domestication in Mesoamerica
Cucurbita seeds show selection for larger fruit and thicker rinds.
Mesoamerica
Copper cold-working at Cayonu
Anatolian villagers hammered native copper into beads and awls without smelting.
Anatolia
Bricks and mudbrick architecture
Sun-dried moulded bricks at Jericho and Catalhoyuk.
Levant and Anatolia
Maize domestication from teosinte
Farmers in the Balsas River valley began transforming a scraggly grass into maize.
Mesoamerica
Domestication of cattle
Aurochs were brought under human control in the Near East and, separately, in North Africa and South Asia.
Near East
Catalhoyuk and dense town life
Thousands lived in a honeycomb of mudbrick houses entered through the roof.
Anatolia
Irrigation canals
Diverted river water carried to fields in Mesopotamia and the Nile valley.
Mesopotamia
Dentistry with flint drills
Teeth from Mehrgarh in Baluchistan show cavities bored out with bow-driven flint points.
South Asia
Potato domestication in the Andes
Highland farmers near Lake Titicaca selected frost-hardy tubers and learned to freeze-dry them as chuno.
Andes
Banana and taro gardening at Kuk Swamp
Highland farmers drained wetlands to cultivate root and tree crops.
New Guinea
Copper smelting
Ore reduced to metal in furnaces at Belovode and Catalhoyuk.
Balkans and Anatolia
Cheese making
Perforated ceramic strainers in Poland carry milk fat residues from separating curds and whey.
Central Europe
Irrigated barley of the Zagros foothills
Simple channels carried hill runoff to terraced plots.
Iran
Woven cloth loom
Warp-weighted looms turn spun thread into cloth at scale.
Southwest Asia
Wine making at Areni and Hajji Firuz
Residues in jars from the Caucasus and Zagros record deliberate grape fermentation.
Caucasus