The first knownevolved in Africa. According to the early hominids’ skull anatomy was similar to that and the that also evolved in Africa, but the hominids had adopted a locomotion which freed their hands. This gave them a crucial advantage, enabling them to live in both forested areas and on the open at a time when Africa was drying up and the savanna was encroaching on forested areas. This would have occurred 10 to 5 million years ago, but these claims are controversial because biologists and genetics have humans appearing around the last 70 thousand to 200 thousand years.
By 4 were tool users, and makers of tools. They scavenged for meat and were omnivores.
Around 1.8 million years ago, first appeared in the fossil record in Africa. From Homo ergaster, evolved 1.5 million years ago. Some of the earlier representatives of this species were still fairly small-brained and used primitive stone tools, much like H. habilis. The brain later grew in size, and H. erectus eventually developed a more complex stone tool technology called the . Possibly the first hunters, H. erectus mastered the art of making fire and was the first hominid to leave Africa, colonizing most of and perhaps later giving rise to . Although some recent writers have suggested that was the first and primary hominid ever to live outside Africa, many scientists consider H. georgicus to be an early and primitive member of the H. erectus species. African biface artifact (spear point) dated in Late Stone Age period
The fossil record shows (also known as “modern humans” or “anatomically modern humans”) living in Africa by about 350,000-260,000 years ago. The earliest known Homo sapiens fossils include the remains from Morocco (ca. 315,000 years ago) the from South Africa (ca. 259,000 years ago), and the from Ethiopia (ca. 195,000 years ago).Scientists have suggested that Homo sapiens may have arisen between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago through a merging of populations.
