 How and from where did the human race evolve? The Big Bang happened 13.7 billion years ago. Earth is 4.5 billion years ago and life began on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago in the form of microorganisms. These were single cell trokaryotic cells such as bacteria, multicellular life only evolved over 1 billion years later. And it's only in the last 517 million years that life forms that we are familiar with started to evolve. Much of what we know about evolution comes from the fossil record. Anthropods came first, followed by fish, about 530 million years ago. Then land plants 475 million years ago. And forests 385 million years ago. Dinosaurs were around between 230 and 65 million years ago. The first mammals started appearing about 220 million years ago and only in the last 200,000 years did we, homo sapiens, appear. In fact, sometime during the Late Cretaceous Period about 65 million years ago a mass extinction event destroyed 3 quarters of all plant and animal life including dinosaurs. During this time, there were mammals around but all species we know today including ourselves were small rodent-like animals. For those organisms that survived, the newly emptied ecological niches brought about an abundant emergence of new species through a process called adaptive radiation. During this time, mammalian evolution really got going and the first primates called proto-primates appeared. Look at these first primates. They remind us of squirrels and it is believed that they lived mostly in trees. Fossils show us that proto-primates had grasping hands and feet but their eyes were still definitely on the sides of their heads rather than having stereoscopic vision. The Eocene Epoch about 55 to 34 million years ago saw the emergence of the first monkey-like primates with forward-facing eyes. During this time, an important evolutionary change happened inside primates' heads. The hole, known as the foramen magnum which allows the spinal cord to connect to the brain began to shift from the back of the base of the skull towards the center. This implies that some of these early primates were shifting towards a more upright walking position. Higher primates appeared during the oligocene epoch about 34 to 23 million years ago. This period saw the start of global cooling. Grasslands began to expand and forests shrank. Animals evolved to fit the new open landscapes and many predator-prey species arose as a result. The human lineage diverged from apes at least 7 million years ago but it may be as long as 13 million years ago. The Australopithecines are the earliest undisputed members of our lineage to walk upright. We have bone fossils to support this. Most famously is Lucy from which we have 40% of a female hominin skeleton. She dates back to 3.2 million years ago. Australopithecus evolved into the more familiar Homo genus to which humans or Homo sapiens belong. The oldest fossil we have in the Homo genus is from 2.8 million years ago. Early Homo species including Homo erectus and Homo habilis walked on two legs as did Lucy. The genus Homo first arose in Africa but we are currently unsure whether it was in southern Africa or eastern Africa. 3.3 million years ago we were using stone tools. We started using fire somewhere between 1.8 million years ago and 800,000 years ago. As you can tell, accurate dates are hard to settle on and are always changing and being debated. Homo ergaster did leave Africa and colonized Asia in small populations spreading from Turkey to China. Here in new environments evolved Homo erectus. Despite being bigger and more powerful than Homo sapiens Homo erectus died out about 30,000 years ago whereas Homo sapiens survived. Even though other species of Homo had already left Africa it was only around 60,000 years ago that modern humans migrated out of Africa and began colonizing the world. We know this through genetic and fossil evidence. Our ancestors did continue to interbreed with Neanderthals and other species in the Homo genus. Scientists currently recognize 15 to 20 different species of modern human but this is not agreed upon. Neanderthals died out about 30,000 years ago due to the Ice Age limiting food supplies. Homo floriciensis only died out about 12,000 years ago. They were also known as hobbits. In the last 100,000 years complex language, art and agriculture emerged. It was these complex developments which helped Homo sapiens survive where other Homo species did not. It is not to say that they did not use tools or have methods of communication just that our ancestors were more complex and so could overcome environmental difficulties such as the Ice Age. So from this video you should know that many different species of Homo evolved from our common ape ancestor between 7 and 13 million years ago and until only 12,000 years ago there were other Homo species living on planet Earth with us.