The Story of Us: From Apes to Ancestors

Learn how early humans moved from gathering plant produce to farming, observing crops across West Asia, East and Southeast Asia, and Africa, and how settlement and polished stone tools followed.

people learned to tap metals like copper and tin for tools and jewelry, and to trade obsidian, expanding trade and prompting growth of villages, small states, and early cities.

Explore how timelines reveal major processes and events that shaped world history. Trace the emergence of humans, domestication of plants and animals, and technologies across Africa, Europe, Asia, and beyond.

Trace human origins from five point six million years ago to modern man around 160 thousand years ago, highlighting fossils, stone tools, and hunter-gatherer life.

Trace the precursors of modern humans through skulls from ape to Australopithecus, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens, noting brain growth and skull changes.

Compare hominids and humanoids, noting brain size, upright bipedal locomotion, and tool-using hands. Traces point to an African origin with Australopithecus fossils in East Africa around 5.6 million years ago.

Explain that Homo means man, highlight big brains, small jaws and teeth, upright walking, and ground living, then note Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens.

Explore the evolution of humans, from Homo habilis with simple tools to Homo erectus who walked upright and used fire, through archaic Homo sapiens and Neanderthals to Homo sapiens.

Explore hominids, their large brains, upright posture, and bipedal locomotion, how hands aided tool use, and trace Australopithecus and Homo branches with Latin and Greek name roots.

Trace the evolution from hominids to Australopithecus and Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens, and see how bipedalism shaped skull, brain size, and tool use.

Explore how the positive feedback mechanism drives brain growth, upright walking, and long-distance visual surveillance, freeing hands for toolmaking and carrying infants.

Explore regional continuity and replacement models of modern human origins, tracing fossil evidence from Ethiopia to explain regional variation and Africa's single origin.

Compare the replacement model, locating modern human origins in Africa and subsequent dispersal, with the regional continuity model of local populations evolving across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Australia.

Discover how early humans obtained food through gathering plant foods, hunting, scavenging, and fishing, and how archaeologists use skeletal remains and carbonisation to reconstruct movements across continents.

Early humans planned and carried out hunting and butchery of migratory herds near rivers, with evidence from Boxgrove and German sites around 35,000 years ago, plus early fishing.

Historians collect tools and site evidence, date deposits, and explain how frequently visited places accumulate artifacts like hand axes, revealing early humans’ movement from trees to open sites.

Discover how early humans moved from trees to caves to open-air sites, learned to use fire, and used tools, with evidence from Kenya, South Africa, and southern France.