The 85-million-year timeline of human evolution
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- Primates emerged 85–55 million years ago, with the first unambiguous forms — including Archicebus in eastern China and several Teilhardina species — appearing by 55 million years ago, coinciding with the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum that spread tropical forests.
- Pierolapithecus, Dryopithecus and Hispanopithecus lived in Spain around 12.5 million years ago, and Danuvius in Germany 11.6 million years ago shows leg bones suited to upright walking, fueling a disputed claim that bipedalism first evolved in Eurasia, not Africa.
- Sahelanthropus tchadensis, dated to 7 million years ago in Chad, is the oldest known hominin — but debate persists over whether the partial fossils (including the 'Toumaï' skull) truly show bipedal walking or belong to an ape instead.
- Ardipithecus (5.8–4.4 million years ago) walked fully upright in East Africa while retaining grasping big toes for climbing; the 'Ardi' skeleton is the oldest near-complete hominin skeleton and offers the best direct evidence about the last common ancestor.
- Australopithecus species spread across Africa from 4.2 to 1.9 million years ago, with multiple coexisting lineages including 'Lucy' (A. afarensis), the grass-eating A. bahrelghazali in Chad, and A. sediba in South Africa, which still had long arms for tree climbing.
- The last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees is dated between 13 and 5.5 million years ago, with genetic and fossil evidence split: some studies place the LCA at least 7 million years ago, while Nakalipithecus (9.8 million years old, Kenya) is a possible close relative known only from a jawbone and teeth.
- The Lomekwian stone tools from Lomekwi, Kenya — 3.3 million years old — are the oldest known stone tools, made by bashing one rock against another to knock off flakes, predating Homo by over a million years.
Why it matters: The timeline reframes a defining trait of humanity: if Eurasian apes like Danuvius and Pierolapithecus truly walked upright 12–11 million years ago, then bipedalism — long treated as an African-origin milestone — may have first emerged in Europe or Asia, meaning textbooks tracking where the human lineage 'began' could need revising based on findings still disputed by partial fossils.
