Timeline of human history - Timeline 10. 500,000 BP to Present - The origins of Hunter-Gatherer Society. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens

Timeline of human history
version 2 - by Finn Sivert Nielsen

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Timeline 10 - 500,000 BP to Present
The origins of Hunter-Gatherer Society. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens

Timeline 10, by zooming in on the last 500,000 years before the Present, highlights the diversity of homo species coexisting on Earth prior to the rise of h.s. sapiens. At times, as many as 6-8 species may have coexisted, and additional species will no doubt be found in the future. There were undoubtedly dealings between some of these groups, indeed, geneticists claim proof of sporadic interbreeding between neanderthals and homo s.s. in Europe. In any case, they all pursued the same livelihood - that of hunters and gatherers - and thus all contributed to the emergence of hunter-gatherer society. This at least is my opinion on the matter. In climatic terms, this diverse period coincides roughly with the time of the last 4 glaciations. Neanderthals, originating in the North and adapted to Northern conditions through half a million years, were shorter and more powerfully built than we, with larger noses (the better to pre-warm arctic air) and larger brains (1,600 ccm, while h.h.s. has 1,350-1,450 ccm). What their larger brains did for them is unknown. Their tools were simple (while ours... well, look around you!), and remained so even after the transition to the more up-to-date Mousterian tool repertoire. They must have been eminent hunters, however, and with a 500,000-year history, it would be strange if they did not keep alive a narrative tradition of some kind, maybe they sat around telling stories every evening... But this is all speculation. We do not - and probably cannot - know. Homo sapiens sapiens arises in East Africa at the very beginning of the next to the last glaciation, and "comes together" as a species around 130,000 years ago, during the previous - Eemian - interglacial. Most of the history of our species thus takes place during the 100,000-year interval between the previous (Eemian) and the present (Holocene) interglacials. We are, in other words, a species predisposed for glacial conditions.