Timeline of human evolution,artwork. From left to right: an early bipedal hominin (between 7 and 5 million years ago),Australopithecus afarensis (around 4 million years ago),Australopithecus africanus (around 3 million years ago),Homo erectus (around 1.8 million years ago),Homo neanderthalensis (around 600,000 years ago),and Homo sapiens (around 400,000 years ago). These and other bipedal species evolved in Africa from a common ancestor with chimpanzees and other apes,spreading to Europe and Asia,and then the rest of the world. All are now extinct except modern humans |