Deep prehistory

Africa

1. 🇹🇿TZA

   Tanzania · Peoples & Migration · c. 3.6 million years ago

   Hominins leave footprints at Laetoli

   Early hominins, attributed to Australopithecus afarensis, cross a layer of fresh volcanic ash near Laetoli; their footprints harden and survive, giving direct evidence of upright walking.

   Cradle of Humankind: Olduvai and Laetoli

   Sources: Laetoli (Encyclopaedia Britannica) · Laetoli (Wikipedia) · Laetoli Footprints (Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority)

Africa

1. 🇪🇹ETH

   Ethiopia · Peoples & Migration · c. 3.2 million years ago

   Lucy lives in the Afar region

   An Australopithecus afarensis individual, later catalogued AL 288-1, lives in what is now the Afar region; her fossilised skeleton would become one of the most famous evidences of early human ancestry.

   Cradle of Humankind and the Kingdom of D'mt

   Sources: Lucy (fossil hominin) (Encyclopaedia Britannica) · Australopithecus afarensis, Lucy's species (Natural History Museum, London)

Africa

1. 🇰🇪KEN

   Kenya · Peoples & Migration · c. 1.9 million years ago

   Hominins at Koobi Fora

   The Koobi Fora deposits east of Lake Turkana preserve fossils of Paranthropus boisei and early Homo, making the area one of the world's leading sites for the study of human evolution.

   Cradle of Humankind: the Turkana Basin

   Sources: Koobi Fora (National Museums of Kenya) · Koobi Fora (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Africa

1. 🇹🇿TZA

   Tanzania · Culture & Ideas · c. 1.8 million years ago

   Homo habilis and Oldowan tools at Olduvai

   Early members of the genus Homo at Olduvai Gorge make simple flaked-pebble tools of the Oldowan industry, among the earliest manufactured implements known.

   Cradle of Humankind: Olduvai and Laetoli

   Sources: Olduvai Gorge (Wikipedia) · Palaeoanthropological Sites of Human Evolution: Laetoli–Olduvai Gorge (International Union of Geological Sciences)

Africa

1. 🇰🇪KEN

   Kenya · Peoples & Migration · c. 1.6 million years ago

   Turkana Boy lives near Lake Turkana

   A Homo erectus youth, later catalogued KNM-WT 15000, lives near what is now the Nariokotome River; his fossilised skeleton would become the most complete of its species ever recovered.

   Cradle of Humankind: the Turkana Basin

   Sources: Nariokotome (Turkana Boy) (Encyclopaedia Britannica) · KNM-WT 15000 (Turkana Boy) (Smithsonian Human Origins Program) · All About Turkana Boy (Turkana Basin Institute)

Africa

1. 🇿🇦ZAF

   South Africa · Formation · Deep prehistory

   The Cradle of Humankind

   The Sterkfontein and Swartkrans caves preserve hominin fossils spanning millions of years, including Mrs Ples and Little Foot, marking southern Africa as a key site of human origins; the area was inscribed by UNESCO in 1999.

   Early peoples: San, Khoekhoe and the Bantu-speaking kingdoms

   Sources: Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) · South Africa (country, history and government) (Encyclopaedia Britannica) · Cradle of Humankind (South African History Online)

Oceania

1. 🇦🇺AUS

   Australia · Peoples & Migration · c. 65,000+ years ago

   Aboriginal peoples settle the continent

   Aboriginal peoples reached Australia at least 65,000 years ago, crossing from Southeast Asia to the joined landmass of Sahul and beginning the world's oldest continuous human occupation of a single territory.

   Aboriginal Australia: the world's oldest continuous cultures

   Sources: Australian Aboriginal peoples (Encyclopaedia Britannica) · Defining Moments: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history (National Museum of Australia)

Oceania

1. 🇦🇺AUS

   Australia · Peoples & Migration · c. 50,000–45,000 years ago

   Settlement across the whole continent

   Within tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal peoples had spread across the entire continent, from tropical north to the cold south, developing diverse cultures adapted to every environment.

   Aboriginal Australia: the world's oldest continuous cultures

   Sources: Australian Aboriginal peoples (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

2. 🇵🇬PNG

   Papua New Guinea · Peoples & Migration · c. 50,000 years ago

   First settlement of New Guinea

   People crossed from Southeast Asia to the joined landmass of Sahul, settling New Guinea in some of the earliest sea voyages and beginning one of the longest continuous human occupations on Earth.

   Deep past: settlement and the world's first farmers

   Sources: Papua New Guinea (Encyclopædia Britannica) · Papua New Guinea — History (Encyclopædia Britannica)

Asia

1. 🇦🇿AZE

   Azerbaijan · Culture & Ideas · c. 40,000 years ago

   The rock art of Gobustan

   On a plateau south of Baku, prehistoric peoples carved more than 6,000 engravings of hunters, animals and boats, leaving a record of roughly 40,000 years of human activity later inscribed by UNESCO.

   Gobustan, Caucasian Albania and the land of fire

   Sources: Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape (UNESCO World Heritage Centre)

Oceania

1. 🇸🇧SLB

   Solomon Islands · Peoples & Migration · c. 30,000+ years ago

   Papuan settlers reach the islands

   Papuan-speaking peoples occupy the main Solomon chain, part of Near Oceania, in some of the earliest recorded sea crossings by humans.

   Settlement of a Thousand Tongues

   Sources: History of Solomon Islands (Encyclopædia Britannica)

Africa

1. 🇳🇦NAM

   Namibia · Peoples & Migration · deep prehistory

   San hunter-gatherers of the Namib

   The San, among the oldest human populations on Earth, ranged across the Namib and its margins for tens of thousands of years, hunting, gathering and recording their world in rock art.

   First peoples: the San, Khoekhoe, Damara and the engravings of Twyfelfontein

   Sources: Namibia (country, history and government) (Encyclopaedia Britannica) · History of Namibia (Wikipedia)

Africa

1. 🇧🇼BWA

   Botswana · Culture & Ideas · c. 24,000 BP

   Rock art at Tsodilo Hills

   San hunter-gatherers paint the Tsodilo Hills; some images are dated to around 24,000 years before present, part of a record of over 4,500 paintings.

   Hunters, Herders and the Painted Hills

   Sources: Tsodilo (World Heritage List) (UNESCO World Heritage Centre) · Tsodilo (Wikipedia) · Tsodilo Hills, Botswana — African Rock Art (British Museum)

North America

1. 🇨🇦CAN

   Canada · Peoples & Migration · c. 13,000 BCE or earlier

   Peopling of the continent

   The ancestors of First Nations were established across the Americas by the end of the last Ice Age, developing diverse societies, languages, and economies over thousands of years before European contact.

   Indigenous peoples and First Nations before contact

   Sources: First Nations and Indigenous peoples in Canada (The Canadian Encyclopedia) · Canada (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

North America

1. 🇺🇸USA

   United States · Peoples & Migration · c. 13,000 BCE

   Peopling of the Americas

   Humans were established across the Americas by at least 13,000–15,000 years ago, having entered via the Beringian land bridge and Pacific coast from Asia during the last Ice Age.

   Indigenous America before contact

   Sources: Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation; U.S. History Collections (Library of Congress)