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(~6,200) |
Tortise shells inscribed with symbols |
Earliest known proto-writing at site of Wuyang Jiahu in China |
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(350) |
Classical and Hellenistic Greece |
Did the Greeks know about fossils? |
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~(340) |
Aristotle |
Introduces ideas of classification of animals, genus and species, and embryology |
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0408 |
St. Augustine |
Writes De Genesi ad literam, which suggests that when the Bible is at odds with empirical observations that the spiritual meaning of the Bible should not be questioned because the Bible only teaches things necessary for salvation. This leaves the door open for understanding nature outside the context of the Bible. Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason. He did not see this as a conflict. |
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0499 |
Aryabhata |
In Aryabhatiya and Aryabhata Siddhanta, worked out an accurate heliocentric model of gravitation, including elliptical orbits, the circumference of the earth, and the longitudes of planets around the Sun. |
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0600 |
Chinese invetors (漢朝) |
Wood block printing invented in China. See Reinhardt, A., Shiao, L. A., Barlow, T. E., & Field, A. (2005). Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937 (review). Technology and Culture, 46(2), 411-413.
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1027 |
Avicenna (Abū Alī Sīnā) |
Outlined the principle of superposition while discussing the origins of mountains in The Book of Healing ( Al-Shefa). Of mountains his writes "Either they are the effects of upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as might occur during a violent earthquake, or they are the effect of water, which, cutting itself a new route, has denuded the valleys, the strata being of different kinds, some soft, some hard... It would require a long period of time for all such changes to be accomplished, during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat diminished in size.." |
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1030 |
Abu Rayhan Biruni |
Kitab fi Tahqiq ma li'l-Hind (Researches on India)
Biruni publishes his 'research' on India, which has ethnographic, geological, astronomical, and evolutionary ideas very clearly presented. In it, among other things, Biruni discusses seashell fossils as evidence for geological change. In 1030, Biruni discussed the Indian heliocentric theories of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Varahamihira in his Indica. Biruni noted that the question of heliocentricity was a philosophical rather than a mathematical problem. In it Biruni also indirectly discusses natural selection:
In Chapter 47 of his India, entitled "On Vasudeva and the Wars of the Bharata," Biruni attempted to give a naturalistic explanation as to why the struggles described in the Mahabharata "had to take place." He explains it using natural processes that include biological ideas related to evolution, which has led several scholars to compare his ideas to Darwinism and natural selection.[55]One of these ideas corresponds to "the central idea of Malthus on the disproportion between the increase in the rates of reproduction and means of subsistence," as in the following statement:
"The life of the world depends upon the sowing and procreating. Both processes increase in the course of time, and this increase is unlimited, whilst the world is limited."
He then applies this principle to living things:
"When a class of plants or animals does not increase any more in its structure, and its peculiar kind is established as a species of its own, when each individual of it does not simply come into existence once and perish, but besides procreates a being like itself or several together, and not only once but several times, then this will as single species of plants or animals occupy the earth and spread itself and its kind over as much territory as it can find."
Biruni then describes the idea of artificial selection:
"The agriculturist selects his corn, letting grow as much as he requires, and tearing out the remainder. The forester leaves those branches which he perceives to be excellent, whilst he cuts away all others. The bees kill those of their kind who only eat, but do not work in their beehive."
Birune then applies this idea to nature, hence "some presentiment of Darwin's idea of natural selection might be detected" in the next paragraph by Biruni:
"Nature proceeds in a similar way; however, it does not distinguish for its action is under all circumstances one and the same. It allows the leaves and fruit of the trees to perish, thus preventing them from realising that result which they are intended to produce in the economy of nature. It removes them so as to make room for others."
Among his writings on geology, B?r?n? observed the geology of India and discovered that the Indian subcontinent was once a sea, hypothesizing that it became land through the drifting ofalluvium. He wrote:
"But if you see the soil of India with your own eyes and meditate on its nature, if you consider the rounded stones found in earth however deeply you dig, stones that are huge near the mountains and where the rivers have a violent current: stones that are of smaller size at a greater distance from the mountains and where the streams flow more slowly: stones that appear pulverised in the shape of sand where the streams begin to stagnate near their mouths and near the sea ? if you consider all this you can scarcely help thinking that India was once a sea, which by degrees has been filled up by the alluvium of the streams."
This is in agreement with the theory of the modern geological theory of continental drift, where the Indian subcontinent moved northwards and joined the Asian landmass, creating the Himalayas, and is still moving north-eastwards.
1. ^ Jan Z. Wilczynski (December 1959), "On the Presumed Darwinism of Alberuni Eight Hundred Years before Darwin", Isis 50 (4): 459?466 [459?60], doi:10.1086/348801
2. ^ A. Salam (1984), "Islam and Science". In C. H. Lai (1987), Ideals and Realities: Selected Essays of Abdus Salam, 2nd ed., World Scientific, Singapore, p. 179-213.
3. ^ a b M. S. Asimov, Clifford Edmund Bosworth (1999), The Age of Achievement: Vol 4: Part 1 - the Historical, Social and Economic Setting, Motilal Banarsidass, p. 213, ISBN 8120815955
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1274 |
Thomas Aquinas |
1274 was the year of his death and the last year of work on his most famous work, Summa Theologiæ. Aquinas combines elements of Christian philosophy, Greek philosophy, Pagan philosophy, and Muslim theology into a 'Natural Theology,' the forerunner of Deism. Cites heavily from work of Augustine of Hippo. |
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1439 |
Johann Gutenberg |
Movable type Printing Press |
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1455 |
numerous printing presses |
180 Gutenberg Bibles printed. 48 of these remain today. In 1480 the Low German Bible appeared at Cologne. Ninety-eight distinct and full editions(with hundreds of printed volumes in each edition) appeared prior to 1500. |
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1514 |
Nicolaus Copernicus |
Distributed Commentariolus to associates. This short, hand-written text outlined a heliocentric hypothesis. In 1543 he publishes De revolutionibus orbium coelestium his monographic outline of his heliocentric theory based on planetary movements. Numerous volumes are published. |
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1517 |
Martin Luther |
Stirs protests against Roman Catholic Church. Luther's theology challenged the authority of the papacy by holding that the Bible is the only infallible source of religious authority and that all baptized Christians under Jesus are a universal priesthood. |
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1519 |
Hernan Cortes, Montezuma |
Cortes conquers Aztecs |
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1543 |
Andreas Vesalius |
Wrote De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (On the fabric of the human body in seven books) based on the quasi-legal, yet increasingly common practice of human cadaver dissection. Roman law forbade dissection and autopsy of the human body,[3] so physicians such as Galen were unable to work on cadavers. Galen for example dissected the Barbary Macaque and other primates, assuming their anatomy was basically the same as that of humans. Human dissections were also conducted by the Arabian physician Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) (1091-1161) in al-Andalus,[11] followed by several other Arabian physicians: Saladin's physician Ibn Jumay in the 12th century, Abd-el-latif in Egypt circa 1200,[12] and Ibn al-Nafis in Syria circa 1242.
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1551 |
Conrad Gesner |
Writes Historiae animalium a volume that attempts to catalog all animals and explain their natural history. This work contains the first known illustrations of fossils. |
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1589 |
William Lee |
The stocking frame, a mechanical knitting machine, one of the forerunners of the industrial revolution. |
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1600 |
Giordano Bruno |
Burned at the stake by the Inquisition for heresy. Born 1548 as Filippo Bruno, Giordano Bruno was an Italian Catholic Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. Bruno went beyond the Copernican model in identifying the sun as just one of an infinite number of stars, and he is the first man to have conceived of other stars as similar to our own Sun. He was burned at the stake by authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy. |
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1608 |
Hans Lippershey, Zacharias Janssen, Jacob Metius |
Refracting telescope invented in the Netherlands. |
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1610 |
Galileo Galilei |
Galileo published an account of his high-tech telescope observations of the moons of Jupiter, using this observation to argue in favor of the sun-centered, Copernican theory of the universe against the dominant earth-centered Ptolemaic and Aristotelian theories. |
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1628 |
William Harvey |
Writes De Motu Cordis (otherwise known as On the Motion of the Heart and Blood); Published in 1628 in the city of Frankfurt (host to an annual book fair that Harvey knew would allow immediate dispersion of his work), this 72 page book contains the matured account of the circulation of the blood. Opening with a simple but clear dedication to King Charles I, the quarto has 17 chapters which give a perfectly clear and connected account of the action of the heart and the consequent movement of the blood around the body in a circuit. Having only a mere lens at his disposal, Harvey was not able to reach the adequate images that were attained through such microscopes used by Leeuwenhoek; thus he had to resort to theory ? and not practical evidence ? in certain parts of his book.; William Harvey (1 April 1578 ? 3 June 1657) was an English physician who was the first person to describe completely and in detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the body by the heart. After his death "The William Harvey Hospital" was constructed in the town of Ashford, several miles from his birthplace of Folkestone. |
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1630 |
René Descartes |
published Le Monde (The World, 1630) and L'Homme (Man, 1633)"Cartesian dualism", suggested that the body could be considered a machine entirely separate from the spiritual world. Quote "I think, therefore I am." |
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1651 |
Thomas Hobbes |
A bitter civil war had just ended, and the Protestants took control of England. Social order had suffered during the war. Hobbes proposed in Leviathan that a secular social contract between centralized authority and obedient subjects was fundamental and that the religion promoted by central authority was the correct one, regardless of denomination. Hobbes lays out a series of natural laws, which he defines as "a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may best be preserved." |
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1665 |
Journal des Sçavans |
First scientific journal- Journal des Sçavans (later renamed Journal des savants) |
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1665 |
Phil. Trans. |
Second scientific journal (by 4 months!)- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society |
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1669 |
Steno, Nicolai (Niels Stensen) |
De Solido intra Solidum naturaliter Contento Dissertationis Prodromus. (Prodrome to a Dissertation concerning a Solid Naturally Enclosed within a Solid). 1669: Fossils represent animals once alive; principles of stratigraphy with superposition and original horizontality |
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1680 |
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli |
Wrote De Motu Animalium I and De Motu Animalium II, a major work of mechanical philosophy; Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (28 January 1608, Naples - 31 December 1679, Rome) was a Renaissance Italian physiologist, physicist, and mathematician. He contributed to the modern principle of scientific investigation by continuing Galileo's custom of testing hypotheses against observation. Trained in mathematics, Borelli also made extensive studies of Jupiter's moons, the mechanics of animal locomotion and, in microscopy, of the constituents of blood. He also used microscopy to investigate the stomatal movement of plants, and undertook studies in medicine and geology. During his career, he enjoyed the protection of Queen Christina of Sweden, which sheltered him from the attacks from the Italian authorities suffered by Galileo. |
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1686 |
John Ray |
Defined concept of 'species' in first edition of classification of plants titled Historia Plantarum. Ray rejected the system of dichotomous division by which species were classified according to a pre-conceived, either/or type system, and instead classified plants according to similarities and differences that emerged from observation. Thus he advanced scientific empiricism against the deductive rationalism of the scholastics. He coined the term species. |
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1699 |
Edward Tyson |
Book: Orang Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris, Or The Anatomy of a Pygmie Compared with that of a Monkey, and Ape, and a Man. Dissection of chimpanzee and detailed discussion of profound similarity to humans. Very early, if not the earliest, use of the missing link concept: "I take him to be wholly a Brute, tho' in the formation of the Body, and in the Sensitive or Brutal Soul, it may be, more resembling a Man, than any other Animal; so that in this Chain of the Creation, as an intermediate Link between an Ape and a Man, I would place our Pygmie." |
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1708 |
Johann Jakob Scheuchzer |
Lake Constance skeleton found, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer described the fossil in 1726 in his Lithographia Helvetica as Homo diluvii testis (man who has witnessed the flood). Cuvier showed it to be a fossil salamander in 1812. |
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1712 |
Thomas Newcomen |
Thomas Newcomen builds first commercially successful steam engine. It was able to keep deep coal mines clear of water, and the first significant power source other than wind and water. |
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1735 |
Carl von Linnae (Carolus Linnaeus) |
Systema Naturae first edition (link is to the 12th edition) |
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1753 |
Hans Sloan, the British Museum |
Relevant to Linneaus as exemplifying the trasition to the public of private natural hisotry collections: When Sloane retired in 1741, his library and cabinet of curiosities, which he took with him from Bloomsbury to his house in Chelsea, had grown to be of unique value. He had acquired the extensive natural history collections of William Courten, Cardinal Filippo Antonio Gualterio, James Petiver, Nehemiah Grew, Leonard Plukenet, the Duchess of Beaufort, the rev. Adam Buddle, Paul Hermann, Franz Kiggelaer and Herman Boerhaave. On his death on 11 January 1753 he bequeathed his books, manuscripts, prints, drawings, flora, fauna, medals, coins, seals, cameos and other curiosities to the nation, on condition that parliament should pay to his executors Ł20,000, which was a good deal less than the value of the collection. The bequest was accepted on those terms by an act passed the same year, and the collection, together with George II's royal library, etc., was opened to the public at Bloomsbury as the British Museum in 1759. A significant proportion of this collection was later to become the foundation for the Natural History Museum.
Among his other acts of munificence may be mentioned his gift to the Apothecaries' Company of the botanical or physic garden, which they had rented from the Chelsea estate since 1673. |
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1758 |
Carl von Linnae (Carolus Linnaeus) |
Whales moved from Pisces to Mammalia in 12th edition of Systema Naturae as concept of homology begins to take shape. |
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1759 |
Giovanni Arduino |
Names geological strata: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary |
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1766 |
Buffon |
Book: Nomenclature of the Apes. Compares humans and apes. Classifies all humans as one species and differentiates them from apes. Buffon suggested that species mightchange with environment. His books were burned in France for his suggestion that the earth was 75,000 years old. |
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1775 |
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach |
Agrees with Buffon that all humans are the same species; diversity is a result of climate, diet, mode of life |
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1788 |
James Hutton |
"no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end;" Uniformitarianism |
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1790 |
John Frere |
Finds deeply buried handaxes from Hoxne, Suffolk, England associated with extinct animals in 1790.
"...weapons of war, fabricated by a people who had not the use of metals... The situation in which these weapons were found may tempt us to refer them to a very remote period indeed, even beyond that of the present world..." letter published by the Society of Antiquaries -1800 |
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1791 |
William Smith |
Starts geological survey work in Sommerset England that would lead to his "Principal of Faunal Succession |
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1794 |
James Hutton |
Proposes Natural Selection in Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge.
"...if an organised body is not in the situation and circumstances best adapted to its sustenance and propagation, then, in conceiving an indefinite variety among the individuals of that species, we must be assured, that, on the one hand, those which depart most from the best adapted constitution, will be the most liable to perish, while, on the other hand, those organised bodies, which most approach to the best constitution for the present circumstances, will be best adapted to continue, in preserving themselves and multiplying the individuals of their race." |
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1798 |
Thomas Malthus |
First edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population |
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1802 |
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck |
Publishes Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps Vivants where he lays out the idea of evolution by inheritance of acquired characteristics. |
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1812 |
Cuvier |
Wrote "There are no human fossil bones" when dismissing the Lake Constance skeleton in Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles des quadrupèdes [Research on the Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds] |
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1825 |
Nicéphore Niépce |
First photographs. |
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1829 |
Phillipe-Charles Schmerling |
Engis Neanderthal cranium found at Engis, Liege, Belgium in sediments containing bones of extinct animals. Fossil not recognized for its importance until 1836. |
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1830 |
Lyell |
Principals of geology - Published in 3 volumes from 1830-1833. Very detailed documentation of sedimentology was a major milestone in the documentation of uniformitarianism. |
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1831 |
Patrick Matthew |
Patrick Matthew (1790-1874) noticed natural selection before Darwin (but after Hutton). His 1831 Book called On Naval Timber and Arboriculture included the follwong passages:
" As nature, in all her modifications of life, has a power of increase far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by Time's decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength, swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without reproducing -- either a prey to their natural devourers, or sinking under disease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place being occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on the means of subsistence. "
"There is more beauty and unity of design in this continual balancing of life to circumstance, and greater conformity to those dispositions of nature which are manifest to us, than in total destruction and new creation. It is improbable that much of this diversification is owing to commixture of species nearly allied, all change by this appears very limited, and confined within the bounds of what is called species; the progeny of the same parents, under great differences of circumstance, might, in several generations, even become distinct species, incapable of co-reproduction. " |
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1839 |
Samuel Morton |
Samuel Morton publishes Crania Americana, one of the founding tomes of "scientific" racism |
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1840 |
Louis Agassiz |
A student of Cuvier, views Ice Age as a single event. Agassiz integrated observations of glaciar marks to formulate his theory that a great Ice Age had once gripped the Earth, and published his theory in Étude sur les glaciers in 1840. Agassiz was correct in the existence of an ice age, but wrong about there being only one. |
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1841 |
Oracle of Reason |
Engraving of 'Fossil Man' in Figure 9 of the first installment of 'The Theory of Regular Gradation.' This was one of many early discussions of evolution that lacked an adequate causal mechanism. |
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1844 |
Robert Chambers |
Publishes Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. "The book, as far as I am aware, is the first attempt to connect the natural sciences in a history of creation." |
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1847 |
Thomas Staughton Savage |
Gorillas described from specimens collected in Liberia |
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1848 |
Clive Finlayson |
Found by a Lieutenant Flint at Forbes Quarry, Gibralter neanderthal cranium first mentioned; forgotten in Gibralter Scientific Society until discovery of cranium in Neander Valley, Germany (Neandertal) |
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1849 |
Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes |
Boucher de Perthes publishes his discovery of stone tools. About the year 1830 he had found, in the gravels of the Somme valley, primitive tools with extinct animals in the gravels of Menchecourt. In 1847 he commenced the issue of his monumental three volume work, Antiquites Celtiques Et Antediluviennes, a work in which he was the first to establish the existence of man in the Pleistocene or early Quaternary period. |
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1856 |
Johann Carl Fuhlrott |
In 1856, workers in a lime quarry at Feldhoffer Cave in a canyon called Neanderthal showed him bones they had found in a cave and thought to belong to a bear. Fuhlrott identified them as human and thought them to be very old. Bonn University professor Shaaffhausen announced them as a "barbarian race of European natives." |
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1858 |
Alfred Wallace |
Wallace sends letter to Darwin outlining natural selection theory. This prompts Darwin to publish his ideas, which he does in a joint publication with Wallace . The Darwin Wallace paper was presented to the Linnean Society on July 1st, 1858 and published in Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Vol 3, 1858. pp 45-62. |
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1859 |
Charles Darwin |
Publishes Origin of Species, the book that clearly articulates his theory of natural selection and its potential to generate new species through the divergence of two parts of a parent species. Darwin was prompted by the similar discovery and articulation of this phenomenon by Alfred Russel Wallace. |
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1859 |
Pierre-Paul Broca |
Founded the Société
d’Anthropologie, Paris
(Anthropological Society of Paris). |
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1860 |
Ernst Heinrich Haeckel |
Frequently lectured about the Asian origin of hominids in the decades following the publication of the Origin of Species. This incorrect idea, based on the mistaken idea that orangutans were the closest living relatives of humans, influenced Eugene Dubois. |
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1862 |
Lord Kelvin (William Thompson) |
Published calculations that fixed the age of Earth at between 20 million and 400 million years. He assumed that Earth had been created as a completely molten ball of rock, and determined the amount of time it took for the ball to cool to its present temperature. His calculations did not account for the ongoing heat source in the form of radioactive decay, which was unknown at the time.
Geologists had trouble accepting such a short age for Earth. Biologists could accept that Earth might have a finite age, but even 100 million years seemed much too short to be plausible. Charles Darwin, who had studied Lyell's work, had proposed his theory of the evolution of organisms by natural selection, a process whose combination of random heritable variation and cumulative selection implies great expanses of time. (Geneticists have subsequently measured the rate of genetic divergence of species, using the molecular clock, to date the last universal ancestor of all living organisms no later than 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago).
In a lecture in 1869, Darwin's great advocate, Thomas H. Huxley, attacked Thomson's calculations, suggesting they appeared precise in themselves but were based on faulty assumptions. The German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz (in 1856) and the Canadian astronomer Simon Newcomb (in 1892) contributed their own calculations of 22 and 18 million years respectively to the debate: they independently calculated the amount of time it would take for the Sun to condense down to its current diameter and brightness from the nebula of gas and dust from which it was born. Their values were consistent with Thomson's calculations. However, they assumed that the Sun was only glowing from the heat of its gravitational contraction. The process of solar nuclear fusion was not yet known to science.
Other scientists backed up Thomson's figures as well. Charles Darwin's son, the astronomer George H. Darwin of the University of Cambridge, proposed that Earth and Moon had broken apart in their early days when they were both molten. He calculated the amount of time it would have taken for tidal friction to give Earth its current 24-hour day. His value of 56 million years added additional evidence that Thomson was on the right track.
The last estimate Thomson gave, in 1897, was: "that it was more than 20 and less than 40 million year old, and probably much nearer 20 than 40". Dalrymple, G. 1994. The Age of the Earth. Stanford University Press |
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1863 |
Charles Lyell |
Publishes The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man. Lyell uses archaeological discoveries described by Edward Lartet (father of Luis), Henri Christi and Hugh Falkner, the Magdalenian, Mousterian, and Aurignacian to argue the deep antiquity of humanity. |
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1863 |
Thomas Henry Huxley |
Publishes Man's Place in Nature. Later quotes: "Truth is great, certainly, but, considering her greatness, it is curious what a long time she is apt to take about prevailing. When, towards the end of 1862, I had finished writing Man's Place in Nature, I could say with a good conscience, that my conclusions had not been formed hastily or enunciated crudely." |
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1864 |
William King |
Names Homo neanderthalensis. |
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1864 |
Homo neanderthalensis |
Species named. |
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1864 |
George Busk |
Exhibited Gibralter cranium in England in September at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Bath. At the meeting, the eminent scientist, Hugh Falconer recognized the fossil as 'a very low type of humanity - very low and savage, and of extreme antiquity'. |
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1866 |
J. D. Whitney |
Calveras cranium found. Later turned out to be a hoax. |
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1866 |
Edouart Dupont |
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1868 |
Louis Lartet |
Cro Magnon specimens found near Les Eyzies, France. Modern Humans with fossil fauna.
"Louis Lartet, son of Edward, made a vital discovery in the Dordogne Valley of France in 1868. Workmen laying a railway line along the river valley dug into deposits of an ancient rock shelter, exposing archaeological strata. Lartet found bones of three adult males, a woman, and an infant buried in deposits rich in archaeological materials stylistically similar to those found in a cave at Aurignac. These became the famous type specimens of early humans known as Cro-Magnon. It was the scientists' first look at the anatomy of Paleolithic people, and what a surprise! They were extraordinarily like modern Europeans. They had none of the pongid-like characteristics that might have been expected from the Darwinian ideas of evolution, but there could be no doubt about their antiquity." (21 Aug 2004
Department of Department of Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts , UT Austin
Comments to cbramblett@mail.utexas.edu) |
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1871 |
Charles Darwin |
Publishes The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. Wikipedia |
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1871 |
Rudolf Virchow |
An extremely prominent anti-evolution anatomist of the late 1800's in Germany, Virchow pronounced Neanderthal specimens to be a modern Homo sapiens, whose deformations were caused by rickets and arthritis. Virchow thought the flattened skull was the result of cranial trauma.
Virchow's views were widely accepted until 1886, when two more Neanderthal skeletons were discovered in a cave in the Spy region of Belgium. While Virchow claimed that these too were the remains of diseased modern humans, other scientists regarded such a coincidence as unlikely |
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1886 |
Marcel de Puydt, Max Lohest, Julien Fraipont |
Neanderthal fossils found at the Spy caves.
Spy 1
Estimated age: 60,000 years
Location: Belgium
Discovered at the Grotto of Spy (pronounced "spee") d'Orneau in Belgium, this find consisted of two nearly complete skeletons and partial crania. The crania show heavy brow ridges very different from anatomically modern humans. Fossil analysis established that the individuals were very old when they died, largely discrediting the previously held idea that the Neanderthal physique was a pathological condition. |
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1887 |
Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet |
Mousterian tradition named and described. |
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1888 |
Robert Elliott |
Pleistocene modern man at Galley Hill discovered. "At a time when so much attention is being directed to the implements made by Palaeolithic Man, the discovery of a human skeleton in the Palaeolithic gravels of this country cannot but awaken much interest."
No one paid much attention to it until Keith in the early 20th Century. |
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1888 |
Fouilles Hardy, FĂ©aux |
Chancelade modern human remains found. The "Man of Chancelade" is the skeleton of an anatomically modern human found in 1888 in the cave to Raymonden Chancelade Dordogne. The age of death was 55 to 65, and the skeleton was buried in a strongly bent position. The skeleton was Pleistocene: 12 000 to 17 000 BC. People at the time argued that it showed that paleolithic Europeans were more like foragers living in the arctic than the modern inhabitants of Europe. |
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1888 |
Theodor Boveri |
Working on sea urchin embryos, Boveri discovered importance of the chromosomes, discovered the centromere, beginning of realization that chromosomes are important to inheritance of traits. |
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1890 |
Eugene Dubois |
Very early fossil material from Kedung Brubus. Found 1 year before the discovery of the trinil skullcap. |
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1891 |
Eugene Dubois |
Trinil femur found. |
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| info |
1892 |
Eugene Dubois |
Anthropopithecus erectus named based on molar and skullcap |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1892 |
Anthropopithecus erectus |
species named. |
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1893 |
Eugene Dubois |
Pithecanthropus a name originally used by Haekel for "ape-like man" or Pithe-
canthropi (as opposed to "man-like ape") is applied to Java fossils. |
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1895 |
Eugene Dubois |
Presents Pithecanthropus erectus in Europe. |
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1899 |
Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger |
1899-1905 Kramberger discovers Krapina neanderthals. This firmly established the existence of non-modern "early humans." With a population of individuals showing the same mosaic of primitive features, neanderthals were not just diseased or otherwise pathological modern humans. |
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1901 |
|
First course in Physical anthropology taught at UC Berkeley. |
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1901 |
Rene Verneau |
Grimaldi Homo sapiens found... Grimaldi became popular as an African-like prehistoric European. |
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1901 |
Theodor Boveri |
1901-1905 Experiments lead to the discovery that chromosomes in the nucleus were responsible for passing genetic information. Boveri, T. 1902. On multipolar mitosis as a means of analysis of the cell nucleus. Foundations of Experimental Embryology. New York, Prentice Hall 1964: 74?97.
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1906 |
Gustav Schwalbe |
Interprets human evolution as 3 stage unilineal: Pithecanthropus,Neanderthal, and modern humans. |
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1906 |
Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger |
Krapina monograph published.
1906. Der diluviale Mensch von Krapina in Kroatien. Ein Beitrag zur Paläoanthropologie. Studien über Entwicklungsmechanik des Primatskelettes mit besondrer Berücksichtigung der Anthropologie und Descendenslehre. Herausgegeben von Dr. Otton Walkhoff, Weisbaden, 4to, 1906. |
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1906 |
Ernest Rutherford |
Geological samples dated to 1.3 billion years, shifting the balance of scientific thought. The conventional widsom, after Lord Kelvin's (and other's) thermodynamic calculations estimated the Earth's age to be between 20 million and 100 million.
I came into the room, which was half dark, and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience and realized that I was in trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the earth, where my views conflicted with his. To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye, and cock a baleful glance at me! Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said, 'Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the earth, provided no new source was discovered. That prophetic utterance refers to what we are now considering tonight, radium!' Behold! the old boy beamed upon me. |
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1907 |
Otto Schoetensack |
Mauer mandible discovered by workman, who gave it to professor Otto Schoetensack. Homo heidelbergensis |
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1908 |
Ludwig Pfeiffer |
Ehringsdorf neanderthals found; Pfeiffer, L. 1912 Die Steinzeitliche Technik und ihre Beziehungen zur Gegenwart.
Jena: Verlag von Gustaf Fischer. |
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1908 |
Otto Hauser |
Le Moustier neanderthal found by Swiss archaeologist Otto Hauser in Dordogne. |
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1908 |
A. and J. Bouyssonie, and L. Bardon |
Discovered neanderthal fossils at La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Interpreted by Marcellin Boule, whose reconstruction of neandertal anatomy based on la Chapelle-aux-Saints material shaped popular perceptions of the Neandertals for over thirty years. |
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1908 |
Homo heidelbergensis |
species named. |
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1909 |
Otto Hauser |
Homo sapiens found at Combe Capelle, Dordogne. |
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1909 |
A. Penck, E. Bruckner |
Glacials named for tributaries of the Danube River in Germany.
Based on Relative levels of river terraces separated by weathering and soils.
Glacials:
WĂśRM
RISS
MINDEL
GUNZ
|
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1909 |
Luis Capitan, Denis Peyrony |
Discoverers of La Ferraissie neanderthals:
Captita, L. and D. Peyrony. 1909. Duex squelettes humains au milieu de foyers de l'époque moustérienne. Revue de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie de Paris 19:402-9. |
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1909 |
Marcellin Boule |
1909-1912 Publishes La Chapelle-aux-Saints neanderthal skeleton. Suggested that neanderthals were beast-like, walked with bent knees, and had a 'shambling' gait, with a head slung forward on a squat neck, with a big toe like a chimp's. |
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1911 |
Arthur Keith |
Pronounces Galley Hill, Swanscombe, Kent is ancient evidence for Homo sapiens. Keith, who would later be pivotal in the Piltdown hoax, suggested that the galley hill specimens were as old as 170,000 years old and dicounted their neanderthal affinities. Now Swanscombe thought to be around 400k years old (Stringer and Hublin, 1999) |
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1911 |
Marcellin Boule |
1911-1913 Monographs La Chapelle-aux-Saints.
Boule, M (1911) L'homme fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Ann. Paléontol. 6: 111-172. Links
Boule, M (1912a) L'homme fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Ann. Paléontol. 7: 21-56, 85-192. Links
Boule, M (1912b) Sur L'Homo neanderthalensis. L'Anthropol. 23: 598-601. Links
Boule, M (1912c) L'homme fossile de Piltdown, Sussex (Angleterre). L'Anthropol. 23: 742-744. Links
Boule, M (1913) L'homme fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Ann. Paléontol. 8: 1-70. Links |
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1911 |
Charles Dawson |
Dawson present at Piltdown |
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1911 |
Wilhelm Kattwinkel |
German Butterfly collector discovers Olduvai Gorge. |
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1912 |
Arthur Smith Woodward, Charles Dawson |
Piltdown announced. Arthur Keith announces support for 'pre-sapiens" school, rejecting neanderthals as direct human ancestors. Piltdown seemed to support this view. |
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1912 |
Henri Breuil |
Acheulean and Upper Paleolithic are defined.
Henri Breuil. 1912. Les Subdivisions du Paléolithique supérieur et leur signification. Compte Rendu du Congrès International d'Anthropologie et Archéologie Préhistorique XIVme Sess., Géneève, 1912, pp. 165-238. |
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1912 |
Alfred Wegener |
Proposes continental Drift |
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1913 |
Hans Reck |
Works at Olduvai and finds OH-1 modern human. |
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1913 |
Arthur Holmes |
Publishes Age of the Earth in which he dates earth at 1.5 billion years old. |
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1914 |
WWI |
German academic school of paleoanthrpology withers, and African colonialism effectively ends. |
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1917 |
Homo capensis |
species named. |
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1918 |
Roy Chapman Andrews |
1918, 1921-25; famous explorer, dinosaur hunter, exemplar of Anglo-Saxon virtues, crack shot, fighter of Mongolian brigands, went looking for fossil hominids in Central Asia leading an AMNH (American Museum of Natural History; AKA the Smithsonian) expedition. |
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1918 |
Ronald Aylmer Fisher |
Showed how continuous variation measured by the biometricians could be the result of the action of many discrete genetic loci. Fisher, along with J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright, founded population genetics around this time. |
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1921 |
Arthur Smith Woodward |
Homo rhodesiensis named for Broken Hill (Kabwe) Cranium.
Woodward, Arthur Smith (1921). "A New Cave Man from Rhodesia, South Africa". Nature 108: 371–372. doi:10.1038/108371a0 |
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1921 |
Aleš Hrdlička |
1921-1924 advocates Neanderthals as direct human ancestors. HrdliÄŤka sums it up in The Neanderthal Phase of Man. |
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1921 |
Johan Gunnar Andersson, Walter W. Granger, Otto Zdansky |
Excavations begin at Zhoukoudian. |
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1921 |
Homo rhodesiensis |
species named. |
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1924 |
Raymond Dart |
Taung child found by quarryman working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Published in 1925 by Raymond Dart in Nature as Australopithecus africanus |
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1925 |
Australopithecus africanus |
species named. |
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1927 |
Davidson Black |
Publishes Sinanthropus pekinensis in Nature based on a single tooth. |
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1927 |
Sinanthropus pekinensis |
species named. |
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1928 |
Davidson Black |
First cranial remains discovered at Zhoukoudian. Over the next 10 years, before Japanese occupation in 1937, over 200 hominid fossils are recovered under the direction of Yang Zhongjian, Pei Wenzhong, and Jia Lanpo. Lost during WW II, but great casts made by Franz Weidenreich still exist. |
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1929 |
E. J. Wayland |
Proposes pluvials in eastern Africa that correspond to the 4 European glaciations. |
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1929 |
Ernst Schwarz |
Names Pan paniscus, the bonobos, as a species separate from the common chimp, Pan troglodytes.
Schwarz, E., 1929. Das Vorkommen des Schimpansen auf
den linken Kongo-Ufer. Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr. 16, 425-426. |
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1929 |
Dorothy Garrod |
1929-1932 Mt. Carmel; Mugharet es-Skhul skeletons found.
Garrod, D.A.E.
1934. et-Tabun Diary. Fonds Suzanne Cassou de Saint-Mathurin de la Bibliothèque du Musée
des Antiquités Nationales de Saint Germain-en-Laye.
Illustrated London News. |
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1930 |
Aleš Hrdlička |
In Skeletal Remains of Early Man promotes a unilineal hypothesis for human evolution with neanderthals as human ancestors. He also discounts the value of Piltdown. |
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1931 |
Louis Leakey |
Third East African Expedition: Leakey's first excavations; Olduwan tools found at Olduvai and OH 1 interpreted as their maker. |
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1931 |
W. F. F. Oppennoorth, Ralph von Koenigswald |
Ngandong (Solo) crania found. These had larger cranial capacities than the trinil or Zhoukoudian specimens. |
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1931 |
Sewell Wright |
Publishes "Shifting Balance Theory," which uses the concept of an adaptive landscape to explain evolution. Publishes in 1931 Genetics Society of America (Wright, S., Evolution in Mendelian populations, Genetics 16, 97-159 ). |
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1932 |
Louis Leakey |
Finds Kanjera Skull parts and Kanam mandible in Kenya Colony, British East Africa. |
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1932 |
Dorothy Garrod |
Tabun fossils discovered. Thought of as a female neanderthal. |
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1932 |
Camille Arambourg |
1932-1933: First Expeditions to Omo Valley, Ethiopia. No hominids found. |
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1932 |
Javanthropus soloensis |
species named. |
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| info |
1932 |
G. Edward Lewis |
Finds Ramapithecus fossils in Siwaliks. Names Ramapithecus in 1934 and suggests that it might be earliest human ancestor. |
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1932 |
Thomas F. Dreyer |
Discovers skull at Florisbad, a place where Robert Broom had worked since 1912. Dreyer names it Homo helmei |
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1933 |
Karl Sigrist |
Steinheim cranium found.
Published 1933:
Berkhemer, F. 1933. Ein Menshen-Schädel aus diluvialen Schottern von Steinheim a.d. Murr. Anthropol. Anz. 10:318-321 |
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1933 |
Louis Leakey |
Homo kanamensis proposed as distinct species at a meeting.
Written proposal of species occurs in the same year.
Leakey, L. S. B. 1933 The status of the Kanam mandible and the Kanjera skulls. Man , 33: 200-201. |
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1934 |
Louis Leakey |
First edition of Adam's Ancestors. Leakey agrees with Keith (in error) about Piltdown and Galley Hill. Leakey would stay convinced of finding some evidence of very early Homo sapiens |
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1934 |
Louis Leaky |
Fourth East African Expedition, first adult Australopithecus fossil found at Laetoli, but unrecognized until 1979. |
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1934 |
Davidson Black |
Davidson Black dies. Franz Weidenreich takes over at Zhoukoudian. |
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1935 |
Louis Leakey, Percy George Hamnall Boswell |
Kanam and Kanjera incident. |
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1935 |
Alvan Theophilus Marston |
1935, 1936 (and later in 1955) Swanscombe discovered.
Finding Time for the Old Stone Age: A History of Palaeolithic Archaeology and Quaternary Geology in Britain, 1860-1960 (Hardcover)
by Anne O'Connor |
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1935 |
Africanthropus helmei |
species named. |
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1935 |
Homo kanamensis |
species named. |
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1936 |
Andoyo, G. H. Ralph von Koenigsvald |
Mojokerto calvaria found somwhere in Java by Andoyo, site itself would be lost and is the subject of ongoing controversy .
PDF describing discovery fiasco |
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1936 |
Franz Weidenreich |
1936-1943 Monographs of Zhoukoudian "Sinanthropus" published. The Zhoukoudian fossils were lost during WWII, but Weidenreich's descriptions were excellent, and the specimens are still known from precision casts he made. |
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1936 |
Hans Reck, Ludwig Kohl-Larsen |
Palaeoanthropus njarasensis named for Lake Eyasi cranium found in 1935. Garusi mandible was also found in 1935.
KOHL-LARSEN L, RECK H (1936) Erster Ueberblick ĂĽber die
Jung-diluvialen Tier und Menschenfunde. Dr. Kohl-Larsen’s im
Nordöstlichen Teil des Njarasa-Grabens (Ostafrika). Geologische
Rundschau 27, 401–441.
Protsch, R The Kohl-Larsen Eyasi and Garusi hominoid Finds in Tanzania and their relation to Homo erectus in Sigmon, B.A. and Cybulski, J.S. (Ed): Proceedings of a Symposium on Homo erectus in honour of Davidson Black, 1977, Toronto. |
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1936 |
Ralph von Koenigsvald |
Names Homo modjokertensis
citations: Von Koenigswald, G.H.R., 1936. Pithecanthropus erectus: Antwoord dr. Von
Koenigswald - Handelsblad, Ochtend editie, 7 mei, 1936
Von Koenigswald, G.H.R., 1936. Erste Mitteilung ĂĽber einen fossilen Hominiden aus
dem Altpleistocän Ostjavas - Proceedings Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie
van Wetenschappen, 39: 1000 –1009 |
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1936 |
Robert Broom |
Broom was handed the endocast of a hominid cranium by the quarry manager at Sterfontein. One month later his report on Australopithecus transvaalensis appeared in Nature. Several more Australopithecus fossils were discovered in the next few years. |
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1937 |
WWII |
World War II comes to Peking (Beijing). Zhoukoudian specimens lost. |
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1938 |
Theodore McCown |
UC Berkeley's first physical anthropologist. Collaborator of Sir Aurthur Keith at Mt. Carmel. |
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1938 |
Robert Broom |
Named Plesianthropus transvaalensis for Sterkfontein specimens. Now it is generally synonymized with Australopithecus africanus. |
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1938 |
Robert Broom |
Named Paranthropus robustus for Kroomdrai material.
The Pleistocene Anthropoid Apes of South Africa
R. BROOM
Nature 142, 377 - 379 (1938) | doi:10.1038/142377a0. |
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1938 |
Paranthropus robustus |
species named. |
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1939 |
Theodore McCown, Arthur Keith |
Publish monograph on Skhul and Tabun, interfingered Neanderthal and Homo sapiens sites in Israel. Swansong of "pre-neanderthal" hypothesis.
McCown, T., Keith, A., 1939. The Stone Age of Mount Carmel: the Fossil Human Remains from the Levalloiso-Mousterian, Vol. II. Clarendon Press, Oxford. |
| ______________________________ |
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1939 |
Ludwig Kohl-Larsen |
Expedition to Laetoli reveals maxilla fragment and molar. |
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| info |
1941 |
Franz Weidenreich |
Weidenreich moves to American Museum of Natural History (New York) |
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| info |
1942 |
Ernst Mayr |
Systematics and the Origin of Species published. Mayr emphasized the importance of allopatric speciation, where geographically isolated sub-populations diverge so far that reproductive isolation occurs. Mayr also introduced the biological species concept that defined a species as a group of interbreeding or potentially interbreeding populations that were reproductively isolated from all other populations. |
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1942 |
Louis Leakey |
Finds Proconsul from Rusinga Island. Originally promoted as the comon ancestor of humans and apes. Genus named by Hopwood in 1933 for fossils he discovered on one of the early 1930's Leakey expeditions. |
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1942 |
Julian Huxley |
Writes Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, a book outlining modern evolutionary synthesis (also referred to as the new synthesis, the modern synthesis, the evolutionary synthesis, and the neo-darwinian synthesis), which showed that Mendelian genetics was consistent with natural selection and gradual evolution. Major figures involved in the new sysnthesis include: include R. A. Fisher, Theodosius Dobzhansky, J.B.S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, E.B. Ford, Ernst Mayr, and George Gaylord Simpson. |
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1942 |
Ernst Mayr |
Writes Systematics and the Origin of Species showing that Neo-Darwinism is consistent with patterns observed in nature. Mayr also develops ideas of peripatric speciation and the biological species concept. |
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1944 |
George Gaylord Simpson |
Tempo and Mode in Evolution published. Until Simpson's synthesis, many paleontologists had been skeptical that natural selection was the main component of evolution. In Tempo and Mode, Simpson showed that the trends of linear progression (in for example the evolution of the horse) that earlier paleontologists had used as support for neo-Lamarckism and orthogenesis did not hold up under careful examination. Instead the fossil record was consistent with the irregular, branching, and non-directional pattern predicted by the modern synthesis. |
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1947 |
Robert Broom |
Pelvis from Sterkfontein. Ms Ples (STS 5) also found. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1947 |
Louis Leakey |
First Pan African Conference. See link for J D Clark transcribed discussion of the conference. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1948 |
Raymond Dart |
names Australopithecus prometheus from Makapansgat hominids found starting 1947. Makapansgat fossils generally considered to be Australopithecus africanus. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1949 |
Robert Broom |
names Paranthropus crassidens from Swartkrans. Now it is considered to be Australopithecus robustus. |
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| info |
1949 |
Robert Broom, John T. Robinson |
Name Telanthropus capensis for Swartkrans fossils.
Broom, R. , and Robinson, J. T. , Nature, 164, 322 (1949). |
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1949 |
Telanthropus capensis |
species named. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1950 |
Hans Weinert |
Weinert publishes Meganthropus africanus for Laetoli specimens.
Weinert H (1950) Uber die neuen vor- und fruhmenschenfunde aus Afrika, Java, China und Frankreich. Z. Morphol. Anthropol. 42: 113-148. |
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1950 |
Earnst Mayr |
Argues effectively for a more sensible, biologically realistic approach to species naming among hominids. Unifies Homo erectus.
Mayr, Ernst. 1950. Taxonomic categories in fossil hominids. Cold Spring HarborSymposium on Quantitative Biology 13:109-118. |
| ______________________________ |
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1950 |
Meganthropus africanus |
species named. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1951 |
F. Clark Howell |
Argues that classic neandethals evolved from progressive 'neanderthals' that had not evolved the extreme cold-adapted features. Argues that the later is the progenitor of Homo sapiens. |
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| info |
1952 |
Wilfrid Le Gros Clark |
Performs dental study that confirms Australopithecus's status as a hominid. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1953 |
Ralph Solecki |
Shanidar neanderthals discovered in Iraq. Eastern boundary of neanderthals extended. |
| ______________________________ |
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1953 |
James D. Watson, Francis Crick |
Suggested what is now accepted as the first correct double-helix model of DNA structure in the journal Nature.Their double-helix, molecular model of DNA was then based on a single X-ray diffraction image taken by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling in May 1952, as well as the information that the DNA bases were paired?also obtained through private communications from Erwin Chargaff in the previous years. |
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1953 |
J. S. Weiner, Kenneth Oakley, Wilfrid Le Gros Clark |
Piltdown is exposed in July of 1953 at an international congress of paleontologists, under the auspices of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, in London. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1954 |
John T. Robinson |
Publishes Dietary Hypothesis about Australopithecus and "Paranthropus".
J. T. Robinson
Evolution, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec., 1954), pp. 324-334
Published by: Society for the Study of Evolution |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1954 |
Henri Vallois |
The Fontéchevade hominins were published in 1958 by Henri Vallois. For Vallois, the two specimens provided the best piece of evidence for the Pre-Sapiens interpretation of hominid evolution. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1955 |
Cesare Emiliani |
Oxegen Isotopes seen as a proxy for glaciation. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1956 |
R. F. Flint, Henry Basil Stratton Cook |
"Pluvial" concept argued against from geological and paleontological perspectives. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1956 |
Garniss Hearfield Curtis, Joseph Lipson, Jack F Evernden |
Potassium argon dating published. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1959 |
Zinjanthropus boisei |
species named. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1959 |
Mary, Louis Leakey |
Discovery and subsequent naming of Zinjanthropus boisei. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1961 |
Elwyn Simons |
Ressurects Ramapithecus. Over the next decade Simons and David Pilbeam are very active in promoting its hominid status. Eventually molecular clocks demonstrating the late divergence of humans and chimps along with fossils of very primitive, yet totally bipedal hominids (Lucy) from 3 Ma sideline Ramapithecus. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1962 |
Carleton Coon |
Publishes The Origin of Races. Race concept untilized extensively. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1964 |
Louis Leakey, Philip Tobias, John R. Napier |
publish Homo habilis.
Leakey, L.S.B., Tobias, P.V. & Napier, J.R. 1964. A new species of the genus Homo from Olduvai Gorge. Nature 202(4927): 7-9. [4 Apr 1964] |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1964 |
C. Loring Brace |
Brace continued his rebuttals to the 'pre-sapiens' school (Keith, Boule, Leakey) in 1964 in "The Fate of the 'Classic' Neanderthals: a consideration of hominid catastrophism" published in Current Anthropology. Considered Neanderthals to be human ancestors. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1964 |
Homo habilis |
species named |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1967 |
Camille Arambourg, Yves Coppens |
edentulous mandible (Omo 18) found west of the Omo River, in 1967. The 2.5 million-year-old mandible was names Paraustralopithecus aethiopicus. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1967 |
Allan Wilson, Vincent Sarich |
Publich date for 4-5 million years ago based on blood albumin and hemglobin divergence. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1968 |
Paraustralopithecus aethiopicus |
species named. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1972 |
Richard Leakey |
announces KNM-ER 1470 at Koobi Fora. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1974 |
Donald Johanson, Tom Gray |
Donald Johanson announces discovery of "Lucy," AL-288-1, from Hadar, Ethiopia |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1975 |
Homo ergaster |
species named. |
| ______________________________ |
| info |
1976 |
Mary Leakey, Andrew Hill |
Laetoli footprints discovered dunging dung fight. Site excavated in 1978 and 1979. |
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| info |
1978 |
Donald Johanson, Tim D. White, Yves Coppens |
publish species Australopithecus afarensis based on material from Laetoli and Hadar |
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| info |
1978 |
Australopithecus afarensis |
species named. |
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| info |
1984 |
Kamoya Kimeu |
KNM-ER 15000 discovered west of Lake Turkana by Kamoya Kimeu, published in 1985.
Alan Walker and Richard Leakey (eds.), ed.. Nariokotome Homo Erectus Skeleton. ISBN 0-674-60075-4 |
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| info |
1986 |
Alan Walker |
KNM-WT 17000 discovered by Alan Walker, confirms Australopithecus aethiopicus |
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| info |
1986 |
Pithecanthropus rudolfensis |
species named. |
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| info |
1987 |
Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking, Allan Wilson |
Mitochondrial eve.
Wilson, A.C., Stoneking, M. and Cann, R.L. (1991) Syst. Zool. 40, 363-365
Maddison, D.R. (1991) Syst. Zool. 40, 355-363.
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1992 |
Gen Suwa |
First Middle Awash hominid discovered. |
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| info |
1993 |
Juan Luis Arsuaga |
with colleagues publishes first skulls from the Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca, Spain |
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| info |
1994 |
Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel Deschamps, Christian Hillaire |
Recent discovery of Upper Paleolithic cave art. |
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| info |
1994 |
Tim White, Gen Suwa, Berhane Asfaw |
Name Australopithecus ramidus, in 1995 revise to be new genus Ardipithecus ramidus. |
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| info |
1994 |
Ron J. Clark |
Discover's "little foot" skeleton at Sterkfontein. |
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| info |
1994 |
Australopithecus ramidus |
species named. Genus Ardipithecus named in follow corr. to Nature in 1995. |
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| info |
1995 |
Meave Leakey, Craig Feibel, Ian MacDougall,, Alan Walker |
Name Australopithecus anamensis. |
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| info |
1995 |
Australopithecus anamensis |
species named. |
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| info |
1995 |
Australopithecus bahrelghazali |
species named. |
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| info |
1995 |
L. Gabunia and A. Vekua |
First Dmanisi hominid mandible published |
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| info |
1996 |
Michel Brunet |
Australopithecus bahrelghazali is a fossil hominin that was discovered in the Bahr el Ghazal valley near Koro Toro, in Chad, in 1993. Published as a new species in 1996. |
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1996 |
Colette Dib*, Sabine Fauré*, Cécile Fizames*, Delphine Samson*, Nathalie Drouot*, Alain Vignal*, Philippe Millasseau*, Sophie Marc*, Jamile Kazan*, Eric Seboun*, Mark Lathrop†, Gabor Gyapay*, Jean Morissette*‡ & Jean Weissenbach |
Complete human genome published. |
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| info |
1997 |
Krings M., Stone A., Schmitz R.W., Krainitzki H., Stoneking M., and Pääbo S |
First neanderthal DNA study published.
Krings M., Stone A., Schmitz R.W., Krainitzki H., Stoneking M., and Pääbo S. (1997): Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans. Cell, 90:19-30. |
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| info |
1997 |
BermĂşdez de Castro, J. M., J. L. Arsuaga, E. Carbonell, A. Rosas, I. Martinez and M. Mosquera |
Homo antecessor named
BermĂşdez de Castro, J. M., J. L. Arsuaga, E. Carbonell, A. Rosas, I. Martinez and M. Mosquera. 1997. A Hominid from the Lower Pleistocene of Atapuerca, Spain: Possible Ancestor to Neanderthals and Modern Humans. Science 276:1392-1395. |
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| info |
1997 |
Homo antecessor |
species named. |
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| info |
1998 |
Ron J Clark |
Discovers the rest of littlefoot skeleton in situ |
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| info |
1999 |
Berhane Asfaw, Tim White, Owen Lovejoy, Bruce Latimer, Scott Simpson, Gen Suwa |
Australopithecus garhi: A New Species of Early Hominid from Ethiopia |
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| info |
1999 |
Australopithecus garhi |
species named. |
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| info |
2000 |
Martin Picford, Bridgette Senut |
Publish Orrorin tugenensis a new end-Miocene genus and species based on Lukeino fossils. |
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| info |
2001 |
Meave G. Leakey, Fred Spoor, Frank H. Brown, Patrick N. Gathogo, Christopher Kiarie, Louise N. Leakey, and Ian McDougall |
New hominin genus from eastern Africa purported to show 'diverse' middle Pliocene lineages. Later shown to be too distorted to establish a new taxon. |
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| info |
2001 |
Yohannes Haile-Selassie, |
Names Ardipithecus kadabba for Western Margin, Middle Awash, Ethiopia late Miocene fossils.
Haile-Selassie, Yohannes (2001), “Late Miocene Hominids from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia,” Nature, 412:178-181, July 12. |
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| info |
2001 |
Ororrin tugenensis |
species named. |
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| info |
2001 |
Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba |
subpecies name moved to species name in subsequent publication. |
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| info |
2001 |
Ardipithecus kadabba |
species named |
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| info |
2002 |
Brunet, Guy, Pilbeam, Mackaye, Likius, Ahounta, Beauvilain, Blondel, Bocherens, Boisserie, De Bonis, Coppens, Dejax, Denys, Duringer, Eisenmann, Fanone, Fronty, Geraads, Lehmann, Lihoreau, Louchart, Mahamat, Merceron, Mouchelin, Otero, Pelaez Campomanes, Ponce de LeĂłn, Rage, Sapanet, Schuster, Sudr |
Sahelanthropus tschadensis named |
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| info |
2002 |
Sahelanthropus tchadensis |
species named |
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| info |
2002 |
Homo georgicus |
species named. |
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| info |
2003 |
Tim White, Berhane Asfaw, David Degusta, Henry Gilbert, Gary Richards, Gen Suwa, Clark Howell |
Circum diaspora Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens idaltu published from Herto, Middle Awash, Ethiopipa.
White, Tim D., Asfaw, B., DeGusta, D., Gilbert, H., Richards, G.D., Suwa, G. and Howell, F.C. (2003). "Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia". Nature 423 (6491): 742–747. doi:10.1038/nature01669. |
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2003 |
Peter Brown, Michael Morwood |
Homo floresiensis, 18,000 year old hominids from the indonesian island Flores, found. Published in 2004:
Brown, P.; Sutikna, T., Morwood, M. J., Soejono, R. P., Jatmiko, Wayhu Saptomo, E. & Rokus Awe Due (October 27, 2004). "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia". Nature 431: 1055. doi:10.1038/nature02999 |
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2003 |
Mallegni F.1; Carnieri E.; Bisconti M.; Tartarelli G.; Ricci S.; Biddittu I.; Segre A. |
Homo cepranensis sp. nov is published for fossil found in roadcut in Italy in 1994. |
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| info |
2003 |
Homo sapiens idaltu |
subspecies named. |
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| info |
2003 |
Homo cepranensis |
species named. |
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| info |
2004 |
Homo floresiensis |
species named. |
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| info |
2005 |
Ze Cheng, Mario Ventura, Xinwei She, Philipp Khaitovich, Tina Graves, Kazutoyo Osoegawa, Deanna Church, Pieter DeJong, Richard K. Wilson, Svante Pääbo, Mariano Rocchi, Evan E. Eichler |
Chimp genome completed and compared to human.
Cheng, Z., Ventura, M., She, X., Khaitovich, P., Graves, T., Osoegawa, K., Church, D., DeJong, P., Wilson, R.K., Pääbo, S., et al. 2005. A genome-wide comparison of recent chimpanzee and human segmental duplications. Nature 437: 88-93.
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2006 |
Zeresenay Alemseged1, Fred Spoor, William H. Kimbel, René Bobe, Denis Geraads, Denné Reed, and Jonathan G. Wynn |
Dikika baby 'Selam' published as Lucy's baby. Not the first afarensis child, but certainly the best preserved. |
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| info |
2009 |
White et. al |
'Ardi' Ardipithecus ramidus skeleton published |
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| info |
2010 |
Lee R. Berger, Darryl J. de Ruiter, Steven E. Churchill, Peter Schmid, Kristian J. Carlson, Paul H. G. M. Dirks, Job M. Kibii |
Australopithecus sediba named |
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| info |
2010 |
Australopithecus sediba |
species named. |
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| info |
2010 |
Richard E. Green et al. |
A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome; Vindja cave specimen; Science 7 May 2010:
Vol. 328 no. 5979 pp. 710-722
DOI: 10.1126/science.118802
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| info |
2010 |
Yohannes Haile-Selassie |
Earliest Australopithecus afarensis skeleton |
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