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Many millions- it's impossible to put an exact date on when human beings first appeared, since they are believed to have evolved gradually over millions of years from apes and monkeys. During some periods, the state of their evolution changed little over many millenia- during others, it progressed rapidly over a comparatively short period of time; it wasn't a uniform process. There is also the issue of the evolution of Neanderthal man and that of Cro Magnon man. Contrary to previous understanding, it's now thought that the two types co-existed for some time, rather than Cro Magnons succeeding Neandethals and being their descendants. Both were humans, but humans who had taken different branches of the evolutionary tree, and it's thought that the Cro Magnon type led to the extinction of the Neanderthal due to wars of extermination, and Neanderthals having poor resistance to diseases passed on to them by Cro Magnons. So we can only say that the first humans appeared on the Earth millions of years ago.

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16y ago

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