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Since this question asks for facts, I will ignore the many religious traditions and summarise the facts as we know them:
DNA evidence indicates that our earliest pre-human ancestors diverged from the ancestors of other primates around seven million years ago. This appears certain to have taken place in eastern Africa: certainly the oldest hominid fossils come from that area. The creation of the Great Rift Valley separated our ancestors from other primates to the west of the Valley and provided a completely different environment in which to evolve.


Our early Australopithecus ancestors had small brains but it was already possible to see human traits in their bone structures. Perhaps the first truly human species was Homo habilis, which emerged around 3 million years ago. The species still looks primitive, but the teeth are smaller and the brain is larger and more human-like than in Australopithecines. Homo habilis was probably capable of rudimentary speech. Homo erectusfollowed, around 1.9 million years ago, then our own species, Homo Sapiens, around 300,000 years ago.

Although the early Homo Sapiens were almost indistinguishable from modern people, they lived very primitive lives, differing from other primates in their advanced use of tools and weapons. Their higher intelligence, use of speech and their opposable thumbs were what made the difference. Gradually humans learnt how to control their environments, build permanent dwellings, farm and then develop great civilisations.

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8y ago

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