Ph
−7 Ma
First Hominins
Sahelanthropus tchadensis (Toumaï) in Chad: the oldest known hominin, already bipedal, marks the start of a 7-million-year evolutionary journey towards Homo sapiens.
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−7 Ma
−7 Ma
Toumai, the New Ancestor
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−6 Ma
Orrorin tugenensis: The Millennium Man and the Origins of Bipedalism
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−4,4 Ma
Ardipithecus ramidus: Ardi, at the Roots of Humanity
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−4,2 Ma
Australopithecus anamensis: Lucy's Ancestor and the Oldest Confirmed Australopith
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Au
−4 Ma
−3,5 Ma
Kenyanthropus platyops: The Flat Face That Reshuffles the Pliocene
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−3,3 Ma
The Lithic Industry: 3.3 Million Years of Stone-Knapping
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−3,2 Ma
−2,6 Ma
−2,5 Ma
Paranthropus: The Robust Australopiths and Their Evolutionary Dead End
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Hh
−2,3 Ma
−2 Ma
−2 Ma
Australopithecus sediba: South Africa's Missing Link?
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He
−1,9 Ma
Homo ergaster: Africa's Ancestor of the Upright Man
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−1,9 Ma
−1,8 Ma
Homo georgicus: The First Human Outside Africa
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−1,8 Ma
Human Evolution
Prehistoric Fire: From Capture to Mastery , 1.8 Million Years of Revolution
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−1,8 Ma
Homo erectus carried fire into Wonderwerk Cave 1.8 million years ago
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−1,8 Ma
Lower Palaeolithic
Kokiselei (Kenya): the oldest known Acheulean site, dated to 1.76 million years ago. Hominins of the Homo ergaster type already produce bifacial handaxes, a technology that will persist for 1.46 million years across three continents.
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−1 Ma
−800 000
Middle Pleistocene
Lower & Middle Palaeolithic · 780 000–130 000 BP
−780 000
Lower Palaeolithic
Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (Israel): hominins cook fish on the banks of the Jordan River, pushing back the oldest known fish-cooking episode by 530,000 years.
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−773 000
Lower Palaeolithic
Hominid Cave (Thomas Quarry I, Casablanca, Morocco): skull fragments of Homo erectus dated to 773,000 years ago, basal to the lineage leading to Homo sapiens. Published in Nature in January 2026, the study fills a 400,000-year gap in the African fossil record.
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Hd
−700 000
dossiers
Homo heidelbergensis: the common ancestor of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens
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−500 000
News
Half a Million Years Ago, Homo erectus Was Already Engraving Abstract Patterns
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−430 000
Middle Palaeolithic
Sima de los Huesos (Atapuerca, Spain): 29 Homo heidelbergensis individuals deposited at the bottom of a natural shaft, possibly humanity's first organised funerary gesture.
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−430 000
Hn
−400 000
Lower Palaeolithic
Bilzingsleben (Germany): Homo heidelbergensis systematically hunts the Eurasian beaver. 94 individuals with skinning marks, the earliest direct evidence of specialised fur hunting in Europe.
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−400 000
Dv
−335 000
Hs
−300 000
hominides
Homo sapiens: 300,000 years of history, from African origins to the entire world
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−300 000
−300 000
The Denisovans: the Dragon Man skull and the reconstruction of their face
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−300 000
Archaeology
Cave Sealed for 300,000 Years Reveals Mysterious Hominin Clan in Carmel
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−200 000
Middle Stone Age
Border Cave (Lebombo, South Africa): the oldest known plant-based beds. Fresh grass laid on ash to repel insects and moisture, bedding burned before each renewal — sustained over 150,000 years.
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−175 000
−160 000
Middle Palaeolithic
A Denisovan jaw on the Tibetan Plateau: Denisovans, revealed by DNA, already occupied high Asia.
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−153 000
Late Pleistocene
Neanderthals & Sapiens · 130 000–40 000 BP
−120 000
Middle Palaeolithic
Es-Skhul (Mount Carmel): a child with mixed features, possibly the oldest sapiens–Neanderthal hybrid.
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−120 000
Hf
−100 000
Middle Palaeolithic
Intentional Homo sapiens burials in the Near East. Coexistence with Neanderthals.
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−100 000
−88 000
Middle Palaeolithic
Nefud Desert (Saudi Arabia): the Al Wusta phalanx, the oldest Homo sapiens bone found outside Africa and the Levant. Green Arabia, humanity's overlooked crossroads.
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−75 000
Middle Stone Age
Blombos Cave (South Africa): shell beads, engraved ochre and a drawing, symbolism 30,000 years before Europe.
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−75 000
Palaeogenomics
Norway: a cave yields Europe's oldest Arctic ecosystem, 75,000 years frozen in stone
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−74 000
Middle Palaeolithic
Toba supereruption (Sumatra): the largest volcanic eruption of the past two million years (VEI 8, ~2,800 km³). A famous but now contested theory holds that it reduced humanity to a few thousand individuals.
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−70 000
Out of Africa
Major Homo sapiens expansion out of Africa; interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
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−70 000
News
For 20,000 Years, Our Ancestors Vanished from the Record: Researchers Have Found Proof of Their Passage
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−67 000
Homo luzonensis: The Surprising Human Species of the Philippines
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−66000
Maltravieso: Europe's oldest hand stencils were made by Neanderthals
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−65 000
Peopling
Madjedbebe: Homo sapiens reaches Sahul (Australia) after the oldest known open-water voyage.
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−60 000
Upper Palaeolithic
Homo floresiensis, the Flores 'hobbit', vanishes with the arrival of Homo sapiens in South-East Asia.
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−60 000
Middle Palaeolithic
Umhlatuzana (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa): quartz microliths carry alkaloids from Boophone disticha. The oldest known poisoned projectiles, testifying to remarkable pharmacological knowledge.
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−60 000
News
High in the Alps, a Neanderthal Workshop Upends the Image of a Plains Dweller
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−60 000
−55 000
News
A Single Tooth Overturns the Date of Homo sapiens' Arrival in Southeast Asia
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−53 000
Middle Palaeolithic
Amud Cave (Israel): Amud 7, a 6-month-old Neanderthal infant, already had the size of a 13-month-old Homo sapiens child. Growth rate twice as fast as our own.
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−53 000
News
In an Israeli Cave, a Neanderthal Infant's Burial Reveals an Unexpected Gesture
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−52 500
Palaeogenetics
DNA from 27 Neanderthals reveals a connected population in north-western Europe
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−49000
El Sidron: DNA from a Neanderthal family reveals an organised society
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-48 000
Palaeolithic
Pedra Furada: When Brazil Challenges the Timeline of the Americas Peopling
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−47 000
Upper Palaeolithic
Belgium and northern France: genomes of 27 Neanderthals reveal normal genetic health — no inbreeding, good diversity. Their extinction remains an enigma.
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−45 000
−45 000
Middle to Upper Palaeolithic
MP/UP transition: Neanderthals and Homo sapiens coexist. Châtelperronian, Aurignacian, ornaments, mixed DNA. Collège de France colloquium 2026.
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−45000
Bacho Kiro: Homo sapiens was in Europe at least 45,000 years ago
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−45 000
Neanderthals
Massacre and cannibalism 45,000 years ago: Neanderthal women and children deliberately targeted in Belgian cave
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Upper Palaeolithic
Homo sapiens in Europe · 40 000–10 000 BP
−40 000
Upper Palaeolithic
Neanderthal extinction: climate, low genetic diversity and blood incompatibility combine.
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−40 000
Aurignacian
Venus of Hohle Fels: the oldest known female figurine, in mammoth ivory.
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−40 000
−36 000
Aurignacian
Chauvet Cave: over 1,000 drawings, 425 animal figures. The oldest known masterpiece.
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−35 000
−30 000
Gravettian
Venus of Willendorf. Peak of portable art and female figurines in Europe.
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−30 000
The Upper Palaeolithic of Russia: Kostenki, Zaraysk, Avdeevo
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−30 000
Funerary rites
Sungir: the children buried with thousands of beads 30,000 years ago
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−29 000
Upper Palaeolithic
The Gravettian: Venus figurines, mammoths and societies of the cold
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−28 000
Gravettian
Arcy-sur-Cure Great Cave: France's oldest still-visible paintings (mammoths, lioness).
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−27 000
Gravettian
Cosquer Cave (Marseille): hand stencils and a marine bestiary in a cave now drowned beneath the Mediterranean.
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−27000
Gargas: the mystery of 231 mutilated Gravettian hand prints
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−26 000
Gravettian
Dolní Věstonice (Moravia): the Venus of Věstonice, the world's oldest fired ceramic figurine, and a 28,000-year-old kiln.
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−25000
The Lady of Brassempouy: The Oldest Human Face Ever Carved
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−25 000
Prehistoric Venus Figurines: Catalogue and Interpretations
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−23 000
Last Glacial Maximum
Human footprints at White Sands: a far older human presence in the Americas than thought.
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−20000
The Solutrean: Pinnacle of Paleolithic Lithic Industry
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−20 000
−17 000
−17000
Font-de-Gaume: The Last Polychrome Painted Cave Open to the Public in France
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−17000
Altamira: the Sistine Chapel of prehistory and the scepticism of the 19th century
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−16 000
Peopling of the Americas
The peopling of the Americas: Beringia, White Sands and the end of the Clovis model
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−15 000
Magdalenian
La Mouthe cave (Dordogne): its discovery will prove the existence of Palaeolithic cave art.
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−15 000
Upper Palaeolithic
The Magdalenian: Lascaux, harpoons and the return of the hunters
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−14500
The Natufians: the first sedentary people, two millennia before agriculture
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−14 400
Upper Palaeolithic
Grotta della Bàsura (Toirano, Liguria, Italy): five humans including two children aged 3 and 6, and a 40 kg dog, explore a bear-inhabited cave by pine torchlight. Interleaved footprints testify to shared social life between humans and the domestic dog.
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−14 000
Upper Palaeolithic
Bonn-Oberkassel: first confirmed domestic dog, buried alongside humans on the Rhine.
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−14000
The Jomon: 14,000 Years of Prehistoric Culture in Japan
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−14000
Prehistoric Sculptures: the Roc aux Sorciers
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−14000
The Clay Bison of Tuc d'Audoubert: Magdalenian 3D Masterpieces
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−13 300
Palaeolithic art
For the first time, Font-de-Gaume's bison paintings have an absolute date
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−13 000
News
13,000 Years Ago, Palaeolithic Humans Were Already Carving a 3D Map in the Forest of Fontainebleau
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−12000
Romito 2: The Ice Age Invalid Cared for by His Community
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Mesolithic & Neolithic
Agricultural revolutions · 10 000–3 300 BP
−10 000
Pre-Pottery Neolithic
Tell es-Sultan (Jericho): a stone tower 8.5 m high, the oldest known architectural structure. The world's oldest inhabited city is already walled.
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−10 000
Neolithic Revolution
Fertile Crescent: domestication of wheat, barley, sheep and cattle. Birth of villages.
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−10 000
−10 000
−10 000
−10 000
−9 500
Pre-Pottery Neolithic
Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe: monumental T-pillar sanctuaries, predating agriculture.
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−9 500
−9000
Female Hunters: When Prehistory Challenges the "Man the Hunter" Myth
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−9 000
−8 000
Mesolithic
Last hunter-gatherers: the high Pyrenees and the Seine banks (Vitry) in continuous use.
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−8 000
−8 000
Mesolithic
Beneath Greater Paris's cranes, a 10,000-year-old hunter-gatherer camp
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−7500
Catalhoyuk: the Neolithic city with no streets and no doors
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−7 000
−7 000
−6 200
Mesolithic
The Storegga tsunami sweeps Doggerland, the plain that linked Britain to the continent.
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−6 000
−6000
Tassili n'Ajjer: 15,000 Rock Paintings to Tell the Story of the Green Sahara
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−6000
The Lovers of Valdaro: 6,000 Years Embracing beneath the Soil of Mantua
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−6 000
Amnya: Siberian hunter-gatherers built the world's oldest fortifications 8,000 years ago
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−6 000
Colombia's Ghost Lineage: A Prehistoric Population That Vanished Without a Trace
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−6 000
Rock art
Wadi Mathendous: giraffes carved in sandstone, the rock art of a forgotten Sahara
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−5 000
News
In the Pyrenees at 2,200 m Altitude, a Prehistoric Copper Workshop Operated for 7,000 Years
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−5 000
Palaeogenetics
Green Sahara: DNA from two mummies reveals a forgotten North African lineage
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−4 500
Breton Megalithism
Carnac (Brittany): 3,000 menhirs in alignments over 4 km, the world's largest megalithic complex.
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−4 000
News
Beneath the Silt of Northern France, a Millennia-Old Neolithic Dugout Canoe Lay Hidden
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−4 000
−3 600
Megalithism
Ġgantija (Gozo, Malta): the world's oldest freestanding stone structures, 1,000 years older than Egypt's pyramids.
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−3 500
Botai: the first domesticated horses may not have been what we thought
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−3 500
−3 400
−3 400
Archaeology
Perdigões: the Portuguese prehistoric sanctuary that drew all of Europe
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Copper Age & Bronze Age
Metals · megaliths · writing · 3 300–800 BC
−3 300
Copper Age
Ötzi dies in the Alps: the oldest natural mummy, and a 5,300-year-old murder case.
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−3 300
Bronze Age
Invention of writing in the Near East: the end of prehistory. First city-states.
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−3 200
Megalithism
Newgrange (Ireland): passage mound 85 m across aligned on the winter solstice sunrise, older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids.
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−3 100
Prehistoric Orkney: From Skara Brae to the Ness of Brodgar
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−3 100
The Sabu Disk: Saqqara's mysterious object that has baffled Egyptologists since 1936
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−3 000
Megaliths
First great stones of Stonehenge; its Altar Stone will come from Scotland, over 700 km away.
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−3 000
Stonehenge: The Monument's Enigmas
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−3 000
−3 000
−3 000
Ancient Egypt
Jabal al-Tayr: a 5,000-year-old necropolis at the roots of pyramid architecture
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−3 000
Archaeology
A 5,000-year-old fortress emerges from a Romanian forest, revealed by LiDAR
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−2 900
Ancient Egypt
Gabal El-Teir: two Early Dynastic tombs shed light on the origins of pyramid architecture
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−2 900
Rites & beliefs
A 5,000-year-old skeleton found in a Neolithic kiln in Germany , a possible human sacrifice
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−2 800
Palaeogenetics
The first complete genome of an Old Kingdom Egyptian reveals his Mesopotamian roots
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−2700
Saqqara: Construction Secrets
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−2700
Saqqara: The Architectural Revolution of Djoser
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−2 700
−2650
Meidum: Secrets of an Enigmatic Construction
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−2 600
Egyptian Old Kingdom
Egypt: from mastaba to Djoser's Step Pyramid. Birth of monumental stone architecture.
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−2600
Dahshur: The Pyramids of Sneferu
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−2600
The Indus Civilization: Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the Harappan Enigma
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−2 600
−2 600
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia: The Rediscovery of Iraq's Treasures, an ARTE documentary in the field
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−2 600
−2 600
Arte Documentary
Documentary, Egypt, the fall of the Old Kingdom (1/2): The end of a kingdom
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−2 600
Ancient architecture
What do we really know about Egyptian construction?, Interview with Franck Monnier
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−2560
Khufu: The Last Wonder of the World
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−2560
The Mysteries of Giza: Beyond Khufu
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−2 560
Architecture & megaliths
Khufu and the Tomb of Secrets: What Does the Great Pyramid Still Hide?
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−2558
Abu Rawash: The Lost Pyramid of Djedefre
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−2 500
Indus Civilisation
Mohenjo-daro: a 4,500-year-old metropolis with no visible king
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−2 500
Archaeology
Mohenjo-daro: the 4,000-year-old city that prospered by sharing its wealth
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−2400
Inside the Secret Entrails of the Saqqara Necropolis
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−2 400
−2 300
−2278
Saqqarah: the mysterious Pyramid Texts
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−2 200
The Kyordyughen warrior: 4,200 years after his death, his DNA still runs in the veins of Arctic peoples
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−2 200
Arte Documentary
Documentary, Egypt, the fall of the Old Kingdom (2/2): Climate change and civil war
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−2 100
Arkaim and the Sintashta Civilisation: The Enigma of the Ural Bronze Age
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−2 100
−2 000
−1 750
Ancient Near East
Qabra under siege: 4,000-year-old evidence of war uncovered in northern Mesopotamia
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−1 700
Aegean Bronze Age
A Bronze Age gold hoard surfaces at Aegina, echoing a two-century-old mystery
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−1600
The Hittites: the forgotten empire of Anatolia
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−1500
The Lapita Culture: First Conquerors of the Pacific
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−1 500
Bidzar Petroglyphs: The Enigma of North Cameroon's Rock Art
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−1 500
Bronze Age
At Cabezo Redondo, a fire preserved Europe's most complete Bronze Age loom
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−1400
Deir el-Medina: The Hidden Village of Royal Artisans
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−1 350
−1 323
Egyptian New Kingdom
Valley of the Kings (Luxor): Tutankhamun, pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty who died around age 18, is entombed in KV62. Rediscovered in 1922 by Howard Carter, his burial held over 5,000 extraordinarily preserved objects.
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−1300
The Scribes of Egypt: Secrets of Antiquity
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−1 250
Imet: a colossal statue of Ramesses II uncovered in the Nile Delta
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−1 250
Heliopolis: the tomb of priest Panehsy uncovered in the City of the Sun
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−1 250
Bronze Age
The Ugarit Divorce: when repudiating a princess became a matter of state
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−1200
Sanxingdui: The Mysterious Sichuan Civilization That Appears in No Text
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−1200
The Olmecs: Mother Civilization of Mesoamerica
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−1 200
Troy: Have Archaeologists Found the City of the Iliad?
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−1 200
−1000
The Nok Culture: The Oldest Terracotta Art of Sub-Saharan Africa
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−900
Chavín de Huántar: The Andean Oracle at the Heart of South America's First Supra-Regional Cult
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−900
Tartessos: the Lost Civilisation of the West
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Iron Age & Protohistory
Threshold of written history · 800–0 BC
−800
Iron Age
Levantine Iron Age geomagnetic anomaly: Judean jars record Earth's magnetic field in their clay.
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−780 000
Hominins were cooking fish 780,000 years ago on the shores of palaeo-Lake Hula
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−650
Sunken Treasures of the Pharaohs: Underwater Archaeology in Egypt
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−650
Ancient Egypt
Mirror, kohl and gold earrings: the cosmetic treasure of the Panehsy tomb at Heliopolis
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−500
The Zapotecs and Monte Albán: The First Great Mesoamerican City
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−500
Scythians of Mongolia: Frozen Tombs, Preserved Treasures
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−500
−450
The Frozen Tomb of the Scythian Warriors: Secrets of the Altai
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−450
−400 000
At Bilzingsleben 400,000 years ago, hominins hunted and butchered dozens of beavers
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−330
Alexander the Great: From King of Macedon to Master of the Orient
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−300
Alexandria: The Sunken Treasures of the Ptolemaic City
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−300
From Quartz to Megaliths: Senegal's Remarkable Prehistory
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−300
Tell Kom Aziza: a Greco-Roman cemetery unveiled beneath the Nile Delta sands
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−295
The Great Library of Alexandria: 700,000 Lost Papyri
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−250
Ai Khanoum: A Lost Alexandria at the Heart of Afghanistan
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−200
Iron Age
Cerro de las Cabezas: two violent deaths and six deer antlers, the enigma of an Iberian 'bad death'
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−196
Deciphering Hieroglyphs: When Image Becomes Writing
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−100
Hegra: Eight Years of Excavations in the Lost Nabataean City
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−100 000
prehistoire
A Homo sapiens Was Stabbed in the Face 100,000 Years Ago: A Wound That Changes Everything
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−59 000
−31 000
The world's oldest known surgical amputation: a hunter-gatherer operated on in Borneo 31,000 years ago
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−20 000
prehistoire
Basque Caves Reveal Sophisticated Upper Palaeolithic Spatial Organization
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−8 000
The dead wrapped in plaster in the Levantine Neolithic: a 58-month experiment decodes their funerary rituals
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−7 000 000
Palaeolithic
First Hominins: from Toumai to Ardipithecus, 7 Million Years of Evolution
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−5 000
−5 000
prehistoire
DNA Reveals Near-Total Replacement of Western Europe's Megalith Builders
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−4 000 000
Australopithecus and Paranthropines: Lucy, the Taung Child, and the Robust Ones
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−3 200
San Juan ante Portam Latinam: ancient DNA reveals a 338-person Neolithic massacre
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−3 000
Camino del Molino: 92% of Neolithic children suffered infectious diseases 5,000 years ago
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−2 000
Djarkutan, Uzbekistan: a 5-year-old child trepanned 4,000 years ago in the Oxus civilisation
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−1 200
Late Bronze Age
Mediterranean polycrisis: the Hittite Empire collapses, Mycenaean palaces burn, Troy VIIa is destroyed, the Sea Peoples threaten Egypt.
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−1 370
prehistoire
The Bronze Age Shaman: A Woman Identified by DNA as Long-Distance Traveler and Ritual Specialist
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−1 000
3,000-year-old baby bottles in Bavaria: Bronze Age infants drank animal milk
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0
Threshold of our era
Europe enters recorded history. The prehistoric worlds come to a close.
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