Australopithecus anamensis: early australopithecine

Date

c. 4.2 to 3.9 million years ago

Category

Science, technology & invention

Region

East Africa

Era

Prehistory

Significance

One of the earliest members of the genus Australopithecus. Shows clear adaptations for bipedal walking while retaining some tree-climbing ability.

Related science, technology & invention events

• Emergence of early Homo and first consistent stone tool use
  c. 2.8 to 2.4 million years ago
• Australopithecus afarensis ('Lucy' and relatives)
  c. 3.9 to 2.9 million years ago
• Discovery of the Denisovans and archaic-modern interbreeding
  c. 100,000 to 40,000 years ago (interbreeding); identified 2010
• Domestication of maize from teosinte in Mesoamerica
  c. 7000 BCE (c. 9,000 years ago)
• Domestication of rice in the Yangtze River basin
  c. 8000 to 6000 BCE
• Domestication of the dog, humanity's first domesticated animal
  c. 16,000 to 14,000 years ago

Also relevant

• Pre-domestication cultivation of wild cereals at Abu Hureyra
  c. 13,100 to 11,600 years ago (c. 11,100 to 9600 BCE)
• Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and the Tower and wall of Jericho
  c. 11,700 to 10,000 years ago (c. 9700 to 8000 BCE)
• Sahelanthropus tchadensis: earliest known hominin candidate
  c. 7 to 6 million years ago

Essential reading

• Behavioural modernity and major Out-of-Africa dispersal
  c. 70,000 to 50,000 years ago
• The Pleistocene-Holocene boundary and the start of the Holocene
  c. 11,700 years ago (c. 9700 BCE)
• Monumental urbanism at Caral and the Norte Chico civilisation
  c. 2600 BCE
• Standardised Binary Weights System of the Indus
  c. 2600 BCE

Further reading

A Little History of Science

The wider story

A Little History of Science

William Bynum

Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.

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