Evolution and development

The evolutionary lineage of humans traced back to the earliest unicellular organisms:

- Homo sapiens – 300,000 years ago to present

- Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals) – 400,000 to 40,000 years ago

- Homo heidelbergensis – 600,000 to 200,000 years ago

- Homo erectus – 1.9 million to 110,000 years ago

- Homo habilis – 2.4 to 1.4 million years ago

- Paranthropus – 2.7 to 1.2 million years ago

- Australopithecus africanus – 3 to 2 million years ago

- Australopithecus afarensis – 3.9 to 2.9 million years ago

- Sahelanthropus tchadensis – 7 to 6 million years ago

- Last common ancestor (LCA) of humans and chimpanzees – 5 to 7 million years ago

Tracing back to the origin of life:

- LCA of primates and other mammals – about 60 million years ago

- Early mammals (Mammalia) – about 200 million years ago

- Therapsids – about 250 million years ago (early "reptiles" from which mammals emerged)

- Reptiles – about 320 million years ago

- Amphibians – about 360 million years ago

- Fish (bony fish) – about 400 million years ago

- Invertebrate animals – about 500 million years ago

- Life begins (unicellular organisms) – about 3.5 billion years ago
  • Prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) – about 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago
  • Eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus, such as single-celled organisms) – about 2 billion years ago

- Primordial soup (chemical origins of life) – about 3.8 billion years ago.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|                     Microorganisms                           |
|                 (First Life Forms: Bacteria, Archaea)         |
|       → Simple, single-celled organisms, origin of life.      |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
                            |
                            v
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|             Simple Multicellular Life (Algae, Fungi)          |
|   → Transition to multicellular organisms, diversity in forms. |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
                            |
                            v
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|                  Invertebrates (Worms, Jellyfish)             |
|  → Life becomes more complex, basic neural systems emerge.    |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
                            |
                            v
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|                   Vertebrates (Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles)    |
| → Internal skeletons, spinal column, development of complex   |
|    brains.                                                   |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
                            |
                            v
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|                   Early Humans (Homo habilis, Australopithecus)|
|       → First evidence of human-like tools, increased brain   |
|            size, early culture.                              |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
                            |
                            v
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|                       Modern Humans                           |
|  → Advanced tools, society, communication, technological      |
|     revolution, space exploration, global networks.           |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
                            |
                            v
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|                   Artificial Intelligence (AI)                |
|   → Self-learning systems, machines exhibiting human-like     |
|     cognition. The next frontier of intelligence evolution.   |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+