| ca. 4.4 million years ago | Ardipithecus evolve in Africa |
| ca. 2.5–4 million years ago | Australopithecus evolve in Africa |
| ca. 500,000–2 million years ago | Homo erectus evolve and spread out of Africa |
| ca. 250,000–9000B.C.E. | Paleolithic era |
| ca. 250,000 years ago | Homo sapiens evolve in Africa |
| ca. 30,000–150,000 years ago | Neanderthals flourish in Europe and western Asia |
| ca. 120,000 years ago | Homo sapiens migrate out of Africa to Eurasia |
| ca. 50,000 years ago | Human migration to Australia |
| ca. 20,000–30,000 years ago | Possible human migration from Asia to the Americas |
| ca. 25,000B.C.E. | Earliest evidence of woven cloth and baskets |
| ca. 15,000B.C.E. | Earliest evidence of bows and atlatls; humans cross the Bering Strait land bridge to the Americas |
| ca. 15,000– 10,000B.C.E. | Final retreat of glaciers; megafaunal extinctions |
| ca. 9000B.C.E. | Beginning of the Neolithic; horticulture; domestication of sheep and goats |
| ca. 7000B.C.E. | Domestication of cattle; plow agriculture |
| ca. 5500B.C.E. | Smelting of copper |
| ca. 5000B.C.E. | Invention of pottery wheel |
| ca. 3200B.C.E. | Earliest known invention of writing |
| ca. 3000B.C.E. | Development of wheeled transport; beginning of bronze technology |
| ca. 2500B.C.E. | Bronze technology becomes common in many areas; beginning of the Bronze Age |