Origins and Primordial Life
The history of humanity is only a brief chapter in the very long story of planet Earth. About four billion years ago, on the planet’s primitive crust, the first continental rocks began to form, destined to transform over the course of geological eras. During the same period, around two and a half billion years ago, the first living beings appeared: simple organisms that slowly evolved into complex biological structures, adapting to changes in the environment, the atmosphere, and climates, and following the planet’s evolution in a continuous cycle of formation and destruction of emerged lands.
Lands rose from the waters and began a slow movement, gradually shaping the face of the planet. Changes in environmental conditions determined the appearance, spread, growth, decline, and disappearance of many living species. This occurred over the long period between roughly two and a half billion and sixty-five million years ago, during the Proterozoic, Paleozoic, and Mesozoic eras. Only later did the first hominins appear, late on a geological scale but early with respect to human history, conventionally dated from the invention of writing, around 3,500 years before the year zero.
The Emergence of the Human Genus
From that year, conventionally associated with the birth of Christ, the long path of human evolution was leading first to Homo habilis, which appeared in the Pleistocene and lived between about 2.4 and 1.44 million years ago, capable of creating and using tools. Then, through an evolutionary process similar to that of other living beings, Homo sapiens appeared—the modern human—living from around 200,000 years before the year zero, after millions of years of evolution characterized by continuous adaptations and significant technological innovations and developments within the species.
During the Quaternary period, particularly in the Pleistocene—characterized by five long periods of very cold climate—the Earth’s surfaces were populated by the various species of the genus Homo: Homo erectus lived between about two million and two hundred thousand years ago in Africa and Eurasia, while the oldest remains of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis date back to around 230,000 years ago. The latter, before becoming extinct, had coexisted for several millennia with Homo sapiens, which, evolving into Homo sapiens sapiens, had meanwhile definitively taken possession of the Earth, establishing itself as the dominant species.
Climate and the Adaptation of Life
During these epochs, ice sheets extended to cover much of today’s continents. Depending on the volume of glaciers— inversely proportional to sea level and therefore to the emergence or submergence of land—vast coastal plains were exposed. In these areas, plant and animal life thrived, including human beings, who enjoyed a climate similar to the present one at low latitudes, while at higher and colder latitudes they began to rely on clothing, shelters, and other measures to protect themselves from the elements and survive.
Seeking and finding shelters for the night, life in these regions, characterized by extensive forests, was difficult, though not as prohibitive as at higher and colder latitudes. Along their evolutionary path, the different species of the genus Homo led a primitive existence, moving and following animal migrations that constituted their prey, or undertaking long migratory movements to escape adverse climatic conditions or the danger posed by large species inhabiting vast prairies rich in animal life and opportunities for subsistence.
The Exodus of Origins
After their first appearance in Africa, around 75,000 years ago, humanity’s journey toward Asia began, along with the colonization of its southern coasts, from India to Southeast Asia, as far as the Andaman Islands and Malaysia. Later, more substantial migratory waves carried Mongoloid populations from Southeast Asia toward China in the north and as far as Australia and New Guinea in the south. Subsequently, between about 60,000 and 10,000 years ago, during the last Würm glaciation, humans undertook other major overland migrations, with successive waves heading toward Central and Eastern Asia.
Moving from Asia toward other continents, also by sea, various populations traveled north along eastern coastlines, while other Mongoloid groups reached northern China, Japan, and the regions of Northeast Asia. Thanks to the land bridge formed between the northeastern tip of Asia and Alaska, corresponding to today’s Bering Strait, new Mongoloid peoples reached the Americas between about 50,000 and 30,000 years ago. Finally, around 45,000 years ago, the settlement of the Middle East began, followed between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago by that of Europe.
The First Settlements
In the great river plains of the Middle East and of southern and eastern Asia, dating back a few thousand years, Homo sapiens sapiens began to spread and to create the first stable settlements. During this long period of the Earth’s peopling, it gradually developed increasingly sophisticated intellectual and sensory capacities, learned to master and use fire, organized itself into communities to procure food, defend itself, or fight, decorated cave walls with engravings and paintings, and built tools and artifacts that were ever more complex and functional.
It practiced hunting, first alone and then in groups; gathered herbs, roots, and fruits; and, in more advanced times, also learned to fish. In the Paleolithic, it developed techniques for controlling food resources, conceiving a selective use of game and wild fruit in order to remain in balance with the occupied territory. It already knew rituals of surprising modernity, such as the burial of the dead, and applied birth-regulation practices such as periodic sexual abstinence, infanticide, or senilicide, within a prehistoric evolution confined to well-defined territories.
The Memory of the World
With regard to its relationship with inhabited space, human awareness was direct and limited to a restricted horizon, although broader than that of later sedentary societies. In the absence of true scientific activity of reflection and cataloging of experience, knowledge remained circumscribed. Since writing had not yet emerged, humans confined themselves to recording and preserving the memory of daily activities, while the oral transmission of geographical knowledge essentially concerned hunting grounds, the movements of prey, and the presence of water.
In the same way, with clearly defined territorial boundaries, migrations—whether brief and seasonal or extensive—required long periods even to cover short distances, generating a geographical awareness limited to primary needs. Such awareness could not benefit from experiences accumulated along the paths of distant ancestors, nor could it be effectively transmitted to subsequent generations. It was an elementary perception of the world that accompanied human prehistory for a very long time, until the true revolution that took place in the Neolithic period.
Millions of years of evolution shaped humanity, driving it to adapt to environmental changes and to develop increasingly complex tools, technologies, and social skills. Migrations and encounters among peoples enabled the spread of knowledge and traditions, while humans expanded into every corner of the planet, starting from Africa. These paths laid the foundations of civilization, opening the way to agriculture, writing, and the first stable societies, and marking the beginning of a history of innovation, challenges, and discoveries that continues to shape the world today.