Homo habilis developed the Oldowan technology for making stone tools. Habilis lived in Africa and was possibly descended from Australopithecus africanus or A. garhi.

Homo erectus
1.9 - 0.07 mya

He was an ancestor of Homo Sapiens. This was a very successful creature surviving over a broad range in Asia (Java Man,

Homo erectus
range
1.9 - 0.07 mya

Peking Man), Europe, and Africa for almost 2 million years until as recently as 70,000 years ago. That date suggests the Mt. Toba eruption may have had a significant role in the demise of the Erectus.

Descendants of Homo habilis

• H. habilis (2.8–1.5 Ma),
• H. erectus (1.9–0.7 Ma),
• H. ergaster (1.9–1.3 Ma),
• H. rudolphensis (1.9 Ma),
• H. gautengensis (1.9–0.6 Ma),
• H. georgicus (1.8 Ma),
• H. antecessor (1.2–0.8 Ma),
• H. heidelburgensis (0.7–0.2 Ma),
• H. denisova (0.6–0.075 Ma),
• H. neanderthalensis (0.5-.025 Ma),
• H. rhodesiensis (0.4–0.12 Ma),
• H. sapiens (0.35 Ma - present),
      and
• Anatomically Modern Humans, (0.27 Ma)

Undoubtedly there were many more.

Erectus developed the Acheulian stone tool technology and used it for about 1.7 million years. They used spoken language and the ability to use fire. They had dark hairless skin, rich in melanin, and abundant sweat glands that evolved about 1.2 million years ago to regulate body temperature.

We know of six more advanced species generated by Erectus during his reign. These are H. antecessor, H. ergaster, H. heidelburgensis = H. rhodesiensis, proto-neanderthals, the Red Deer Cave people, and the Omo people. Undoubtedly there were many more that are unknown.

It was the fourth largest eruption in the last 2 million years. It undoubtedly has worldwide effects. The thinning of the numbers of H. erectus offshoots, e.g. H. georgicus, H. rudolphensis , etc. could have been caused by Karymshina.

The largest impact in the last one million years is the 14-km Zhamanshin crater in Kazakhstan which has been described as being capable of producing a nuclear-like winter, but it was not sufficiently large to have caused a mass extinction.

The western group became the Neanderthals who later shared Europe with, and learned the Clactonian stone tool technology from, Heidelburgensis. They colonized most of the colder parts of Europe that were not ice covered and parts of Asia. They survived until as recently as 25,000 years ago in southern Spain. Here is a listing and a map of the major sites.

The eastern branch of proto-neanderthals developed into the Denisovans who went on to colonize Asia (and, later, inter-breed with humans).
The timing of the division between Neanderthals and Denisovans and the extinction of the proto-neanderthals is very close to the start of the Elster-Saale glaciation. The ice pushed the populations south and split them, so then founder effect caused the separate evolution.

This discovery has caused the geneticists to assign new names to the early haplogroups. Haplogroup A used to be the oldest, but now they have added A0 and A00. Haplogroup A00 probably developed from Rhodesiensis which is the same as Heidelburgensis.

Two enormous volcanic eruptions occurred during the timespan that includes the AMH emergence. The eruptions were in the Taupo volcanic zone of New Zealand: 280,000 years ago Haroharo Caldera (VEI 7) and 254,000 years ago Whakamaru Caldera (VEI 8). Two such enormous eruptions had worldwide effects on the flora and fauna and on the evolution of humans. The volcanic "winter", lasting decades or even centuries would have pruned the family tree back to a few especially hardy and well-situated bands, so it seems very likely that 'founder effects', the driver of evolution, could have been a major factor in the emergence of the AMH.

This very large eruption in the heart of Neanderthal country had, no doubt, dire consequences on the Neanderhal populations in Europe. This ancient stratovolcano has become the highest mountain in the Massif Central of France.

Fossils 195,000 years old have been found at the Omo Kibish site in Ethiopia, the oldest AMH fossils found so far. Eventually it may be proven that these the founding Haplogroup A0 fossils. (Perhaps there should be a term Homo Omo for these people).

They took the northern route across the Sinai. These modern humans colonized much of Eurasia during several of the long wet periods in the 20,000 year long North African climate cycle, leaving fossils that present intriguing questions about interbreeding and development of these early modern humans.

Homo Sapiens
Idaltu

The fossilized remains of H. s. idaltu were discovered at Herto Bouri near the Middle Awash site of Ethiopia‘s Afar Triangle.
These specimens are argued to represent the direct ancestors of modern Homo sapiens sapiens. They were AMH - Anatomically Modern Humans. They were not the knuckle-dragging stereotypes of 'cavemen', but were esentially just like us. There were some differences in their bones, their skin was brown, blonds were very rare, and blue eyes did not exist.

Founded as Haplogroup A, continuing diversification of the gene pool led them through the sequential development of Haplogroups A1 and A1b.

Beginning about 200,000 years ago small groups of Idaltu type people - Haplogroups A, A1, and A1b - began to find a way out of Africa. They moved out on the northern route across the Sinai as suggested by the "Sahara Pump Theory". The warm, moist conditions of "Abbassia Pluvial" type climate periods made that area much less formidible than it is today. It is not known whether the climate changes triggered the movements or just made it possible. These small migrations continued for at least 130,000 years. They spread to India and on to southeast Asia by 80,000 years ago.

The competition and the struggle for survival may have been fierce and deadly. The space they were moving into was occupied by several varieties of genus Homo entrenched there, in some cases, for more than a million years. Homo Erectus still thrived, as did Heidelburgensis, Neanderthals, and Denisovans.

Mega-fauna as food sources included: woolly mammoth, steppe mammoth, straight-tusked elephant, aurochs, steppe bison, Irish elk, equus, and Elasmotherium, but these are all large and dangerous to hunt with just primitive weapons such as spears and clubs.

There were dangerous predators that hunted the migrants. These included: wolf, cave lion, cave bear, cave hyena, saber-toothed tigers, and giant polar bears among others. Other hazards would have included a new assortment of deadly germs, poisonous plants, insects, and snakes.

It is known in Europe as the Weichselian Ice Age. This long, severe ice age drove all of the human settlements of the "Out of Africa' migration to extinction.

Mt. Toba
VEI 8
eruption

A vast amount of ash and noxious gases (six gigatons of sulfur dioxide and 3,000 cubic kilometers of rock) were emitted, causing extinctions of food sources and centuries of famine.
It was followed by a thousand year long cold period.

Migration
Out of Africa

Green Arabia
Sahara Pump Theory

The much lower sea levels, as much as 200 feet lower, during this time allowed the small groups to cross the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Arabia. Then they travelled through the warm and verdant "Green Arabia" or they followed the coastline eastward to the Persian Gulf and the Indus river. These modern humans colonized much of southern Asia.

Migration of the Haplogroups

Haplogroup F probably developed in the Tigris/Euphrates delta in the Persian Gulf or perhaps in the Indus River delta. In that part of the Weichselian ice age, the sea level was much lower, so the Persian Gulf was dry land to the south past the Strait of Hormuz.

Migration to
The Ur-Shatt

The area is sometimes known as the Ur-Shatt, or old Shatt river valley. The area was a well watered plain surrounding fresh-water lakes. There were abundant resources to support hunter-gatherers.
(SNP M89, defines Haplogroup F).

---- Haplogroup F was very successful. Many small groups formed and migrated outward following the coast and the rivers. These groups evolved into 14 of the main haplogroups known today. Haplogroup F is ancestral to about 90% of non-African men worldwide.

---

This "Grandfather's Path" graphic illustrates the route followed by the ancestors of L161 from the time Haplogroup F occupied the Persian Gulf about 65,000 years ago.

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55,000 y.a.: Haplogroup F, diverged through stages to Haplogroup IJ

Haplogroup IJ was located somewhere in the northern end of the huge area occupied by Haplogroup F. Considering the dry climate, water resources would have been critical. They would have found good conditions in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates, now known as Baghdad. Groups G, H, and K branched off and are not ancestors of L-161.

Including the following Hengelo and Denekamp warm periods, there was a span of about 20,000 years of mostly good weather. Haplogroup I made good use of the time to repopulate most of Europe.

The group that would become Haplogroup I went north and split going around both sides of Lake Pontus, the Black Sea in a fresh water phase. From there they re-populated Europe during the 10,000 year long Glinde-Moershoofd warm period. The timing was from from 50,000 to 39,400 years ago. (J spread from Kurdestan mostly to the south and west, populating the entire eastern and southern Mediterranean region.) There are still significant populations of subgroups of I and J remaining in Kurdestan. Here is a link to a map of the modern distribution of Haplogroup I. Kurdestan is at the lower right. (SNP M170 defines this group and is the key marker for the expansion of Cro-Magnons in Europe.)

The distribution maps suggest that Haplogroup I1 - M253 went to the east of the Black Sea to the far north and then were driven back south (up the Rhine, down the Danube) into the Balkan Refugium by the return of the ice about 28,000 years ago.
L-161 ancestors, the Cro-Magnons of Haplogroup I2- M438, went west of the Black Sea and north to the area that is now Ukraine and Moldova. From there, they populated most of Europe.

Cro-Magnon Cro-Magnons were just like us except the genes for blond hair [11 kya], blue eyes [10 kya] and pale skin [18 kya] had not yet developed.

43,000 y.a.: Grotta del Cavallo in Liguria Italy.

43,000 y.a.: Kent's Cavern in England

42,000 y.a.: Pestera cu Oase cave in Romania .

The cave is near the area of Lepenski Vir which is on the Serbian shore of the Danube. (The painting of Lepenski Vir at the top of the page is near the 'Iron Gates' on the Danube.) The fossils in this cave show admixture with Neanderthals up to 50%.

40,000 y.a.: Mamontovaya Kurya in the Russian Arctic.

38,000 y.a.: Cro-Magnons developed the Aurignacian stone tool technology. In many of the locations, there was evidence of occupation by both Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, though perhaps at separate times.

33,000 y.a.: Cro-Magnons domesticated dogs in Russia at the Kostyonki site.

32,000 y.a.: Cave paintings dating from the Aurignacian at Chauvet Cave in France.

and many others.

  Besides cultural exchange, things were sometimes more personal. DNA shows there was significant inter-breeding with Neanderthals near the Caucasus and all across Europe about this time. The result is that present-day humans of European stock have 1-4% Neanderthal DNA.
  We seek to understand how these two activities - the teaching of technology and the DNA exchange - happened. A number of suggestions have been made - rape, kidnapping, etc., but none of these would provide enough DNA to get to 4%. One reasonable explanation is that they may have been a result of exogamous, patrilocal marriage practices generally used by hunter-gatherers, including (as shown by archaeology, DNA studies, and the strontium ratios in Cro-Magnon female bones) the Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals. In this situation, Neanderthal brides would marry Cro-Magnon men and bring their knowledge of the Mousterian with them to live with their husband's family and teach them the better methods, and then the reverse. This was how the Cro-Magnons first learned the Mousterian and also how the Neanderthals later learned the improved Aurignacian technology. This hypothesis provides a workable mechanism for the cultural and DNA exchanges to have taken place.

Aurignacian
and
Cro-Magnon

The Neanderthals had developed the Mousterian technology and, in western Europe, were improving on it: there were localities in France using the advanced Chatelperronian and, in Italy, Uluzzian methods. These advanced styles did not spread significantly indicating isolation of the Neanderthal groups from each other. These advanced tool styles were far ahead of anything the Cro-Magnons had for the next 10,000 years until the development of the Aurignacian. Cro-Magnons taught the Aurignacian to the Neanderthals.

The radiocarbon date is in dispute. It may be as recent as 24,000 years ago. The location is Gorham's Cave in the Rock of Gibraltar.

Neanderthal family

A fictional, but probably realistic scenario is presented in Jean Auel's Earth's Children, an award-winning fiction series about a Cro-Magnon woman adopted into a Neanderthal tribe. An accompaniment to the Earth's Children books is Don's Maps a website by Don Hitchcock, an excellent and fascinating collection of source and resource materials related to the archaeology of the time.

(The term 'Cro-Magnon' is not used for people living after the Aurignacian.)

The Gravettian was the culture developed from the Aurignacian.

Venus Figurines

People in the Gravettian period used nets to hunt small game and small pointed blades for big-game hunting (bison, horse, reindeer and mammoth). They are noted for their many carvings of 'Venus figurines'. The Gravettian was spread from Ukraine to Spain probably by Haplogroup I The area was so large that the culture developed a western version in France and an eastern version for Central Europe and Russia. In eastern Europe there is a long gap between the "end" of the Gravettian and the development of the Hamburg Culture. During that gap, the culture in use was the Epi-Gravettian.

Northern Gravettian children

Founded just after the rather short (1,000 year) Meiendorf Interstadial warm period had ended. The timing was unfortunate since the next climate change was a quick change to a very severe cold period - the Oldest Dryas. Those who had settled westward all the way to France were able to retreat to Iberia, the Franco-Cantabrian area, and the Dalmatian coast to find refuge. The Ukraine refuge and the Danube valley remained open for passage, so some P37 were able to migrate west up the valley. Those who went north - died.
(SNP P37.2 defines this group)

P37 and subclades M423 and M26

I2-M438 and its several descendant subclades L460, M223, M26, P37, and M423 survived the extreme climate of the Oldest Dryas in the Ukraine refugium, in the Balkan refugium, in protected valleys along the length of the Danube and in the Ibero-Franco-Cantabrian refugium.

17,800 y.a.: 'Alpine' branched off P37-west in the Danube basin. West Isles, and "France" were some of the other splinter branches.

16,000 y.a.: Vesuvius erupted at VEI 5 magnitude

15,500 y.a.: 'Western' emerged from P37-west in the upper end of the Rhine or Danube.

14,670 y.a.: End of the Oldest Dryas ice age

17,900 y.a.__ Haplogroup M-423 , emerged from P37 in the Ukraine Refugium.

The founding was during the last millenium of the Oldest Dryas ice age, so it must have happened in a refugium. About 90% of modern Haplogroup M423 is in the Balkans. The other 10% is spread out over eastern Europe, with traces in western Europe and the Isles. (These groups are shown with yellow boxes and arrows in the diagram below). There is some disagreement as to whether it was the Balkan refugium or the Ukraine refugium. It could have been either one, but the complexities of getting the P37 up the Danube to found M26 in western France and then get M423 back down the Danube to found the Dinaric and Y3104 is a very complicated scenario. The simple scenario is that P37 was spread out over both the upper Danube and the Ukraine refugium at the same time.

Distribution of M423, Haplogroup I2a1a

15,500 y.a.: 'Western' emerged from P37-west in the upper end of the Rhine or Danube.

14,670 y.a.: End of the Oldest Dryas ice age;

From the end of the Younger Dryas, the glaciers have been in retreat. It was the beginning of the Boreal climate period with a climate similar to today's.

The difference between the paleolithic and the mesolithic is based on their technology and lifestyle. Paleolithic peoples used crude stone tools made by chipping and lived nomadically in crude shelters and caves. In the mesolithic, better stone tools were shaped and polished by grinding, pottery was coming into use, and some permanent housing structures were built.

The Don, the Dniester, the Dnieper, the Vistula, the Volga, and the Prut - all these rivers would lead northward allowing these migrants to reach the shores of a huge freshwater lake called Lake Ancylus (the Baltic Sea in a freshwater phase).

and westward across Doggerland. The Maglemosian lasted 3,000 years until the catastrophic "8.2 kiloyear event".

There are several other gene variations that cause blond and other colors of hair that occur randomly across the entire world.

This was a unique event affecting the OCA2 gene occured in one woman, resulting in blue eyes. This unique gene is transmitted mitochondrially. All blue-eyed people have this woman as an ancestor.

The founding location was somewhere between Lake Pontus (the Black Sea in a freshwater phase) and Doggerland. The founding was in the Boreal normal climate phase, so the geographic possibilities for the location are numerous. There were five major river deltas in that area, so the environment for hunter-gatherers was ideal.
(SNP L-161.1 defines this group)

Doggerland, a mesolithic paradise

Several subgroups of Haplogroup I2a coming north from the Iberian refugium would have been among the pioneers to cross the landbridge as the ice retreated and the 'forebulge' moved northward. People were not the only pioneers across the landbridge. Plants and animals also used the landbridge.
  

There were three main tsunamis over a 200 year span. The shoreline waves were estimated to be over 100' high (32 m.). In Scotland, traces of the tsunami have been recorded, with deposited sediment being discovered in Montrose Basin, the Firth of Forth, 50 miles (80 km) inland. These were much larger in scale, scope and fatalities to the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Many northern Haplogroups show evidence of a major 'population bottleneck' event at just this time. Haplogroup L161 shows evidence of a very severe 'population bottleneck' event at exactly this time - with a 98% extinction rate. The '8.2 ky events' are the 'Mt. Toba' of northern Europe, so it must be a major factor in that extinction.

Disaster in Doggerland

8,200 y.a.: The few survivors of L-161 were forced south

The splitting
of L-161

There were remaining dry parts of Doggerland still formed a landbridge near what are now the Dogger Banks in the North Sea. Southeast of there, the Rhine river came out of Europe and joined the Thames as they both flowed far south to the Atlantic ocean.

8,000 y.a.: Vesuvius erupted at VEI 6 magnitude

The major obstacle presented by the newly opened English Channel seems to have sloweded the new ideas from crossing and quickly making a successful foothold as they had done elsewhere. The Kongemose-like mesolithic culture stayed in use alongside the neolithic improvements in farming for another two thousand years.

Stone
Circles

The farmers were genetically similar to Iberians. It is thought they were haplogroup I who migrated north from the Iberian refugium. The stone circle 'religion', if it was one, remains a mystery. Stone circle construction seems to have started in northern England coastal areas and progressed southward along the west coast.

TMRCA = Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor

Stonehenge

The Windmill Hill culture, perhaps an "East Anglian tribe", began construction of the immense Stonehenge complex and the other nearby sites: Woodhenge, Durrington Walls henge, and the connecting pathways, etc.

See pg 19. The Bell Beaker folk came with copper technology, superior weapons, cavalry, and wagons. The mesolithis indigenous folk were no match for them. the result was a 95%+ replacement of the Y haplogroups. This may have been a displacement or it may have been a severe "ethnic cleansing".

Copper mining in Cork and tin mining in Cornwall

All Europe suffered. The population dropped by 25% from 36 million in 200 AD to 27 million in 500 AD. It took another 500 years for the population to climb back to what it was in 200 AD. It seems clear that the subgroups of L161 were not spared. The TMRCA of Isles C and D indicate some fairly serious bottlenecking. Isles A was very close to extinction.

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2,000 y.a.: Small invasions by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Danes began and continued for 500 years.

1,973 y.a.: The Roman invasion and conquest (43 AD) under the Emperor Claudius began a 350 year long series of rebellions and guerilla warfare.

1,937 y.a.: The VEI 5 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (79 AD) caused crop failures as well as burying Pompeii.

1,850 y.a.: The Antonine Plague and Britain's Great Plague.

1,750 y.a.: The Plagues of Cyprian and Aurellian wreaked havoc for 20 years.

1,600 y.a.: The Roman withdrawal (410 AD) left a power vacuum that was soon filled by the invading Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Danes.

1,500 y.a.: TMRCA of Isles D - Y4660

1,500 y.a.: Main Anglo-Saxon invasion. - Cerdic the Saxon became King of Wessex

The invasions were propeled by some frigid years of crop failure - a result perhaps of the TBJ volcanic eruption (next pagagraph).

Invasions by
Angles, Saxons
Jutes and Danes

The slave trade flourished selling native Britons (including Isles B) to the European continent. This could account for most of those rare Isles B individuals found there. In 577 AD, Cerdic's great-grandson Ceawlin completed the Saxon conquest of England with his victory at the battle of Deorham (in the suburbs of Bristol). (If you are of British stock, Ceawlin is your approximately 40th great-grandfather.)

1,500 y.a.: The enormous Tierra Blanco Joven - "TBJ" eruption

The eruption of the Ilopango volcano in El Salvador had disasterous effects killing millions worldwide. New findings would make it the second-largest volcanic eruption in the last 260,000 years (After Mt. Toba, VEI 8 - 73 kya, and tied for second/third place with the Oranui eruption, VEI 8 - 26.5 kya, and the Whakamaru eruption, VEI 8 - 254 kya, of New Zealand's Taupo volcanic zone,.

1,500 y.a.: Bond Event 1.

1,500 y.a.: AD 536 Events" caused two decades of famine.

1,500 y.a.: The Plague of Justinian killed at least 25 million Europeans

The 500 year long series of catastrophies from 2,000 to 1,500 years ago drove Isles A to the brink of extinction as is shown by the shockingly low TMRCA of 1450 years.
By 500 A.D. there may have been only one family of Isles A-PF4135 left alive. They were located in the area of Cork and Bantry Bay in southern Ireland. Then their luck abruptly changed about 1,450 years ago. Three new subclades were formed and they survived, something which had not happened in 1,500 years and another 4,000 years before the previous one. The three subclades were A13364, Y11772, and A11374. The most successful group was A13664 who made Cork their home and there they prospered, becoming the famous and powerful Driscolls. Y11772 developed two subgroups that migrated north, Y12075 and A11115. Y12075 successfully established a home in Scotland. A11115 went to the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. All the A11374 seem to have migrated to America. (One individual of A11115 settled in Wiltshire, south of Bristol, England. His great-grandson emigrated from Bristol to Virginia in 1635 so that group is now, so far as we have evidence, extinct in the British Isles.)