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| c. 6 million years ago |
| | | Various species of ape develop the habit of walking upright on two feet | |
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| c. 4.5 million years ago |
| | | Certain primates, in eastern and southern Africa, are by now sufficiently like humans to be classed as hominids | |
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| c. 3.6 million years old |
| | | Two or three hominid individuals, probably Australopithecus Afarensis, walk upright through volcanic ash at Laetoli, 30 miles south of Olduvai Gorge, and their footprints are preserved within subsequent ash deposits | |
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| c. 2.6 to 1.2 million years ago |
| | | Australopithecus Boisei lives in East Africa, and is possibly the first hominid species to use stone tools | |
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| c. 1.6 million years ago |
| | | Humans in coastal areas of South Africa extend their diet to include shellfish and other marine sources of food | |
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| 77,000 years ago |
| | | In the Blombos cave in South Africa stones are engraved with patterns of lines, either decorative or practical (as a form of tally) | |
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| c. 30,000 years ago |
| | | Painted and engraved images, on the rock face in a cave near Twyfelfontein in Namibia, date from this period | |
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| c. 2000 BC |
| | | Bantu-speaking tribes begin to spread through Africa, from their original homelands south of the Sahara | |
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| c. 2000 BC |
| | | Africa south of the equatorial forests is largely inhabited by the Khoisan, of whom the San and the Hottentots are the modern survivors | |
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| c. 600 BC |
| | | Phoenicians sail round the Cape of Good Hope and bring back the surprising news that the sun was seen to the north of them | |
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