200,000 Years Ago
OUR CLOSE RELATIVES , the upright hominid apes, have been around for about 2 million years. The first humans, the Neanderthals, appear in the fossil record only about 200,000 years ago, with modern men appearing 70,000 years later. Compared to the time spans we have been considering up to this point, this is very recent. At the scale of the cosmic walk up to this point, the entire story from the appearance of the Neanderthals to the present day would cover just 23.36 millimetres. It is therefore necessary to hugely increase the scale, allowing 2 metres for every 1,000 years.
Around 40,000 years ago, the first signs of art appear among the artefacts associated with man on several continents, indicating a major cultural change. That will be the subject of the next station.
NEANDERTHAL MAN, Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis appeared about 200,000 years ago, and continued to evolve until about 30,000 years ago. The earliest remains of modern man, Homo Sapiens sapiens, have been found in the East and date from about 130,000 years ago. Modern Man co-existed with Neanderthal Man for some time in Europe, before replacing him.
This happened in spite of the fact that Neanderthals had a larger brain capacity. It has been whimsically suggested that Neanderthals were a race of philosophers, which did not save them from being occasionally eaten by Modern Man and ultimately wiped out.