-
50,000 BC
The Sahara desert region is wet and fertile. Later Stone Age begins in Africa. -
45,000
Chatelperronian culture in France -
42,000
earliest evidence of advanced deep sea fishing technology at the Jerimalai cave site in East Timor - demonstrates high-level maritime skills and by implication the technology needed to make ocean crossings to reach Australia and other islands, as they were catching and consuming large numbers of big deep sea fish such as tuna -
40,000
extinction of Homo neanderthalensis -
35,000
oldest known figurative art of a human figure as opposed to a zoomorphic figure -
33,000
oldest known domesticated dog skulls show they existed in both Europe and Siberia by this time -
30,000
rock paintings tradition begins in Bhimbetka rock shelters in India, which presently as a collection is the densest known concentration of rock art. In an area about 10 sq km, there are about 800 rock shelters of which 500 contain paintings. -
28,000
Gravettian period in Europe. Harpoons, needles, and saws invented -
25,000
first colonization of North America -
15,000
The woolly rhinoceros goes extinct -
13,000
A major outbreak occurs on Lake Agassiz, which at the time could have been the size of the current Black Sea and the largest lake on Earth. Much of the lake is drained in the Arctic Ocean through the Mackenzie river. -
12,000
Earliest dates suggested for the domestication of the goat