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The earliest direct evidence of life are stromatolites found in 3.48 billion-year-old chert in the Dresser formation of the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia. [4] Several features in these fossils are difficult to explain with abiotic processes, for example, the thickening of laminae over flexure crests that is expected from more sunlight. [57]
Before Homo sapiens, Homo erectus had already spread throughout Africa and non-Arctic Eurasia by about one million years ago. The oldest known evidence for anatomically modern humans (as of 2017) are fossils found at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, dated about 360,000 years old.
After 1.5 million years ago (extinction of Paranthropus), all fossils shown are human (genus Homo). After 11,500 years ago (11.5 ka, beginning of the Holocene), all fossils shown are Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans), illustrating recent divergence in the formation of modern human sub-populations.
Possible remains of biotic life were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. [26] [27] Probable origin of life. 4000 Ma Formation of a greenstone belt of the Acasta Gneiss of the Slave craton in northwest Canada - the oldest known rock belt. [28] 3900–2500 Ma Cells resembling prokaryotes appear. [29]
A recently-discovered fossil from Brazil appears to show a snake with four legs. This is the first of its kind known to scientists, and at over 110 million years old, is the oldest snake fossil on ...
A 68-million-year-old skull fossil found in Antarctica has revealed the oldest known modern bird, which was likely related to the waterfowl that live by lakes and oceans today, according to new ...
Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,490,000 years old, it was, at the time of its discovery, the oldest hominid fossil ever found, and it remains the type specimen for Homo erectus. Led by Eugène Dubois, the excavation team uncovered a tooth, a skullcap, and a thighbone at Trinil on the banks of the Solo River in East Java.
The discovery of a newly identified species — the oldest saber-toothed animal found and an ancient cousin to mammals — fills a longstanding gap in the fossil record.