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A continent is a large geographical region defined by the continental shelves and the cultures on the continent. [1] In the modern day, there are seven continents. However, there have been more continents throughout history. Vaalbara was the first supercontinent. [2] Europe is the newest continent. [3]
Within Africa, Homo sapiens dispersed around the time of its speciation, roughly 300,000 years ago. [ note 1 ] The recent African origin theory suggests that the anatomically modern humans outside of Africa descend from a population of Homo sapiens migrating from East Africa roughly 70–50,000 years ago and spreading along the southern coast ...
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500–1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early European modern humans appear in the fossil record about 48,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic era.
That continent began to exert political and cultural dominance over human societies around the world, a time known as the Colonial era (also see Age of Discovery). [ 195 ] : 295–299 In the 18th century a cultural movement known as the Age of Enlightenment further shaped the mentality of Europe and contributed to its secularization .
Near the equator Pangaea began to consolidate from the plates containing North America and Europe, further raising the northern Appalachian Mountains and forming the Caledonian Mountains in Great Britain and Scandinavia. The southern continents remained tied together in the supercontinent of Gondwana. The remainder of modern Eurasia lay in the ...
Europe was unknown although may have become part of the Egyptian world view in Phoenician times. To the west of Asia lay the realms of Keftiu , possibly Crete , and Mycenae (thought to be part of a chain of islands, that joined Cyprus , Crete, Sicily and later perhaps Sardinia , Corsica and the Balearics to Africa).
Cabral was the first captain to touch four continents, leading the first expedition that connected and united Europe, Africa, the New World, and Asia. [ 120 ] [ 121 ] At the invitation of King Manuel I of Portugal, Amerigo Vespucci [ 122 ] participated as an observer in these exploratory voyages to the east coast of South America.
Asia and Europe are considered separate continents for historical reasons; the division between the two goes back to the early Greek geographers. In the modern sense of the term "continent", Eurasia is more readily identifiable as a "continent", and Europe has occasionally been described as a subcontinent of Eurasia.