Modern Humans evolve in Africa, including South Africa and the first African people begin to settle in South Africa. Hundreds of years later the first Europeans set foot on South African soil for the first time.
BP = Before present, calculated backwards from the date AD 1950
4 000 000 BP
Australopithecus: 'southern ape'. These proto-human hominids walked upright and had longer thighs and shorter arms than other primates. The earliest species were partially tree dwelling. Australopithecines roamed the African Savannahs from 4 to 1.5 million years ago.
3 000 000 BP
The discovery of the oldest complete fossilised hominid or human-like skeleton in South Africa, announced on 9 December 1998, proves that Australopithecus africanus roamed the area much further back than was estimated before. The skeleton has been dated at between 3.22 and 3.58 million years old by the Geomagnetism Laboratory at the University of Liverpool.
2 500 000 BP
The skull of 'Mrs Ples' and the Sts 14 skeleton, belonging to the species Australopithecus africanus and discovered at the Sterkfontein Caves in 1947, indicate that distant relatives of mankind inhabited the area at the time. The age of the fossils are estimated to be 2.6 to 2.8 million years. These fossils support the theory that mankind evolved from Africa.
2 000 000 BP
Homo habilis makes the first stone tools in Eastern Africa. Note: Homo habilis meaning 'handy man', this species, with an increased brain size, lived from about 2.2 to 1.8 million years ago and was the first member of the genus Homo who made tools.
Homo habilis makes the first stone tools in Southern Africa.
1 500 000 BP
Homo ergaster (homo erectus) spreads through Africa. Note: Homo ergaster lived 1.8 million to 500 000 years ago.
1 000 000 BP
Homo ergaster (homo erectus) leaves Africa. Some individuals left Africa about 1 million years ago and spread to southern Europe, Russia, the Near East, India, Indonesia and China. They were hunter-gatherers and made stone tools such as hand-axes, cleavers and choppers.
200 000-100 000 BP
The evolution of Homo sapiens in Africa. Note: Homo sapiens means 'wise man'. They lived about 500 000 - 100 000 years ago throughout Africa, southern Europe and Asia. Their brain size was similar to that of people today, but shape of the brain suggests they did not think as we do.
115 000 BP
Homo sapiens present in South Africa.
14 000-15 000 BP
Dated rock paintings reveal that Ancestors of the San hunter-gatherers are widely distributed in Southern Africa at this stage.
4 000 BP
Iron Age (North Africa)
500 BP
Settled Iron Age communities in sub-Saharan Africa (agriculture)
2200 BP
It is estimated that some San groups in present-day northern Botswana acquire domesticated livestock and became pastoralists (Khoikhoi). They move south, and their new socio-economic order leads them to be anthropologically described as Khoikhoi hunter-herders.
2 000 BP
Khoikhoi herders reach the southern tip of Africa.
c. AD 200
Farming communities acquainted with the use of iron, and regarded as the forebears of Bantu-speaking people, establish themselves south of what becomes known as the Limpopo River.
Start of the southern African Iron Age period.
c. 400 AD
Early Iron Age people settle in what is now known as Kwa-Zulu Natal.
c. AD 500
Early Iron Age people develop a new form of pottery. This form is best represented in pottery fragments that have been assembled and subsequently become known as the Lydenburg Heads.
c. AD 600
Iron Age people settle along the south-eastern seaboard as far as Mpame, in the region later to be known as the Transkei.
c. AD 600
Beginnings of the Late Iron Age in the Southern Africa region lead to a greater concentration of settlement on the central Highveld of Southern Africa.
