"Homo sapiens" has lived from about 250,000 years ago to the present. Between 400,000 years ago and the second warm period in the Middle Pleistocene, around 250,000 years ago, its skull grew and more sophisticated technologies based on stone tools developed. One possibility is that a transition between "H. erectus" to "H. sapiens" occurred. The evidence of Java Man suggests there was an initial migration of "H. erectus" out of Africa. Then, much later, a further development of "H. sapiens" from "H. erectus" in Africa. Then a subsequent migration within and out of Africa eventually replaced the earlier "H. erectus".
Studies of the human genome, especially the Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA, have supported a recent African origin. Evidence from autosomal DNA also supports the recent African origin. The details of this great saga are not fully established yet, but by about 90,000 years ago they had moved into Eurasia and the Middle East. This was the area where Neanderthals, "Homo neanderthalensis", had been living for a long time (at least 500,000 years in western Europe).
By about 42 to 44,000 years ago "Homo sapiens" had reached western Europe, including Britain. In Europe and western Asia, "Homo sapiens" replaced the Neanderthals by about 35,000 years ago. The details of how this happened are not known.
At roughly the same time "Homo sapiens" arrived in Australia (However a recent archaeological dig in Kakadu, Northern Territory, may suggest "Homo sapiens" arrived in Australia 65,000 years ago). Their arrival in the Americas was much later, about 15,000 years ago. All these earlier groups of modern man were hunter-gatherers.
Current research has established that human beings are genetically rather homogenous (similar). The DNA of individuals is more alike than usual for most species. This may have resulted from their relatively recent evolution or from the Toba catastrophe. Distinctive genetic have arisen as a result of small groups of people moving into new environmental circumstances. These adapted traits are a very small component of the "Homo sapiens" genome and include such outward 'racial' characteristics as skin color and nose shape, and internal characteristics such as the ability to breathe more efficiently at high altitudes.
"H. sapiens idaltu", from Ethiopia, about 160,000 years ago, is a proposed subspecies. It is the oldest known anatomically modern human.
This list is in chronological order by genus.
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a civilization that started in the city of Rome and the land of Latium on the Italian Peninsula. Roman civilization was the most important civilization in the Mediterranean region, Europe, and the Near East from the late 3rd century BC. Roman civilization was in existence all through Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and the Middle Ages, but "ancient Rome" means the ancient history of Roman civilization before the Middle Ages. Traditionally, the fall of the western Roman Empire during the 5th century AD is named the start of the Middle Ages in western Europe.
In Classical Antiquity, the Roman Empire controlled a very large area of land, which stretched from Great Britain to the Arabian Peninsula. Ancient Rome has been very important to the history of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, where the Romans controlled many lands. Ancient Rome's culture took many ideas from other civilizations, especially Ancient Greece and the Greek kingdoms of the Hellenistic period. Ancient Romans' ideas have been very influential for later civilizations. The Romans' Latin language became the most common language in the western Mediterranean and western Europe, and is the ancestor of Romance languages. The Roman emperors were responsible for making Christianity the Romans' state religion, and the Romans spread Christianity across the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. Roman Christianity replaced Roman religion and other traditional religions. The Romans made many improvements to engineering, architecture, irrigation, and transport.
Rome began as a small farming community in the 8th century BC. The city of Rome was founded, according to legend, on 21 April 753 BC. It became a city and a state and had the , which Roman mythology said came from their first king, Romulus. Rome was first a kingdom, but its last king, Tarquinius Superbus, was sent away in a revolution started by Lucius Junius Brutus. The Roman state became a republic. The city-state grew to control the Italian Peninsula during the Hellenistic period, and fought the Punic Wars with the Carthaginian Republic. After overcoming the Carthaginians, the Roman Republic became the most powerful state in the western Mediterranean.
The Romans became the most powerful state in the eastern Mediterranean after wars with Macedonia, and the Mithridatic Wars with Kingdom of Pontus. The Hellenistic period and the Roman Republic ended when, after Julius Caesar was assassinated, the Romans fought a long civil war. At the end of these wars, Augustus overcame his Roman enemies and the Ptolemaic dynasty, who controlled the kingdom of Egypt. Augustus became the first Roman emperor and Roman civilization controlled all the lands around the Mediterranean Sea.
In 293 AD, Diocletian split the government of the empire into two parts, east and west. From Diocletian's time there was usually more than one emperor at a time, each controlling a part of the empire. In the 5th century AD, the lands of the western Roman Empire split up into different kingdoms. After Romulus Augustulus there were no more emperors in the western empire, and the government of the western Roman Empire ended in 476 AD. In Western Europe, this is the end of Antiquity and the start of the Early Middle Ages. The Romans lost control of Rome and most of the Italian Peninsula. After that, the Roman Empire in the Middle Ages is sometimes named the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire. Historians use this name because the Romans' capital city was Constantinople (also called Byzantium), and its emperors controlled the eastern half of the Mediterranean Basin. The Roman Empire was in existence until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when it was defeated by the Ottoman Empire.
Roman culture spread to Western Europe and the area around the Mediterranean Sea. Its history still has a big influence on the world today. For example, Roman ideas about laws, government, art, literature, and language are important to European culture. The Roman language, Latin, slowly evolved, becoming modern French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and many other languages. Latin also indirectly influenced many other languages such as English.
The most common religion of ancient Rome in its first centuries was Graeco-Roman polytheism. The traditional religion of the city of Rome was polytheist (with many gods). The most important gods were the Capitoline triad: three gods worshipped on the Capitoline Hill. The three were Jupiter (the father and king of the gods), Juno (the queen of the gods), and Minerva (the goddess of wisdom). The goddess Minerva was born without a mother from the body of Jupiter. Roman mythology said that among the Romans' ancestors were Venus (goddess of love) and Mars (a god of war and the son of Jupiter and Juno). The gods Apollo and Bacchus were taken by the Romans from Greek mythology, and many of the Romans' religious practices were the same as those of the ancient Greeks. The Romans also worshipped the goddesses Cybele and Isis, whose cults they took from Hellenistic Anatolia and Egypt.