"ago in the Atapuerca Mountains, Spain. While lacking the robustness attributed to west European Neanderthal morphology, other populations did inhabit parts of eastern Europe and western Asia. Between 45,000 - 35,000 years ago, modern humans (""Homo sapiens"") replaced all Neanderthal populations in Europe anatomically and genetically. This is evident in the transfer and combination of technology and culture. The recent expansion of anatomically modern humans reached Europe around 40,000 years ago, from Central Asia and the Middle East, as a result of cultural adaption to big game hunting of sub-glacial steppe fauna. Neanderthals were present both in the Middle East"
"from their lairs in the early-morning hours. With the exception of the highly social spotted hyena, hyenas are generally not gregarious animals, though they may live in family groups and congregate at kills. Hyenas first arose in Eurasia during the Miocene period from viverrid-like ancestors, and diversified into two distinct types: lightly built dog-like hyenas and robust bone-crushing hyenas. Although the dog-like hyenas thrived 15 million years ago (with one taxon having colonised North America), they became extinct after a change in climate along with the arrival of canids into Eurasia. Of the dog-like hyena lineage, only the insectivorous aardwolf"
"suggests that mating occurred in this area between modern humans and a now extinct hominin. Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans There is evidence for interbreeding between archaic and modern humans during the Middle Paleolithic and early Upper Paleolithic. The interbreeding happened in several independent events that included Neanderthals, Denisovans, as well as several unidentified hominins. In Eurasia, interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans with modern humans took place several times. The introgression events into modern humans is estimated to have happened about 47,000–65,000 years ago with Neanderthals and about 44,000–54,000 years ago with Denisovans. Neanderthal-derived DNA was found in the"
"2 million years, eventually evolving into ""H. heidelbergensis / H. rhodesiensis"", which in turn evolved into ""H. sapiens"". Reed, et al. shows ""Homo ergaster"" as the ancestor of ""Homo erectus""; then it is ""ergaster"", or a variety of ""ergaster"", or perhaps a hybrid of ""ergaster"" and ""erectus"", which develops into species that evolve into archaic and then modern humans and then out of Africa. Both models show the Asian variety of ""Homo erectus"" going extinct recently. And both models indicate species admixture: early modern humans spread from Africa across different regions of the globe and interbred with earlier descendants of"
"rhinos. Kolbert uses this rhino species to illustrate habitat fragmentation as another mechanism of extinction. Europe was home to the Neanderthals for at least 100,000 years. Then, about 30,000 years ago, the Neanderthals vanished. Fossil records show that modern humans arrived in Europe 40,000 years ago. Within 10,000 years, Neanderthals were bred out. Through molecular sequencing, scientists have found that there is one percent to four percent Neanderthal DNA in all non-African humans. This indicates that humans and Neanderthals reproduced, and then the resulting hybrids reproduced. The pattern continued until Neanderthals were literally bred out. Kolbert states there is every"
"Aegyptopithecus Aegyptopithecus (""Egyptian ape"", from Greek ""Αίγυπτος"" ""Egypt"" and ""πίθηκος"" ""ape"") is an early fossil catarrhine that predates the divergence between hominoids (apes) and cercopithecids (Old World monkeys). It is known from a single species, Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, which lived around 30 million years ago in the early part of the Oligocene epoch. It likely resembled modern-day New World monkeys, and was about the same size as a modern howler monkey, which is about long. ""Aegyptopithecus"" fossils have been found in the Jebel Qatrani Formation of modern-day Egypt. ""Aegyptopithecus"" is believed to be a stem-catarrhine, a crucial link between Eocene and"
"more northernly range. For example, hippopotamus inhabited Great Britain and straight-tusked elephant the Netherlands, as recently as 80,000 BCE and 42,000 BCE respectively. The first possible indications of habitation by hominins are the 7.2 million year old finds of ""Graecopithecus"", and 5.7 million year old footprints in Crete — however established habitation is noted in Georgia from 1.8 million years ago, proceeded to Germany and France, by ""Homo erectus"". Prominent co-current and subsequent species include ""Homo antecessor"", ""Homo cepranensis"", ""Homo heidelbergensis"", Neanderthals and Denisovans, preceding human habitation circa 38,000 BCE. Europe's Late Pleistocene biota went through two phases of extinction."
"European early modern humans (historically called Cro-Magnon Man), leading to the extinction of Neanderthals about 40,000 years ago. In the early Miocene, Europe had a subtropical climate and was intermittently connected to Africa by land bridges. At the same time, Africa was becoming more arid, prompting the dispersal of its tropical fauna—including primates—north into Europe. Apes first appear in the European fossil record 17 million years ago with ""Griphopithecus."" The closely related ""Kenyapithecus"" is also known from fossils in Germany, Slovakia and Turkey. Both ""Griphopithecus"" and ""Kenyapithecus"" are considered likely to be ancestral to the great apes. From 13 million"
"which became isolated in forest refugia; and ""Ouranopithecus"", which adapted to the open environments of the late Miocene. However, both were extinct by 7 million years ago. In 2017, a reanalysis of ""Graecopithecus"" fossils from Greece and Bulgaria, previously associated with ""Ouranopithecus"", concluded that the species was in fact a hominin dating to just after the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees (about 7.2 million years ago). The authors suggested that the origins of the human lineage were therefore in the Mediterranean, not Africa. Others are sceptical of their claims. Although subtropical conditions returned to Europe in the Pliocene"
"Eurasian groups; these, before going extinct, were domesticated independently into two distinct dog populations between 14,000 and 6,400 years ago. The Western Eurasian dog population was partially and gradually replaced by East Asian dogs introduced by humans at least 6,400 years ago. Six million years ago, towards the close of the Miocene era, the earth's climate was gradually cooling and this led to the glaciations of the Pliocene and the Pleistocene – the Ice Age. In many areas, forests and savannahs were replaced with steppe or grasslands and only those creatures that could adapt survived. In southern North America, small"
"dated to around 10 million years ago, may be represented by ""Sivapithecus"" from India and ""Griphopithecus"" from Turkey. Species close to the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans may be represented by ""Nakalipithecus"" fossils found in Kenya and ""Ouranopithecus"" found in Greece. Molecular evidence suggests that between 8 and 4 million years ago, first the gorillas (genus ""Gorilla""), and then the chimpanzees (genus ""Pan"") split off from the line leading to the humans. Human DNA is approximately 98.4% identical to that of chimpanzees when comparing single nucleotide polymorphisms (see human evolutionary genetics). The fossil record, however, of gorillas"
"in both Europe and Asia. Hybridization between Neanderthals and Cro Magnon had been suggested on skeletal and craniological grounds since the early 20th century, and found increasing support in the later 20th century, until Neanderthal admixture was found to be present in modern populations genetics in the 2010s. Both Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans were initially thought to have evolved from ""Homo erectus"" between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. ""H. erectus"" had emerged around 1.8 million years ago, and had long been present, in various subspecies throughout Eurasia. The divergence time between the Neanderthal and archaic ""Homo sapiens"" lineages is"
"another prehistoric hominid species which occurred in present-day Greece. The evolutionary importance of ""Nakalipithecus"" is twofold: first, together with ""Ouranopithecus"" it provides evidence that current Homininae lineages (gorillas, chimpanzees, humans) diverged from a common ancestor not before about 8 million years ago. Second, it supports the theory that the closest relatives of humans evolved in Africa. The competing view – that modern-type Great Apes went extinct in Africa and that the Homininae were originally an Asian lineage which only later recolonized Africa – is hard to reconcile with the early Late Miocene presence of a basal hominine in Africa. Nakalipithecus"
"Europe between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago, the two different human populations shared Europe for as long as 5,000 years. Nonetheless, the exact nature of biological and cultural interaction between Neanderthals and other human groups has been contested. Modern humans co-existed with them in Europe starting around 45,000 years ago and perhaps even earlier. Neanderthals inhabited that continent long before the arrival of modern humans. These modern humans may have introduced a disease that contributed to the extinction of Neanderthals, and that may be added to other recent explanations for their extinction. When Neanderthal ancestors left Africa potentially as early"
"Aurochs The aurochs ( or ; pl. aurochs, or rarely aurochsen, aurochses), also known as urus or ure (""Bos primigenius""), is an extinct species of large wild cattle that inhabited Europe, Asia, and North Africa. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle; it has also been suggested as an ancestor genetically to the modern European bison, which have been crossbred with steppe bison. The species survived in Europe until 1627, when the last recorded aurochs died in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland. During the Neolithic Revolution, which occurred during the early Holocene, at least two aurochs domestication events occurred: one related"
"the presence of hyenas there may have delayed the colonisation of North America. The causes of the species' extinction in Eurasia are still largely unknown. In Western Europe at least, the spotted hyena's extinction coincided with a decline in grasslands 12,500 years ago. Europe experienced a massive loss of lowland habitats favoured by spotted hyenas, and a corresponding increase in mixed woodlands. Spotted hyenas, under these circumstances, would have been outcompeted by wolves and humans which were as much at home in forests as in open lands, and in highlands as in lowlands. Spotted hyena populations began to shrink roughly"
"lived during this time, ranging throughout Africa, Asia and Europe and varying widely in size, diet, and anatomy. Due to scanty fossil evidence it is unclear which ape or apes contributed to the modern hominid clade, but molecular evidence indicates this ape lived between 7 and 8 million years ago. The first hominins (bipedal apes of the human lineage) appeared in Africa at the very end of the Miocene, including ""Sahelanthropus"", ""Orrorin"", and an early form of ""Ardipithecus"" (""A. kadabba"") The chimpanzee–human divergence is thought to have occurred at this time. The expansion of grasslands in North America also led"
"the two hominid species likely coexisted in Europe, anthropologists have long wondered whether the two interacted. The question was resolved only in 2010, when it was established that Eurasian populations exhibit Neanderthal admixture, estimated at 1.5–2.1% on average. The question now became whether this admixture had taken place in Europe, or rather in the Levant, prior to AMH migration into Europe. There has also been speculation about the inheritance of specific genes from Neanderthals. For example, one MAPT locus 17q21.3 which is split into deep genetic lineages H1 and H2. Since the H2 lineage seems restricted to European populations, several"
"of the genus would have implications on the taxonomy of extinct species closely related to humans, including ""Australopithecus"". The current line between ""Homo"" and non-""Homo"" species is drawn about 2.5 million years ago, and chimpanzee and human ancestry converge only about 7 million years ago, with the emergence of ""Sahelanthropus"", nearly three times longer. DNA evidence suggests the bonobo and common chimpanzee species effectively separated from each other fewer than one million years ago. The ""Pan"" line split from the last common ancestor shared with humans approximately six to seven million years ago. Because no species other than ""Homo sapiens"""
"Some fauna became extinct before 13,000 BCE, in staggered intervals, particularly between 50,000 BCE and 30,000 BCE. Species include cave bear, ""Elasmotherium"", straight-tusked elephant, ""Stephanorhinus"", water buffalo, Neanderthals, gazelle, and ""Homotherium"". However, the great majority of species were extinguished, extirpated or experienced severe population contractions between 13,000 BCE and 9,000 BCE, ending with the Younger Dryas. At that time there were small ice sheets in Scotland and Scandinavia. The mammoth steppe disappeared from the vast majority of its former range, either due to a permanent shift in climatic conditions, or an absence of ecosystem management due to decimated, fragmented or"
"mutationism and polyploidy. It is also more occasionally done in the livestock and pet trades; some well-known wild × domestic hybrids are beefalo and wolfdogs. Human selective breeding of domesticated animals and plants has resulted is the development of distinct breeds (usually called cultivars in reference to plants); crossbreeds between them (without any wild stock) are sometimes also imprecisely referred to as ""hybrids"". Hybrid humans existed in prehistory. For example, Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans are thought to have interbred as recently as 40,000 years ago. Mythological hybrids appear in human culture in forms as diverse as the Minotaur, blends"
"ago and resulted in the first arrival of hyenas in Europe and a separation of African spotted hyenas into a southern and a northern population. The third spotted hyena migration took place 0.36 million years ago, starting from the northern African population and reaching both Europe and Asia. Unlike other African carnivores, with the exception of the leopard, there is no evidence to suggest that spotted hyenas underwent a genetic bottleneck during the Pleistocene. The ancestors of the genus ""Crocuta"" diverged from ""Hyaena"" (the genus of striped and brown hyenas) 10 million years ago. The ancestors of the spotted hyena"
"and kiang), followed by the African zebras (subgenera ""E. (Dolichohippus)"", and ""E. (Hippotigris)""). All other modern forms including the domesticated horse (and many fossil Pliocene and Pleistocene forms) belong to the subgenus ""E. (Equus)"" which diverged ~4.8 (3.2–6.5) million years ago. The ancestors of the modern donkey are the Nubian and Somalian subspecies of African wild ass. By the end of the fourth millennium BC, the donkey had spread to Southwest Asia, and the main breeding center had shifted to Mesopotamia by 1800 BC. The breeding of large, white riding asses made Damascus famous, while Syrian breeders developed at least"
"Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ;) (""Homo neanderthalensis"" or ""Homo sapiens neanderthalensis"") are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans in the genus ""Homo"", who lived in Eurasia until 40,000 years ago. Currently earliest fossils of Neanderthals in Europe are dated between 430,000 to 450,000 years ago, and thereafter Neanderthals expanded into Southwest and Central Asia. They are known from numerous fossils, as well as stone tool assemblages. Almost all assemblages younger than 160,000 years are of the so-called Mousterian techno-complex, which is characterised by tools made out of stone flakes. The type specimen is Neanderthal 1, found in Neander"
"out of Africa is estimated to have begun about 70,000 years BP and modern humans subsequently spread globally, replacing earlier hominins either through competition or hybridization. They inhabited Eurasia and Oceania by 40,000 years BP, and the Americas by at least 14,500 years BP. The hypothesis of interbreeding, also known as hybridization, admixture or hybrid-origin theory, has been discussed ever since the discovery of Neanderthal remains in the 19th century. The linear view of human evolution began to be abandoned in the 1970s as different species of humans were discovered that made the linear concept increasingly unlikely. In the 21st"
"with just one in South America (counting the llama and alpaca as breeds within the same species) and none at all in the rest of the world. Australia and North America suffered from a lack of useful animals due to extinction, probably by human hunting, shortly after the end of the Pleistocene, whilst the only domesticated animals in New Guinea came from the East Asian mainland during the Austronesian settlement some 4,000–5,000 years ago. Sub-Saharan biological relatives of the horse including zebras and onagers proved untameable; and although African elephants can be tamed, it is very difficult to breed them"
"to 9 million years ago, hominids flourished in Europe and underwent an adaptive radiation as they diversified in response to a gradually cooling climate. Middle Miocene European hominids include ""Pierolapithecus"", ""Anoiapithecus"", ""Dryopithecus"", ""Hispanopithecus"", and ""Rudapithecus"". The diversity and early appearance of great apes in Europe has led some scientists to theorise that hominids in fact evolved there, before dispersing ""back to Africa"" in the Middle Miocene. Around 9 million years ago most of Europe's hominid species fell victim to the Vallesian crisis, an extinction event caused by the disappearance of the continent's forests. Some hominid species survived the event: ""Orepithecus"","
"species like reindeer and aurochs. Some sites as far north as Sweden inhabited earlier than 10,000 years ago suggest that humans might have used glacial termini as places from which they hunted migratory game. These factors and ecological changes brought humans to the edge of the northernmost ice-free zones of Europe by the onset of the Holocene and this included regions close to Ireland. Britain and Ireland may have been joined by a land bridge, but because this link, if ever existed, was cut by rising sea-levels so early into the warm period, probably by 16,000 BC, few temperate terrestrial"
"European ass The European ass ""(Equus hydruntinus)"" is an extinct equine from the middle and late Pleistocene of Eurasia. It appeared first in the fossil report 300,000 years before present and did not disappear until Holocene times. In the late Pleistocene it was widespread throughout much of western Eurasia from the Middle East to Europe, especially along the Mediterranean, with fossil reports from Sicily, Turkey, Spain, France and Portugal. In the east the range apparently stretched at least to the Volga and to Iran. In the north it reached almost to the North Sea in Germany. It is possible that"
"Asia in the Eocene. At the end of the Oligocene, ""Microbunodon"" migrated to Europe and spread rapidly, along with other Artiodactyls. This event is known as the ""Microbunodon"" event, due to the significant impact that the invasion of these animals had on European fauna of the period (Scherler et al., 2013; Mennecart, 2015). Microbunodon Microbunodon was a genus of extinct artiodactyl mammals in the family Anthracotheriidae. It lived between the upper Eocene and the lower Pliocene (about 35–5 million years ago). Its fossil remains have been found in Europe and Asia. ""Microbunodon"", unlike most of its close relatives, was small"
"other bovines and bovids with their short, thick legs and smooth horns presented in both sexes. Bovins and humans have had a long and complex relationship. Five of seven species have been successfully domesticated, with one species (cattle) being the most successful member of their lineage. Domesticated shortly after the last Ice Age, there are at least 1.4 billion cattle in the world. Domestic bovins have been selectively bred for beef, dairy products, leather and serve as working animals. However many species of wild cattle are threatened by extinction due to habitat loss to make room for cattle farming as"
"even 600.000 years ago. However some studies still question ""Ursus ingressus"" and ""Ursus spelaeus"" to be separate species, but rather subspecies. The Gamssulzen Cave bear survived ""Ursus spelaeus"" for about 1000 to 2000 years, locally replacing this species, but also became extinct about 30.000 years ago, just prior to the Last Glacial Maximum. Reasons for their extinction are still being discussed, with climate change or human hunting as possible reasons. Ursus ingressus Ursus ingressus, the Gamssulzen Cave bear is an extinct species of the family Ursidae that lived in Central Europe during the Late Pleistocene. It is named after the"
"of the Tasso Faunal Unit and were replaced by the mid-Pleistocene era Mosbach wolf (""C. mosbachensis"" Soergel, 1925) by 1.5 million years ago. Canis etruscus Canis etruscus (the Etruscan wolf) is an extinct species of canine that was endemic to Mediterranean Europe during the Early Pleistocene. The Etruscan wolf has been described as a small wolf-like dog. The Etruscan wolf is accepted as the ancestor of ""C. mosbachensis"" that is the ancestor of the gray wolf (""C. lupus""). The fossil record for ancient vertebrates is composed of rarely occurring fragments from which it is often impossible to obtain genetic material."