3.5 billion years ago First life on earth - bacteria
Fossilized bacteria have been found in rock 3.5 billion years old in Africa

3.2 million years ago Lucy in Ethiopia
A female of the species Australopithecus Afarensis (nicknamed Lucy when her skeleton is found), lives in the Afar Depression in Ethiopia within 50 miles of where her predecessor Ardi was unearthed

1.8 million years ago Our first identifiable ancestor
A species of human in east Africa, Homo erectus, is probably the first identifiable ancestor of modern man

1.7 million years ago Humans move into Asia and Europe
Homo erectus, moves out of Africa and begins to spread through Europe and Asia

1.6 million years ago Nariokotome Boy in Kenya
A Homo erectus boy, aged about ten, lives near Lake Turkana in Kenya and dies at Nariokotome

500,000 years ago Use found for fire
Fire is used in China by Peking man, and may have been in use much earlier in Africa

500,000 years ago Man in Beijing cave
Peking man shelters in caves south of modern Beijing, leaving many scraps of evidence of his way of life

250,000 years ago Spear stab for German elephant
A spear of hardened yew, presumably flung or thrust by a human, fixes itself between the ribs of an elephant in what is now Saxony

230,000 years ago Homo sapiens
Humans evolve who can be classified as Homo sapiens - among them Neanderthal Man

150,000 years ago Second migration from Africa?
A possible second migration from Africa begins, involving at some time the ancestors of modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens

90,000 years ago First glimpse of modern man
Fossilized bones found in the caves of Skhul and Qafzeh, in modern Israel, are of anatomically modern humans

60,000 years ago Humans cross to Australia
The first human inhabitants of Australia make the crossing from southeast Asia

45,000 years ago Flute made from bone of bear
Neanderthals carve a flute from the leg bone of a young bear, in the region that is now Slovenia

35,000 years ago Mammoth tusks in tent design
Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers use mammoth tusks and bones to support hide-covered tents at Dolni Vestonice (in the Czech Republic)

35,000 years ago Neanderthals die out
The Neanderthals vanish quite suddenly from the fossil record, leaving modern humans as the only surviving members of our species

31,000 years ago Earliest known paintings
Rhinoceroses, lions and mammoth feature on the walls of the Chauvet cave, in southern France

30,000 years ago Asians settle in America
With the sea level falling, a land bridge (known as Beringia) forms between Siberia and Alaska, enabling humans to enter the continent of America

15,000 years ago Human traces in Los Angeles
The La Brea tarpit in Los Angeles shows signs of human activity in the region

15,000 years ago Needles of bone, threads of horse hair
Needles of bone or ivory are now fine enough to take a thread as thin as horse hair

12,000 years ago Humans and dogs team up
A canine jaw, discovered in a cave in Mesopotamia, is the earliest evidence of the domestication of dogs

8000 BC Sheep the first farm animals
Sheep are the first farm animals of which evidence of domestication survives, from a settlement in northern Iraq

8000 BC Jericho the first town
Jericho, often quoted as the first town, grows into a settlement covering ten acres

8000 BC Spinning twists fibres into thread
The spindle develops naturally in the process of twisting fibres into thread by hand

8000 BC Humans arrive in Japan
Humans cross from eastern Siberia to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, according to the earliest traces left by the Jomon culture

8000 BC Revolutionaries invent farming
Human communities in the Middle East cultivate crops and domesticate animals, in the Neolithic Revolution

7000 BC Implements from beaten copper
Neolithic communities in eastern Anatolia make implements of hammered copper - the first tentative step out of the Stone Age

6500 BC Catal Huyuk
Catal Huyuk, in Anatolia, is the most extensive surviving example of a neolithic town

6500 BC Exciting new concept - rooms with windows
The neolithic town of Catal Huyuk has rectangular rooms with windows, a design with lasting appeal

6500 BC Paved street in Cyprus
The neolithic town of Khirokitia in Cyprus has a paved public street with lanes leading off to courtyards of round tent-like houses

6500 BC Pottery in Turkey
Pottery fragments of this date survive in the neolithic site of Catal Huyuk

5800 BC First fragments of cloth
Fragments of cloth, woven in Catal Huyuk, survive because they are carbonized in a fire

5000 BC Squash and chili
Squash and chili are the first plants to be cultivated in America, in the Tehuácan valley in modern Mexico

5000 BC Hippopotamus in Sahara
The Sahara, damp enough for the hippopotamus, supports neolithic communities until it begins to dry up in about 3000 BC

4400 BC First evidence of loom
The first evidence of a loom comes from this period in Egypt, but some simple method of holding the warp must be as old as weaving

2500 BC Stone village with stone furniture
A small neolithic community builds a village at Skara Brae in the Orkneys, of stone houses with built-in stone furniture

2500 BC Cotton garments in India
Yarns of spun cotton survive at Mohenjo-daro, one of the two great cities of the Indus civilization

2500 BC Largest stones at Stonehenge
At Stonehenge, constructed and altered over many centuries, the largest stones are put in place

2400 BC Archive yields trade secrets of Ebla
Clay tablets discovered at Ebla reveal a busy trading economy reinforced by aggressive military policies

2000 BC Knossos built in Crete
Knossos, and other such palaces, are built for dynasties in Minoan Crete

1525 BC Frescoes of Akrotiri
The eruption of a volcano, on the island of Thera, entombs and preserves houses with frescoes in the Minoan city of Akrotiri

1500 BC Linear B in Mycenae
Texts written at Mycenae, in the script known as Linear B, are the earliest surviving version of Greek

1345 BC Amarna letters
The Amarna letters, an invaluable collection of cuneiform tablets, are written at the court of the pharaoh Akhenaten

1300 BC Bronze suit of armour
The earliest known suit of armour, made of bronze, survives from a tomb in Mycenaean Greece

500 BC Persian carpet in prince's tomb
A Persian rug, woven with a knotted pile, is placed in the tomb of a Scythian chieftain and survives to this day

348 BC Mosaic floors in ghostly Olynthus
The citizens of Olynthus abandon their houses, with elaborate mosaic floors, when their city is attacked by Philip of Macedon

206 BC Emperor buried with terracotta army
The Qin emperor, Shi Huangdi, is buried at Xi'an with a vast army of terracotta soldiers

625 Treasure in ship at Sutton Hoo
The treasure of an Anglo-Saxon king (possibly Raedwald, who dies at this time) is buried in a 90-foot-long ship at Sutton Hoo

1500 Leonardo sheds light on fossils
Leonardo argues that fossils in rocks far above the sea imply not the effects of the Flood but a change in the level of an ancient sea bed

1748 First efforts to uncover Pompeii
Systematic digging begins near Vesuvius, in an area where ancient fragments are often unearthed - soon discovered to be Pompeii

1799 Rosetta Stone is found
Napoleon's soldiers discover a black basalt slab, the Rosetta Stone, near the village of Rashid in Egypt

1811 Mary Anning discovers giant fossil
A 12-year-old Dorset child, Mary Anning, discovers at Lyme Regis a 21 ft (6.4m) fossil of an icthyosaur

1812 Cuvier launches science of palaeontology
French scientist Georges Cuvier introduces scientific palaeontology with his Research on the Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds

1822 Hieroglyphs deciphered
Egyptian hieroglyphs are deciphered by French Egyptologist Jean François Champollion, using the Rosetta stone

1843 Fossil fish classified
Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz completes his pioneering Poissons Fossiles ('Fossil Fish'), classifying more than 1500 categories

1845 Layard comes across Nimrud
British archaeologist Henry Layard, in his first month of digging in Iraq, discovers the Assyrian city of Nimrud

1853 Nineveh lion hunt unearthed
Hormuzd Rassam discovers the magnficent lion-hunt reliefs in the palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh

1856 Neanderthal man found in quarry
The first Neanderthal man to be discovered is unearthed by quarry workers in the Neander valley, near Düsseldorf

1901 Stele of Hammurabi found
A stele is found at Susa, in Iran, giving the text of the Code of Hammurabi

1904 Treasures of Chichén Itzá
The US consul in Mexico, Edward Herbert Thompson, begins a very profitable excavation at the Mayan site of Chichén Itzá

1907 Heidelberg jaw found
A fossilized human jaw, probably at least 500,000 years old, is found near Heidelberg in Germany

1912 Piltdown Man
Charles Dawson claims to have found the fossilized skull of an early man (named in his honour Eoanthropus dawsoni in a gravel pit at Piltdown

1921 Indus valley civilization discovered
The first traces are found of a major but entirely forgotten civilization in the Indus valley

1922 Tutankhamen discovered
Howard Carter exposes a flight of steps in the Valley of the Kings and comes to a barrier bearing the name Tutankhamun

1927 Royal cemetery at Ur
British archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovers the treasures of the royal cemetery at Ur

1927 Very old Peking man discovered
The fossilized tooth of a human, half a million years old and known now as Peking Man, is discovered at a site near Beijing

1939 Treasures at Sutton Hoo
Archaeological treasures are discovered in an Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk

1940 Dog in a hole at Lascaux
Schoolboys, out hunting, discover paintings in a cave at Lascaux after their dog falls into a hole

1942 Mildenhall Treasure
A rich hoard of Roman silver is unearthed near Mildenhall, in Suffolk

1947 Boy finds Dead Sea Scroll
An Arab boy, herding goats in the Qumran desert, finds the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls

1949 Scythian remains at Pazyryk
Exceptional Scythian remains are found in frozen burial mounds at Pazyryk, in the Altai region of Siberia

1950 Tollund Man
A prehistoric victim of strangling is found in Tollund Moss in Denmark, with part of the noose still round his neck

1952 Linear B deciphered
British scholar Michael Ventris deciphers Linear B, the script of Mycenae, proving it to be an early form of Greek

1953 Piltdown Man a fraud
Improved methods of testing prove conclusively that Piltdown Man was constructed by Charles Dawson from a human skull and the jaw of an ape

1955 Phidias workshop unearthed
Archaeologists at Olympia excavate the workshop of the Greek classical sculptor Phidias

1969 Ancient paintings found in Namibia
Paintings discovered on stone slabs in a cave in Namibia are dated to about 28,000 years ago

1974 Terracotta army at Xi'an
More than 7000 life-size terracotta solders are unearthed at Xi'an, placed to guard the tomb of the third century BC Chinese emperor Shi Huangdi

1975 Passage grave at Newgrange
Excavation of the 5200-year-old passage grave at Newgrange in Ireland is completed

1976 Million-year-old human footprints
Mary Leakey and her team find footprints, about 3.6 million years old, of bipedal hominids walking upright at Laetoli in Tanzania

1977 Royal tombs found at Vergina
Royal tombs are excavated at Vergina, in Macedonia, probably including that of Philip of Macedon

1982 Human remains at Windover
8,000-year-old human remains are found in a waterlogged burial site at Windover, in Florida

1984 Nariokotome Boy discovered
The Turkana Boy, the most complete known skeleton of Homo erectus, is found near Lake Turkana by Kamoya Kimeu in Richard Leakey's team

1991 Man in the ice 5000 years old
A man found frozen high in the Alps turns out to be a neolithic hunter from about 5000 years ago

1994 Oldest known paintings
Potholers discover the world's oldest known paintings in the Chauvet cave in southern France

1998 Seahenge in Norfolk
Coastal erosion reveals Seahenge, a 4,000-year-old circle of oak posts in Norfolk

2015 September 10 Unknown early human discovered in South Africa
Scientists announce the discovery in South Africa of Homo naledi, a previously unknown species of early human

2019 April 10 New species of human, Homo Iuzonensis discovered
Fossil fragments found in the Callao Cave in the Philippines reveal the existence of a new species of human, the Homo luzonensis, named after Luzon island where the fossils were discovered