The greatest thing human beings ever did was stand up. Though it may seem like a simple act today, it was a revolutionary concept four million years ago when the first bipedal hominids stood tall amongst the African savannah. Walking on two legs was the first evolutionary step towards what we are today. Because our ancestors stood on two legs, they were taller than their ape cousins and therefore, saw that there was more food to be had than vegetation. They became hunters; the protein from meat prompted a quick and massive amount of brain development, and was the second large step towards the people they would become.
The Paleolithic Era began over two million years ago and accounts for ninety-nine percent of human history. During that time, humans evolved from the ancient Homo habilis - - the first humans to use tools - - to modern Homo sapiens, the apes we are today.
Tools during the Old Stone Age were usually made out of stone, wood, or bone. Humans banded together in small groups and hunted and gathered food. In the latter part of this age, people began a new revolution: art.
Cave paintings can be found in many Neolithic sites, such the one in Lascaux, France. These cave paintings are quintessential to the study of our ancient human ancestors, providing insight into their daily lives. More than that, they are also masterpieces of human art, using techniques we think of as advanced, such as shading and perspective.
Another advent of the Old Stone Age was religion. The first burials of the dead took place then, suggesting a belief in the afterlife - - a complex notion.
The ancestor of all human beings alive today lived roughly 60,000 years ago in Africa. He's known as Y-Chromosomal Adam, because the genetic markers of every man alive today can be traced to him. Since he's the ancestor of all humans, we know that all humans originally came from Africa and did not leave there until after his death; upon leaving Africa, modern humans spread to (and populated) all regions of the earth.
During the Neolithic age came the advent of agriculture, giving rise to the first settled communities. It was during this time that the ancient cities of Catal Hoyuk and Jericho were built. Indeed, Jericho has been continuously inhabited through the ages and is still lived in today, making it the oldest continuously inhabited human settlement.
Human history was first recorded by the ancient Egyptians roughly five thousand years ago. These scant fragmental records are like clues, pointing us towards the first recorded human in history. It's commonly believed that that person was King Scorpion, who lived before 3,200 BCE.
King Scorpion is a figure shrouded in mystery. It's been said that there were two kings of proto-dynastic Upper Egypt by that name, though it's been recently theorized that both men were the same person. Whatever the case, it's also been speculated that his conquests gave rise to the use of hieroglyphs as a means to record history. With the evidence we have of his reign, we know that Egypt had, by that point, a system of government and a social hierarchy.
Around the same time as King Scorpion, society was beginning to flourish in Mesopotamia. The first great city states of Sumer cropped up, as did civilizations on the Iberian Peninsula. It could be argued that the forth millennium BCE was the foundation of our modern societies today.