Before 2.5 million years ago, it is uncertain what the lineage of man was before this period -if there was any relation to monkeys at all. A huge gap-the missing links-not one but more than one according to one schematic. Like most scientific theories the Theory of evolution is an educated guess and some educated guesses can be wrong if not in part then totally. You cannot compare a wild animal to a human they are two different types of creatures. Even if you have found a few large extinct gorilla bones in Africa some scientist named "Lucy."
The humans on Earth, such as Homo erectus, had been using simple tools for many millennia, but as time progressed, tools became far more refined and complex. At some point, humans began using fire for heat and for cooking. They also developed language in the Paleolithic period and a conceptual repertoire that included systematic burial of the dead and adornment of the living. During this period, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers, and were generally nomadic.
Archaic Homo Erectus
Homo Erectus appears by about 1.8 million years ago, via the transitional variety Homo ergaster. The second part, "ergaster", is derived from the Ancient Greek ἐργαστήρ "workman", in reference to the comparatively advanced lithic technology developed by the species, introducing the Acheulean industry/culture.
Acheulean Tools
Their distinctive oval and pear-shaped hand axes have been found over a wide area and some examples attained a very high level of sophistication suggesting that the roots of human art, economy and social organization arose as a result of their development.
Homo erectus lived throughout Eurasia. Stone tools in Malaysia have been dated to be 1.83 million years old. The Peking Man fossil, discovered in 1929, is roughly 700,000 years old this was located in the area of southwest Asia. Homo erectus moved from scavenging to hunting, developing the hunting-gathering lifestyle that would remain dominant throughout the Paleolithic into the Mesolithic. The unlocking of the new niche of hunting-gathering subsistence drove a number of further changes, behavioral and physiological, leading to the appearance of Homo heidelbergensis by some 600,000 years ago.
Homo Heidelbergensis
The hand-axe tradition originates after this period. The intermediate may have been Homo heidelbergensis, held responsible for the manufacture of improved Acheulean tool types, after 600,000 years BP. Flakes and axes coexisted in Europe, sometimes at the same site. The axe tradition, however, spread to a different range in the east. It appears in Arabia and India, but it does not appear in southeast Asia.
Hand Axes
The carrier species in Europe undoubtedly was Homo erectus. This type of human is more clearly linked to the flake tradition, which spread across southern Europe through the Balkans to appear relatively densely in southeast Asia. Many Mousterian finds from the Middle Paleolithic have been knapped using a Levallois technique, suggesting that Neanderthals evolved from Homo erectus.
Homo Sapiens
Also in Europe appeared a type of human intermediate between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, sometimes summarized under "archaic Homo sapiens, typified by such fossils as those found at various locations in Europe.
From about 300,000 years ago, technology, social structures and behavior appear to grow more complex, with prepared-core technique lithic, and the earliest instances of burial and hunting-gathering subsistence.
Human Evolution Chart
Anything before Homo Ergaster is doubtful. Modern humans are believed to have evolved from archaic Homo sapiens, who in turn evolved from Homo erectus. Varieties of archaic Homo sapiens (also "Archaics" for short) are included under the binomial name "Homo sapiens" because their brain size is very similar to that of modern humans. Archaic Homo sapiens had a brain size averaging 1200 to 1400 cubic centimeters, which overlaps with the range of modern humans. Archaics are distinguished from anatomically modern humans by having a thick skull, prominent brow ridges and the lack of a prominent chin. Homo sapiens first appears about 200,000 years ago.
About 50,000 years ago, there was a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts. The first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. Firstly among the artifacts that archeologists found they could differentiate and classify those of less than 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points, engraving tools, knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools. These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other, as if each tool had a specific purpose.
A Paleolithic band of hunters
During the Paleolithic, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands, and subsisted by gathering plants and hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers; however, due to their nature, these have not been preserved to any great degree.
Bone Tools
The Paleolithic (or Paleolithic) Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered, and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools, 3.6 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BP. The Paleolithic era is followed by the Mesolithic. The date of the Paleolithic—Mesolithic boundary may vary by locality as much as several thousand years.
The Upper Paleolithic or Late Stone age is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, right before the advent of agriculture.
Concepts of civilization and culture are not always considered interchangeable. For example, a small nomadic tribe may be judged not to have a civilization, but it would surely be judged to have a culture (defined by its "the arts, customs, habits... beliefs, values, behavior and material habits that constitute a people's way of life").
This period has the earliest remains of organized settlements in the form of campsites, some with storage pits. These were often located in narrow valley bottoms, possibly to make hunting of passing herds of animals easier. Some sites may have been occupied year round, though more generally, they seem to have been used seasonally; peoples moved between them to exploit different food sources at different times of the year. Hunting was important, and deer, and wild boar may well have been the species of greatest importance to them.
An Auroch under attack by wolves
Auroch calves were especially vulnerable to wolves, while healthy adult aurochs probably did not have to fear these predators. In prehistoric Europe, North Africa and Asia, big cats like lions or tigers and hyenas were additional predators which likely preyed on aurochs ( now extinct).
