Human Origins
The Root Story
Seven million years of human evolution, told in seven chapters.
7+ million years ago
The First Steps
Somewhere in Africa, our ancestors split from the lineage that would become chimpanzees. The fossil record is sparse, but the bones that survive tell a story of experimentation — dozens of species trying different ways to be almost-human.
7 – 2 million years ago
Walking Upright
Bipedalism freed our hands, reshaping everything — how we carried food, used tools, and saw the horizon. In the savannas of East Africa, early hominins were already something new under the sun.
2 million – 300,000 years ago
Masters of Fire
Homo erectus tamed fire, cooked food, and walked out of Africa. Cooking unlocked calories that fueled larger brains. Brains enabled better tools. Better tools enabled new foods. The feedback loop that made us human was underway.
300,000 – 50,000 years ago
Our Cousins
We were never alone. Neanderthals in Europe, Denisovans in Asia, Homo naledi in South Africa — the world was full of human species. We met them. We learned from them. We loved them. Their DNA still runs through our veins.
50,000 – 12,000 years ago
The Creative Explosion
Something shifted. Cave paintings, carved figurines, elaborate burials, shell jewelry traded over hundreds of miles. Whether it was language, some neural rewiring, or simply reaching a cultural tipping point — Homo sapiens became the storytelling animal.
12,000 – 5,000 years ago
The Great Transformation
We stopped wandering and started planting. Agriculture was not a discovery but a trap — more food, but harder work, denser populations, new diseases. Yet from these first villages grew everything: writing, cities, philosophy, empire.
Modern era
The Discoverers
The scientists, thinkers, and technologies that pieced this story together — from Darwin’s dangerous idea to the ancient DNA revolution that rewrote human history in the last two decades.
The whole story — each epoch with its own chapter — in the app.