Fossils and DNA suggest people looking like us, anatomically modern Homo sapiens, evolved around 300,000 years ago. Surprisingly, archaeology – tools, artefacts, cave art – suggest that complex technology and cultures, “behavioural modernity”, evolved more recently: 50,000-65,000 years ago.

When did humans become anatomically modern?

Then some of them spread from Africa into Asia and Europe after two million years ago. With somewhat less certainty, most scientists think that people who look like us -- anatomically modern Homo sapiens -- evolved by at least 130,000 years ago from ancestors who had remained in Africa.

What did anatomically modern humans evolve from?

Modern humans originated in Africa within the past 200,000 years and evolved from their most likely recent common ancestor, Homo erectus, which means 'upright man' in Latin. Homo erectus is an extinct species of human that lived between 1.9 million and 135,000 years ago.