Modern humans

Modern humans, Homo sapiens, appear in Africa by about 300,000 years ago. The fossils from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco are the usual marker for that date. Older humans, including Neanderthals and earlier Homo, already had tools and fire. What changes is our species.

The contribution that matters for this timeline is cumulative culture: a tool or a method improved and passed on, so the next generation starts ahead. Other animals use tools. Humans are extreme about keeping the improvement.

For most of the 300,000 years, the technology is still stone, fire, and fiber. Farming is not here yet. Writing is not here. The people are biologically us. The machine age is a cultural stack built very late on top of that body.

Leaving Africa in large numbers comes later, mostly after about 60,000 years ago. The year on the card is the origin of the species, not the origin of civilization.