How long has humankind been on earth?

Question

how long has human been on the earth? how long have they been living without farming and agriculture?

Answer 1

I believe the oldest "human-like" remains are somewhere around 10,000 years old.

Answer 2

since god made us

Answer 3

4000 BC

People in the Yellow River Valley switched from hunting and gathering to agriculture.

It depends how broadly toy define man kind.

homosapien  only?

2.5 to 1.5 Million Years Ago

The genus homo is established during this time. The oldest stone tools that have been found are 2 million old choppers used to prepare food. Other evidence shows that these early hominids were eating meat. It is not clear whether the earliest tools were being used by the Australopithecines or by the genus that lead to Homo. The first hand ax did not appear until 1 million years later.

Somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 million years ago, the genus homo split off from the genus Australopithecus. The hominid fossils from this period are curiously mixed. There are hominid fossils from this period with relatively large brains and large teeth, others have small brains and small teeth. (Modern humans have large brains and small teeth.)

At the end of this period, fossils from a species called homo habilis have been found in Tanzania and Kenya in eastern Africa, associated with stone tools. Homo habilis has traits that link it with the australopithecines and with later members of the genus Homo.

150,000 to 35,000 years ago

H. sapiens neanderthalis live in ice age Europe and the Middle East, before becoming extinct about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. Although scientist are not in agreement, it appears that Homo Sapiens Sapiens (modern humans) developed independently of the Neanderthals, and probably did not interbreed (since they lived along side one another for millennia with scanty fossil evidence of cross over in genes). The Neanderthals made extensive use of tools (though not to the extent of H. Sapiens Sapiens. Some of the burials are of aged or handicapped people who the Neanderthals must have felt important enough to care for. Scientists are divided as to whether Neanderthals were capable of speech.

90,000 years ago (perhaps as early as 200,000 years ago)

Anatomically modern humans appear.

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imrt70 - Quit Reading Wikipedia

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p41nt1llh43rtimf1r3 - God has many sheep of many folds over the last Billion Years

Read the first book of the bible where God expleins evolution The Book of Enoch (Thrown out by the Catholics)

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Answer 4

Give or take it has been about 200,000 years, but some researchers think it may be longer than that, a lot longer. The problem is finding evidence that old is a problem. The news report today showed evidence that led to the conclusion that primate species that eventually leads to us branched off the tree of evolution 10 million years back. Those were the ancestors of us with other simian ancestors going their own way. We as a civilized race probably did not do much real agriculture until about 15,000 years ago, but people must have figured out and used some techniques before that (can't have wheat fields with absolutely no agriculture the day before). I'm sure that someone well before that noted that when they had some grains and seeds that were saved, that the big dummy Ogg left out in the rain again, and the seeds sprouted, and got thrown away (both Ogg and the seeds) that they both came back. The seeds came back out of the ground as a plant that looked like the one that they found grains on. And Ogg came back cause he was hungry and promised not to leave the seeds out in the rain anymore. But they started sticking seeds in the ground near one of the camps and found some came up and that was good because they would be back later as they wandered around. They just left Ogg to keep them wet though, (he was such a dummy anyway).

PS  AS OF TODAY SAT AUG25 THERE HAS BEEN A STORY FOR A NUMBER OF DAYS ON YAHOO NEWS FROM WHICH NEW THEORY HAS COME TO LIGHT

Answer 5

There is plenty of evidence to prove that we humans started "farming" after the last Ice Age.  So that's about 15000 years ago.  Before that humans were mostly hunter-gathers.  

The oldest human ancestor dates back over 4 million years.  The oldest Hominid dates back around 2 million years.  The oldest Homo dates back about 500000 years.  Modern man has been around for about 120000 years.  Humans made a variety of tools and developed art about 40000 years ago.

So, how long have humans existed without farming.  Long time.  Just subtract 15000 years from which ever one of our ancestors you desire.  

Modern man survived about 105000 years without agriculture.  

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/evolut...

We humans sure have made a gigantic impact in such a very short time.

Answer 6

the time people have been around is really debatable, but at least 150 thousand years for totally modern humans, and likely 1.5 to 3 million years.

after the ice age ended people started farming, but it is clear that they did not want to do so (hunting takes less time and is easier), and that they already knew how to farm.

during the last ice age, ocean levels were 300 feet lower than they are now. this means that everything they had was lost when the ice age ended, and with it all evidence of if they farmed or not.

the reason that we do not see farming evidence in areas that we live in now is that during an ice age the only stable weather is on the coast, so farming was just not that possible where archaeologists are digging now.

so, sorry, we really cant tell if it is 10 thousand years or 3 million.

Answer 7

If this report is true: 20 or more million years.

http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2...

Answer 8

most of the time without farming

Farming started about 10,000 years ago, in mesopotamia

Answer 9

7035 years in October.

Answer 10

There are at least two ways to find an answer to this question.  One is the scientific and the other is scriptural.

Some of our friends / brothers have already analysed  scientifically and brought out conclusions from research data.

Science has its limitations. It is mainly limited by the tools & methods available in the current times. A telescope is better than a naked eye. But even a telescope has a range!

In an auditorium a swamiji was delivering a lecture and asked- " Suppose some war has destroyed the entire mankind and only we in the auditorium remain and every thing out side is gone. When we go out there are no buildings, roads, planes, industries.  Some of us having cigerett lighters and match sticks. Once they are exausted none of us know how to make them.  To the coming generations , we can only say we had matches to make fire in a split second or we used to fly in sky and none would believe!"

To know the origin of mankind , we can best relay on the scriptures. Scriptures of ancient civilisations is the better.

In bible there is a mention of some people (the gaints) "they were on earth before the rain (40 day rain of Noah period) and after the rain" (my quote is not exact but means the same)

If only Noah's family and other animals in that boat were alive and the entire earth was washed away how can they be on earth before & after ? i.e there were other humans on earth who survived the 40 day rain. There can be people other than those born from the Adam's lineage as well.  If we depend on one scripture alone then it remains a riddle.

40 day rain was mentioned in other ancient scriptures of the east as well.  

yuga is a time period

source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuga

The Hindu texts[citation needed] say the four yugas equal 4,320,000 years, or a mahayuga. 1,000 mahayugas or 4.32 billion years equal one kalpa. The traditional[citation needed] timescale of the yugas is as follows:

Satya Yuga or Krita Yuga - 1,728,000 years

Treta Yuga - 1,296,000 years

Dvapara Yuga - 864,000 years

Kali Yuga - 432,000 years

source :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpa_(time...

Hinduism

In Hinduism (cf. Hindu Time Cycles ), it is equal to 4.32 billion years, a "day (day only) of Brahma" or one thousand mahayugas, measuring the duration of the world;Two kalpas constitute a day and night of Brahma.A "month of Brahma" is supposed to contain thirty such days (including nights), or 259.2 billion years. According to the Mahabharata, 12 months of Brahma constitute his year, and 100 such years the life cycle of the universe. Fifty years of Brahma's are supposed to have elapsed, and we are now in the shvetavaraha-kalpa of the fifty-first; at the end of a Kalpa the world is annihilated. Each kalpa is further divided into 14 manvantara (each lasting 306,720,000 years).

Even in bible it is mentioned that 1000 days is a day to god.

As per the eastern scriptures , presently the 7th manvantara is running .  There were humans & cultures prior to Adam on the eastern part of the globe.

Whether every one understands or not , cares or not, it remains a fact . not a fiction. Why would the ancients waste time in precisely mentioning time or counting upto 10^27 with definete names ?

Answer 11

Give or take it has been about 200,000 years, but some researchers think it may be longer than that, a lot longer. The problem is finding evidence that old is a problem. The news report today showed evidence that led to the conclusion that primate species that eventually leads to us branched off the tree of evolution 10 million years back. Those were the ancestors of us with other simian ancestors going their own way. We as a civilized race probably did not do much real agriculture until about 15,000 years ago, but people must have figured out and used some techniques before that (can't have wheat fields with absolutely no agriculture the day before). I'm sure that someone well before that noted that when they had some grains and seeds that were saved, that the big dummy Ogg left out in the rain again, and the seeds sprouted, and got thrown away (both Ogg and the seeds) that they both came back. The seeds came back out of the ground as a plant that looked like the one that they found grains on. And Ogg came back cause he was hungry and promised not to leave the seeds out in the rain anymore. But they started sticking seeds in the ground near one of the camps and found some came up and that was good because they would be back later as they wandered around