What did Earth look like in the Quaternary? (2.58–present Ma)

Key events of this period

• Evidence of Fire-Making

  0.4 Ma

  A 2025 study reported evidence of deliberate fire-making at Barnham, England, about 400,000 years ago: heated ground, cracked flint tools and imported pyrite. Fire use is older; a 2026 Wonderwerk Cave study places burning associated with humans in deposits dated 1.07–1.79 million years ago. Those older traces do not establish how the fire was ignited.

  References: Earliest evidence of making fire (online 2025; Nature 2026) · New evidence for Early Pleistocene use of fire at Wonderwerk Cave (South Africa) (2026)

• Homo sapiens

  0.3 Ma

  Fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, dated to about 315,000 years ago, combine a relatively modern face with a more elongated braincase. They show that early Homo sapiens traits did not appear all at once. Genetic research also supports long interaction among African ancestral populations, while the exact geography of our origins remains unresolved.

  References: New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens (2017) · A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africa (2023)

• Toba Supervolcano

  0.074 Ma

  About 74,000 years ago, Toba in Sumatra produced an enormous eruption. Archaeological records in India and Africa show human occupation across the eruption, including flexible foraging in Ethiopia. The regional climate effects remain under study; a worldwide human population collapse caused by Toba is not established.

  References: Human occupation of northern India spans the Toba super-eruption ~74,000 years ago (2020) · Adaptive foraging behaviours in the Horn of Africa during Toba supereruption (2024) · Sub-annual resolution evidence for limited impact of the 74-ka Toba eruption on eastern African climate (2026)