If the history of the earth represented one year how many days would human evolution occupy?

1 Answer
Sep 2, 2016

Hominids diverged from apes in the last 14.5 hours of the year representing the age of the Earth.

Anatomically modern humans in the last 23 minutes of the year.

Explanation:

  • The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years.

So if we represent the history of the Earth by one year, then 1 day represents:

4.54×109365.2512.5 million years.

  • Hominids separated from apes about 7.5 million years ago.

So the time of the evolutionary divergence of hominids would be represented by:

7.512.5=0.6 days 14.5 hours

  • Anatomically modern humans date from about 200000 years ago.

That would be represented by:

2×10512.5×106=0.016 days 23 minutes.

So anatomically modern humans have been around for the last 23 minutes of the year representing the age of the Earth.