One of the oldest modern human genomes came from a bone spotted by a sculptor.

43,000 BC · 2008 · apart: 45,008 years

In 2008 mammoth-ivory carver Nikolai Peristov noticed a thighbone on the bank of the Irtysh; it proved to be 45,000 years old.

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The event

• Out of Africac. 60,000 BC · Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. Some 70,000–50,000 years ago a small group of modern humans left Africa, probably across the narrow strait at the Red Sea when sea levels were lower. Nearly everyone in Eurasia, Australia and the Americas descends from them. Along the way they met Neanderthals and Denisovans, and traces of those meetings remain in our genes.

Prehistory · 21st century

More amazing facts

• 60,000 BC · 50,000 BC As recently as 50,000 years ago, humans about 1.1 metres tall lived on the Indonesian island of Flores.
• 48,000 BC · 38,000 BC People sailed to Australia while Neanderthals still lived in Europe.
• 38,000 BC · 2010 Neanderthals died out, yet part of them lives on in us. Their genome, decoded in 2010, showed that people of non-African descent carry a small share of Neanderthal DNA, a trace of ancient interbreeding.
• 38,000 BC · 1939 The world's oldest statue spent 30 years in a museum as a heap of fragments.
• 34,000 BC · 2000 BC The mammoths painted in Chauvet Cave 36,000 years ago could still be seen alive in the age of the pharaohs: the last ones, on Wrangel Island, died out around 2000 BC.
• 22,000 BC · 12,500 BC A boy buried 24,000 years ago near Irkutsk was a genetic relative of both Native Americans and Europeans.

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