article_snippet: 55 million years ago - First primitive primates evolve .
article_snippet: 15 million years ago - Hominidae (great apes) evolve from the ancestors of the gibbon .
article_snippet: 8 million years ago - First gorillas evolve.
article_snippet: Later, chimp and human lineages diverge .
article_snippet: 5.5 million years ago - Ardipithecus, early ‘proto-human’ shares traits with chimps and gorillas . 4 million years ago - Australopithecines appeared.
article_snippet: 2.8 million years ago - LD 350-1 appeared and may be the first of the Homo family .
article_snippet: 2.7 million years ago 
article_snippet: 2.3 million years ago - Homo habalis first thought to have appeared in Africa .
article_snippet: 1.8 million years ago - Homo ergaster begins to appear in fossil record .
article_snippet: 1.6 million years ago - Hand axes become the first major technological innovation .
article_snippet: 800,000 years ago - Early humans control fire and create hearths.
article_snippet: 400,000 years ago - Neanderthals first begin to appear and spread across Europe and Asia .
article_snippet: 200,000 years ago - Homo sapiens - modern humans - appear in Africa .
article_snippet: 40,0000 years ago - Modern humans reach Europe . '