Bridging The Gaps: A Portal For Curious Minds

Over a span of five million years, humankind rose from modest origins to become the planet’s most dominant species. Along the way, people changed a lot in how they looked, spoke, and lived. But how did all this happen? The variety we see in humans today is the result of evolution—which began shaping the Homo group about 2.5 million years ago—and migration, as humans moved into new places. In his book “The Five-Million-Year Odyssey: The Human Journey from Ape to Agriculture” Professor Peter Bellwood brings together research from archaeology, biology, anthropology, and language studies to tell the story of human history. He takes us from the earliest hominins in Africa, through the spread of humans across the continents, to the start of farming and rapid population growth. He introduces early human relatives like the australopithecines, Homo erectus, and Neanderthals, then focuses on the rise of Homo sapiens about 300,000 years ago and their journey into Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. Bellwood also looks