In my September 2011 ABT Editorial that argued that humans are all one race, there was a reference to human evolution beginning some 100 million years ago. The date is obviously incorrect, and a colleague at St. Clair County Community College in Port Huron, Michigan, David Sheldon, astutely called this to my attention. I therefore offer the following synopsis of the chronology of human evolution. This represents the apparent scientific consensus and may be helpful as a teaching tool when addressing human evolution with students.

Early hominids (great apes) probably came from apes similar to the chimpanzee ca. 5–10 million years ago. Remains of familiar hominids such as Australopithecusafarensis and A.africanus have been dated from 3–4 and 2.5–3 million years ago, respectively. The first humans (genus Homo), including Homo habilis (handy man), evolved in Africa ca. 2 million years ago. The earliest fossils of H. erectus were...

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