Five million years ago, the ancestors of the first humans developed in Africa. They could walk upright, a specific human characteristic. About two million years ago, Homo habilis and its successor Homo erectus appeared. Developing ever-larger brains and refining their technologies, social behaviour and hunting strategies, these hominids spread out of Africa. In western Asia and Europe, still larger-brained hominids, the Neanderthals, developed about 150,000 years ago but were displaced by fully modern humans from Africa, and eventually became extinct.
