Anatomically modern human beings (homo sapiens sapiens) have existed on this planet for at least 300,000 years with the earliest specimens discovered at the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco, dated to about 315,000 years ago.

The Neolithic Revolution which marked the shift from nomadic hunting and gathering to settled agricultural communities (considered the dawn of civilisation) occurred approximately 10,000 - 12,000 years ago.

All of this occurred well before the invention of writing. This is an important point to make, because a historical timeline relies on datable events and written records.

The generally accepted view which was held about these indigenous groups of people by the typically white European colonising powers who conquered many of them, tended to be very narrow-minded and one which considered them to be inferior.

Often, if written records existed, these were systematically destroyed as a matter of course.

The verifiable and dateable history of these people (in their own words) is, as a result, very scarce indeed. Later histories that were produced are often heavily biased, and generally cannot be relied upon (with some exceptions) to offer an objective picture of the people being written about.

This subject is understandably very highly-charged, with many people rightly horrified by the historical injustices leveled against these people.

As a result of the relatively little we reliably know about many indigenous groups of people, regrettably, the World History Timeline contains fewer entries about these people that one might hope for.

To give one example.

There is reference made in the Timeline to the arrival of indigenous Australians to the Australian continent around 65,000 years ago. This culture, with an unbroken presence on the Australian continent since its arrival, is much older than recorded history.

But because a historical timeline relies on datable events and written records, it is very hard to document this history in an appropriate manner.

There is, of course, a rich oral tradition that has been passed down through many generations, but unfortunately, as is the case with almost all oral histories, I am not sufficiently familiar with it to be able to give it the justice it deserves, or to integrate this type of "extra-historical" information into the timeline.