Timeline of Evolution

  • New Naming System

    Carolus Linnaeus develops the modern hieratical classification system.
  • Start of Paleontology

    Georges Cuvier demonstrates the fact of extinction with studies of fossil mammals. He believed the extinctions to have occurred in a series of giant floods.
  • First Theory of Evolution is Published

    Jean-Baptiste Lamarck publishes his theory of evolution: evolution happened through the inheritance of acquired features.
  • Neanderthal discovery

    Neanderthal skull bones are found in Neander valley in Germany.
  • Theory of Evolution is published

    Alfred Russel Wallace independently conceives the theory of evolution by natural selection and co-publishes with Darwin on the subject.
  • The Origin of Species

    Charles Darwin's book "The Origin of Species" is published and became popular.
  • Oxford Evolution Debate

    Proponents and opponents of Darwin and Wallace's theories argue in the Oxford Evolution Debate.
  • Hereditary Experimentation

    Gregor Mendel's pea plants theory printed, making teh background for the basis of natural selection.
  • Germ-Plasm theory published

    August Weissman publishes his germ-plasm theory, which emphasizes the separation of the germline and soma.
  • Chromosomes and heredity

    Walter Sutton suggested that chromosomes basis for Mendelian inheritance of characteristics.
  • Biological Species Concept

    Ernst Mayr publishes Systematics and the Origin of Species in which he presents his influential 'biological species concept'
  • Genetic Material Verified

    DNA is confirmed to be genetic material which is that inheritance passes from one generation to the next.
  • Discovery of mRNA

    Sydney Brenner, Francis Crick, Francois Jacob, and Jacques Monod discover mRNA.
  • Human Genome Sequenced

    The human genome is sequenced and assembled.
  • Neanderthal Genome Sequenced

    Richard Green and colleagues publish a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, suggesting that the Neanderthals and modern humans interbred.