From the perspective of anthropology, the deep time record of human activity is evident in the vast number of objects made and used by humans. Here is a short list. Note the 40 thousand+ custom of burial in red ochre.

2.5-3.4 million
Butchering flints found in Dikika, Ethiopia. This bone shows evidence of butchering.

1.5 million
Stone tools found in Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea from a time when the region was much wetter.

500,000
A large assemblage of handaxes excavated at Stratum 4a and 4b at the Kathu complex in South Africa. Large mammal remains have been identified at both strata.

300,000
Earliest known use of red ochre at site GnJh-03 in the Kapthurin Formation of East Africa, and at Twin Rivers in Zambia.

162,000
Heat-treated silicrete stone tools at Pinnacle Cave in South Africa.

150,000
More than 69 000 Stone Age implements have been found at Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains.

130,000
Thomas Strasser and his team found hundreds of stone tools on Crete dating to between 100,000 and 130,000 years.

100,000
Incised red ochre stone found at Blombos Cave, Western Cape, South Africa

90,000
African projectiles

85,000
Barbed harpoon points (right) were used to spear catfish in Central Africa. Hundreds of bone harpoons have been found at the lake site of Ishango.

77,000
Mattress of reed and rushes

75,000
Engraved stone from the Blombos Cave in Southern Africa (below).

70,000
Python stone in Botswana

50,000
A small boy buried with a seashell pendant and covered in red ochre

45,000
A man buried at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in southern France in red ochre

35,000
Lebombo bone found at Border Cave in Natal

32,000
Flour processing plant
Four bodies buried in red ochre at Sungir in Russia.

23,000
The "Fox Lady" of Doini Vestonice, Czechoslovakia, buried in red ochre

20,000
A thirty-year-old man buried in Bavaria surrounded by mammoth tusks and submerged in red ochre.

Australian burial sites dating to about 20,000 years reveal pink staining of the soil around the skeleton, indicating that red ochre had been sprinkled over the body. The remains of an adult male found at Lake Mungo in southeastern Australia were copiously sprinkled with red ochre.

9000
The oldest copper artifacts

7000
Two skeletons buried in red ochre found at La Braña-Arintero cave in the Cantabrian Mountains of Spain

5000
Two flexed burials were found in Mehrgarh, Pakistan with a covering of red ochre on the bodies

Alice C. Linsley teaches the history of technology and science at a Christian School in North Carolina. In this series she makes a case for an empirical approach to the study of Scripture. Her area of concentration is Biblical Anthropology. She comes from a long line of clergy, philosophers, and scientists. Two famous chemists named in this first installment - Robert R. Williams and Roger J. Williams - are her great uncles.