Since When Have Hominins been on Earth?

Did you know that the first hominins (the ancestors of humans) appeared during the Miocene epoch of the Cenozoic era?

That's about 6 million years ago, meaning that about 66 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period, during the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction where 3/4 of the Earth's animal and plant species went extinct, our first ancestors appeared.

Here's a cool diagram I found showing the eons of geological time to give you all some more perspective on how we as humans fit into the bigger picture of our Earth...

(and scroll down for a humorous picture I came across--sorry dinosaurs)

Tate, K. (2016). Eons of Geological Time [JPG]. Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/43354-precambrian-time.html