Top 10 pre­his­to­ry facts

1650 BC. The woolly mammoth was the last among mammoth species. They have vanished from Europe and southern Siberia about 10,000 years ago, but a small population survived on the St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 3750 BC, and the small mammoths of Wrangel Island survived until 1650 BC. They were still around when the Egyptian Pyramids were being built.

Neanderthals had large cranial capacity (1,600 cm3), which was larger than that of modern humans. Compared to modern humans, neanderthals had shorter legs and bigger bodies - this was likely an adaptation to preserve heat in cold climates. Larger eye sockets suggest that their eyesight may have been better than that of modern humans.

Africans. Interbreeding between Neanderthals with modern humans took place several times. Neanderthal-derived DNA was found in the genome of contemporary populations in Europe and Asia, it accounts for 1–4% of modern genomes. Neanderthal genes are absent from most modern populations in sub-Saharan Africa.

About 8,000 years ago. Until about 14,000 years ago, Great Britain was joined to Ireland, and as recently as 8,000 years ago it was joined to the continent by a strip of low marsh leading to what are now Denmark and the Netherlands. Great Britain became an island at the end of the last glacial period when sea levels rose due to the combination of melting glaciers and the subsequent isostatic rebound of the crust.

Underground monster. The word mammoth comes from the mythology of the Siberian peoples who believed they lived underground - as dead ones were found in the ground from time to time.

A the common ancestor of all current life on Earth. The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the most recent population of organisms from which all organisms now living on Earth have a common descent. LUCA is not thought to be the first living organism on Earth, but only one of many early organisms, whereas the others became extinct. In 2016 study identified a set of 355 genes inferred to have been present in LUCA. LUCA is estimated to have lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago in the Paleoarchean era.

Urals. The Urals are among the world's oldest extant mountain ranges. For its age of 250 to 300 million years of age, the elevation of the mountains is unusually high. They were formed during the Uralian orogeny due to the collision of the eastern edge of the supercontinent Laurussia with the young and rheologically weak continent of Kazakhstania, which now underlies much of Kazakhstan and West Siberia west of the Irtysh, and intervening island arcs. The collision lasted nearly 90 million years in the late Carboniferous – early Triassic.

Handy man. The name of homo habilis indicates that it was the first human ancestor which used and created stone tools.

In Europe. Neanderthals are named after the first site where their fossils were discovered in the mid-19th century – it was a river valley in Germany named Neanderthal. Neanderthal remains were found in Europe (early range), as well as Southwest, Central, and Northern Asia (late range).

El Tajín. The archaeological site of El Tajin, located in the present-day Mexican State of Veracruz, is remarkable for many reasons. The site boasts many buildings, temples, palaces and ball courts, but the most impressive of all is the stunning Pyramid of the Niches. El Tajín was named a World Heritage site in 1992, due to its cultural importance and its architecture.