List of first human settlements

This is a list of dates associated with the prehistoric peopling of the world (first known presence of Homo sapiens).

List entries are identified by region (in the case of genetic evidence spatial resolution is limited) or region, country or island, with the date of the first known or hypothesised modern human presence (or "settlement", although Paleolithic humans were not sedentary).

Human "settlement" does not necessarily have to be continuous; settled areas in some cases become depopulated due to environmental conditions, such as glacial periods or the Toba volcanic eruption.

The oldest known evidence for anatomically modern humans (as of 2017[update]) are fossils found at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, dated about 360,000 years old.

Available fossil evidence from Sri Lanka has been dated to 34 kya.