Lion History
Lion history..
This is going to be short! This is because the history of the lion is not that well known according to a book that I am using as a reference source: The Big Cats and their fossil relatives ISBN 978-0-231-10229-2.
I'll quote, "The earliest record of the lion is at Laetoli in Tanzania at perhaps 3.5 Ma ago. "Ma" = millions of years ago. So the earliest record of a lion on the planet that we have existed 3,500,000 years ago. Homo sapiens first arrived 500,000 years ago. Earlier humans arrived 2,500,000 years ago.
Apparently there are no earlier fossil records of the lion before 3.5 Ma. Early lion history is sparse.
Laetoli in Tanzania is located here:
Fossil records of the the lion have been found in Italy at the site of Iseria. These fossils date to 700,000 years ago (0.7 Ma).
Apparently, on average the European lions of that time were larger that existing lions.
The lion has recently been extirpated (completely destroyed) from various areas due to human activity:
There is no question of a doubt that the lion will gradually be removed from the African continent as human population grows there. It is rapidly increasing in Africa.
