1. Earliest life



Hamelin Pool, Western Australia (3 billion years ago)



Visit living stromatolites, pillars of cyanobacteria that are the modern relatives of the planet's primordial slime.



Location: 26.38° S 114.15° E

Find out more: Visiting Shark Bay



(Image: Newhaircut/Flickr)

2. Earliest animals



Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, Canada (575 million years ago)



This rock shelf on the stormy Atlantic coast hosts thousands of bizarre fossils from the Ediacaran period.



The delicate squiggles that look like squashed seaweed or pizza slices are in fact remains of the earliest multicellular life. Guide required.



Location: 46.62° N 53.15° W

Find out more: Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve



(Image: Helen Goodchild/York University, Archaeology Department) Advertisement

3. Explosion of "weird wonders"



Burgess Shale, British Columbia, Canada (540 million years ago)



Deep in the Rocky Mountains lies evidence of the world's first complex life, reminiscent of beetles and lobsters. Fossils litter the loose shale.



Guide required.



Location: 51.43° N 116.51° W

Find out more: Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation

Tours: +1 800 343 3006



(Image: Michael Melford/Getty)

4. Dinosaurs



Zhucheng, Shandong, China (100 million years ago)



The world's largest dino graveyard is right here, and a tourist park is being developed.



Location: 35.99 N° 119.4° E

Find out more: UNESCO Global Geoparks Network

Tours: Mr Wang Kebai, on +86 15153650001



(Image: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

5. Death of the dinos



Gubbio, Italy (65 million years ago)



See the meteorite dust thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs.



The thin seam of the stuff, discovered by Luis and Walter Alvarez of the University of California, Berkeley, is plain to see in an outcrop near the Bottaccione restaurant.



Location: 43.37° N 12.58° E



(Image: Martin Bond/SPL)

6. Mammal mania



Messel pit, near Frankfurt, Germany (47 million years ago)



See the remains of pygmy horses, bats and the early primate nicknamed Ida.



A tour guide is required at what is still an active dig.



Location: 49.92° N 8.77° E

Find out more: The Messel Pit Fossil Site: A National Geotope



(Image: Jens L. Franzen; Philip D. Gingerich; Jörg Habersetzer; et al/PLoS ONE)

7. Whale of a time



Wadi Al-Hitan, Egypt (37-40 million years ago)



The site is famous for its fossil find of a whale with feet, capturing the evolutionary moment when whales were moving from the land back into the sea.



Guide required.



Location: 29.25° N 30.01° E

Find out more: The Encyclopedia of Earth

Tours: Minamar Hotels and Travel



(Image: Cris Bouroncle/AFP/Getty Images)

8. Early human



Sterkfontein, South Africa (2-3 million years ago)



Delve into the caves of the "cradle of humankind", home to Mrs Ples, the most complete skull ever found of Australopithecus africanus.



It helped prove that the skeletons here were of early humans rather than apes.



Location:26.02° S 27.73° E

Find out more: Maropeng: official visitor centre

Tours: +27 14 577 9000



(Image: PZFUN under a CC 3.0 license)

9. Neanderthals



Neander valley, Mettmann, Germany (30,000 years ago)



On the village outskirts you can meet Homo neanderthalensis, who ended up taking a side path on the route map of human evolutionary history.



The cave where the specimens were found isn't on the tourist trail, but there is a great museum.



Location: 51.25° N 6.97° E

Find out more: Neanderthal Museum



(Image: Neanderthal Museum)