The earliest primates, called the Plesiadapiformes, are said to have speciated out of the Euarchonta very soon after the dinosaur-eliminating Comet struck, about 66 million years ago (MA).
Soon after (63 MA) the Plesiadapiformes differentiated into the so-called wet-nosed and the dry-nosed primates. We will ignore the wet-nosed in what follows. The dry nosed are represented on today's earth by both the Great Apes and us humans. One distinctive feature of the dry-nosed branching? It can't metabolize vitamin C. We, and millions of years of ancestors, have had to include fruits bearing that vitamin in our diets.
Interesting, susceptibility to alcohol seems to be a trait of the primate group as a whole. After observing many other primates' love for fermenting fruits, we now skip forward to 30 MA. Around this time some of the dry-nosed primates made it to South America. Perhaps the area was connected with Africa here: but on one hypothesis that wouldn't have been necessary -- a huge raft of vegetation may have carried them to the new home. Either way: from these creatures come the New World monkeys.
Back in Africa, around 25 MA the great apes, Hominoidea, make their appearance. Something new about this line: color vision. With the new improved vision came an ability to spot citric fruits amidst vegetation: a useful skill since, as noted, primates of the relevant sort can't manufacture vitamin C so we have to digest it.
The gibbon branches off about 18 MA; the orangutang about 16 MA, gorilla about 9 MA.
What is left is a clad that includes the common ancestor of chimpanzees, bonobos, and little old me.
Some Bipedal Apes
Australopithecus afarensis (famous for the fossilized bones of 'Lucy') lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago. The species has left very human-like bipedal footprints in volcanic ash. It had split by this time from chimps and bonobos. There are a lot of different species from this time forward, both australopithecine and hominid, but there was apparently only a narrow ecological niche for them to occupy, so they arise and die off in a confusing welter in the fossil record they have left. And we, as often as not taking our vitamin C in the form of pills in a bottle, are the only survivor of the group.
Around 3 MA these A. afarensis' were the prey of the Megantereon (saber toothed tiger). So maybe the tiger had found its own solution for the source of its vitamin C?
Three million years ago the most human-like species around was the australopithecus (southern apes). There has been a lot of focus in recent years on Australopithecus Afarensis. Afarensis had a variegated diet, adapted it seems to plants both of the forest and the savanna. It likely ate meat too, judging from the stone tools it had available.
The heel bone was adapted for bipedality.
Did the afarensis give rise to homo-something-or-other? The transition, if there was one, is difficult to pin down, but the two species have a close relationship of some sort. An abstract from a paleontological paper written in 2015, concerning the discovery of a partial mandible with teeth from circa 2.8 MYA, reads in part: "This specimen combines primitive traits seen in early Australopithecus with derived morphology observed in later Homo, confirming that dentognathic departures from the australopith pattern occurred early in the Homo lineage. The Ledi-Geraru discovery has implications for hypotheses about the timing and place of origin of the genus Homo."
The new hominids were confined to the vast continent of Africa from the time of the fossilization of those teeth to about 200,000 years ago. So we have moved from MYA units to KYA. Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Homo erectus came and went during this time.
Homo sapiens developed around 300 KYA.
Our Species and Subspecies
Large portions of the species had departed Africa by 200 KYA along the migratory routes indicated in the map. They split into at least three subspecies around 80 thousand years after that.
One of the subspecies of this new species is known as homo sapiens neanderthalis. Another, homo sapiens denisovans. The other, homo sapiens sapiens (they have given themselves the flattering title "the wise wise men.") We will follow only the third in what remains to be said.
About 70,000 years ago there was a super eruption of a volcano at Lake Toba in Indonesia. This seems to have had catastrophic consequences that resulted in the death of most of the humans then on the planet. It created a "population bottleneck."
And until about 25,000 years ago, none of these creatures lived in the sort of place that leaves a lasting archaeological mark. The oldest settlement available for preservation and study by our contemporaries is in the Czech Republic. It is known as Dolni Vestonice.
The usual stories run, "paleolithic humans, hunting mammoths, paused in the chase here and built a place of habitation. Perhaps at first only because they expected to come back to it when their hunt was complete, they built with materials that would last. They used stones, and the bones of mammoths already conquered. Over time, this hunting camp became a town, the buildings becoming more elaborate "
There was a kiln found here, where ceramics were created. They are the oldest ceramics known from anywhere.
We will end here, because we have made the cross from paleoanthropology into archeology. The next time I return to a deep past timeline, I will be working my way toward actual HISTORY.
Coming to America, Inventing Porn
33 KYA is the age of clearly human footprints in New Mexico, 3,000 miles in a straight line from the Bering Straits. These footprints indicate that the first migration of humans across the landbridge must have been considerably earlier than previously thought.
22 KYA was the time of the last glacial maximum. That is, if we think of glaciation in the northern hemisphere as a tidal phenomenon, 22 KYA was the last high tide. Glaciers reached New England.
18 KYA. Around this time beautiful spotted horses were painted on the wall of a cave known as Pech Merle in France.
17 KYA. Something less realistic. Even, if we are to use the language of art criticism, surrealistic. Someone painted a bird-headed man in the Lasceaux cave. The bird-headed man, with a prominent penis perpendicular to his body, is little more than a stick figure: but he is standing in front of -- or perhaps falling down in fright at -- a much more realistically portrayed bison.
14 KYA. This is the conventionally accepted beginning of the "Jomon" period in the prehistory of Japan. The above mentioned sea waters may not yet have entirely cut Japan off from the continent of Asia. The term "jomon" means "cord marked" and it refers to a style of pottery in which cords are tied around the clay as it hardens to determine its markings.
12 KYA. Evidence of a wooden building (and so likely permanent human habitations) have been found from around this time in South America. the long migration we mentioned above had by this time covered the whole range of the Americas.
11 KYA. At this point we may as well speak in terms of BC rather than KYA. We'll just subtract 2 from the number of Ks. 9,000 BC is the birth of pornography. For this is the age of the oldest known sculpture of a couple having sex. It was found in a cave in the Jordan desert, and was found there by a Bedouin at some point prior to AD 1933. The sculpture is known as the Ain Sakhri Lovers.
8500 BC -- Pigs first domesticated in the Near East.
8000 BC -- there is evidence of a massacre near Lake Turkana in Kenya. It may have been organized on both sides: in other words, a lopsided battle. If you are a Rousseauian and want to look back to a golden age before such nasty things, that golden age will have to be older than this site.
Domesticated Animals and Specialized Hunters
7600 BC -- By this time the domestication of the pig has reached China.
7000 BC -- A specialized group of hunters in what is now known as Jordan created "desert kites" as traps for gazelles, and created a shrine for themselves near there. Fascinating thing: the shrine includes a small-scale model of the gazelle trap. This vividly makes the point that hunting gazelles wasn't just 'a living' for them. It had a spiritual side.
6500 BC -- Permanent dwellings near Abu Dhabi are known from this time. They have been found on the shore of the Persian Gulf, where the shore is itself an east-west line so someone standing on the shore is looking north.
6100 BC, a rising sea level means that water separates ancient Britain from the continent of Europe from this point forward.
6000 BC -- the systematic study of the positions of the stars and planets over the course of a year is said to have begun in Sumeria about this time
5000 BC. The first farming villages on the Nile appear here.
4500 BC. The domestication of pigs has by this time reached northern Europe.
4400 BC, by this time distinctive earthworks have begun to be built in Britain. These were the "long barrows" used for communal burials.
4000 BC saw the emergence of the first farming settlements in the Indus River Valley. Another fascinating point: this seems to have been the start of the domestication of horses, not in the area that came to be known as the Indus Valley but to the north -- on the Eurasian steppes, including modern-day Ukraine.
Modern Architecture: Pyramids and Stonehenge
3500 BC, the desertification of much of Northern Africa has begun by this time. It was a desertification that forced the population of the region to drift east, toward the Nile Valley. It turns out that migration can be a good thing for the society of destination: this development made Egypt strong.
3100 BC, North and South Egypt united into a single state.
3000 BC, Nomads from central Asia who came to be known as "Aryans" started migrating into the Indus River Valley.
2620 BC, this is the best-guess date of the completion of the oldest known pyramid in Egypt. This was a step pyramid: the distinctive smooth sides of the pyramids we associate with Egyptian civilization were a later development.
2500 BC, most likely approx. date for the creation of Stonehenge.
2200 BC, a great city in Asia Minor is destroyed by fire. This may be the nearest thing to a real-life instantiation of Homer's Troy and its literary end.
2130 BC, a two hundred year long period of political chaos begins in Egypt. The chaos of this time represents the end of what is called the "Old Kingdom" and when chaos receded the result would be called the Middle Kingdom.
2000 BC, the earliest known evidence of the Minoan civilization on Crete.
Monotheism and Chariots
Around 1990 BC Sargon the Great flourished in the height of the Assyrian empire.
1793 BC, The father of an ambitious young prince named Hammurabi has just died. This is to the south of Assyria, in Babylon. Hammurabi, now on the throne, will create the Babylonian empire, and is credited with an extensive codification of law.
1650 BC, the fall of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, and the beginning of the second intermediate period -- another time of chaos.
1595 BC. the fall of the Babylonian dynasty that Hammurabi had created.
1550 BC, end of the chaos in Egypt with the rise of the New Kingdom.
1353 BC, The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaton creates history's first known monotheistic religion.
1320 BC, the reaction against the ideas of the now-deceased Akhenaton brings Egypt back to its old gods, and the new bosses seek to bury even the memory of his reforms. The historical analog to the Biblical exodus may have been the departure of those who were faithful to Akhenaton’s views, as they had become very unpopular with the new ruler.
1200 BC, by this time the Shang dynasties in China were using horses drawn by chariots, perhaps the greatest military tech innovation ever! Also at roughly this point, someone in Israel writes a text containing the name of God in a new language, Hebrew: YHWH. Akhenaton's ideas have taken root.
950 BC, the Kingdom of Israel is at its height around this date, ruled by David and then by Solomon, and their people begin to sing and write about their history.
Toward Elea and Athens
900 BC, south of the Himalayas, scholars are working on the books that come to be known as the Vedas (Wisdom), the foundation text of Hinduism.
776 BC, the Greeks are coming along, and their various cities start sending their best athletes to compete in games beginning in this year.
500 BCE, The Chinese invent cast iron.
470 BC, Scholars in Elea (part of the Greek world, though geographically in Italy) develop the theory that the whole world is one and static -- Being cannot allow for change or difference, all of which must be illusion. What is new isn't this view, but the rationalistic style in which it is defended.
462 BC, Pericles rises to power in Athens, a now great city at the heart of the Greek world.
399 BC, the death of Socrates, a philosopher executed by order of an Athenian jury.
336 BC, Alexander, a pupil of another great Athenian philosopher, is crowned the King of Macedonia.
214 BC, the year of the creation of a great canal connecting the Pearl and Yangtze Rivers in China, the Xianggui Canal, the first example in history of an artificial connection between two natural waterways.
I Am Spartacus
146 BC, after a long struggle, the rising power in the west of the Meditterranean, Rome, defeats and destroys the city of Carthage on the northern coast of Africa.
73 BC, after a brief but intense struggle Rome puts down a slave rebellion led by the mysterious "Spartacus."
44 BC, Conspirators kill Julius Caesar, and the Roman Republic is doomed, though its memory will long have defenders, the growing empire of Rome will be the realm of a monarchy for centuries to come.
FIRST CENTURY CE (or AD), SOMETHING happens in Palestine, centered around the figure of Jesus of Nazareth amid talk of miraculous resurrection and ascension into heaven -- and this something sets off a new religion, growing out of the Judaism of David and Solomon.
106 - 117. This is when the Roman Empire reaches its largest-ever width with the conquests of Romania, Iraq, and Armenia.
476. Rome falls. The western, original, half of the great empire is no more, and barbarian nations will settle down into the nation-states of Western Europe. For a long time, though, some Roman institutions will be kept alive in the east, in a remnant empire centered in Constantinople.
570. The birth of Muhammad.
726, the Iconoclast movement begins in the east of Christendom. This will be a big source of tension between Constantinople and Rome as religious centers, and even as a political matter between the nations of the west and the Eastern Roman (aka the Byzantine) Empire of the East.
1066, William the Bastard invades England, wins it, and changes his name to William the Conqueror, which sounds nicer anyway.
Plagued by Rats and Heretics
1158 sees the creation of the Hanseatic League, a free trade compact in north central Europe.
In 1187, Saladin recaptures Jerusalem from the Latin world's Crusaders.
June 1215. England's King John is forced to accept limits on his power, the Great Charter.
1347. The Black Plague arrives in Europe via infected mice.
October 1415. Henry V defeats the French army at Agincourt on St Crispin's Day.
May 1453. The fall of Constantinople, the "second Rome," to the Islamist Ottoman Empire.
1498. Florence condemns and executes the passionate heretical friar Girolamo Savonarola.
1513. Niccolò Machiavelli puts out THE PRINCE, a study of the (unscrupulous) means that one must use to control a city-state.
Things Get Modern:
1637, Rene Descartes creates modern philosophy with his DISCOURSE ON METHOD.
1720, One of history's great speculative fevers, the South Sea bubble, is blown and popped this year.
1787, the Constitution of the United States is framed, with a resonant preamble identifying "We the People" as the ones doing the framing on behalf of their own sovereignty.
1871, Rome becomes the capital for something new, the Kingdom of Italy, arising out of the coalescence of the long warring city states of the peninsula.
1878, Philosopher Charles Peirce formulates the "pragmatic maxim," and the philosophy known ever since as "pragmatism" is borne.
September 1945, the second of two terrible World Wars that have dominated nearly the first half of the 20th century comes to an end on the deck of the Battleship Missouri. The United Nations will formally be created a month later, because the world has been shocked into an unprecedented degree of international organization by the massive slaughter of the preceding years.
January 1958. The Russians launch Sputnik. Humans are heading Outward.
July 1969. Human beings, Americans, walk about on the surface of the moon.
January 1, 1983, ARPANET adopts TCP/IP. In effect, this is the creation of the internet.
Picking up the Pace: One event per year
Now I'm going to pick up the pace and refer to one (but just one) event in each of the next 38 years.
1984: The Sino-British Joint Declaration sets out plans for a transition of Hong Kong to PRC sovereignty.
1985: Microsoft releases Windows 1.0
1986: The explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger 73 seconds after liftoff.
1987: The US FDA approves the marketing of Prozac, a revolution in the mass marketing of psychotropic medication.
1988. The peak of the insider trading scandal that made Rudolph Giuliani a person of importance. Drexel Burnham pleaded guilty.
1989. The oil tanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound in Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of oil.
1990. East and West Germany reunited after decades of separation and amidst the general unravelling of the Warsaw Pact.
1991. The Soviet Union dissolves itself.
1992. The European Union comes into being as a stronger and more political unity than the "common market" by which it had been preceded.
1993. The North American Free Trade Agreement is confirmed by each of the three national legislatures involved.
1994. An ongoing series of bombings by Ted Kaczynski, at this time known to the world only as The Unabomber, gets renewed attention when Thomas Mosser is killed. Mosser was a public relations executive who had worked on rehabbing the reputation of Exxon after the Valdez oil spill.
1995 The Washington Post and The New York Times publish a manifesto from the Unabomber.
1996. This is the year the Olympics came to Georgia. With results disastrous for one Atlanta private security guard, who ends up wrongly charged with the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park.
Apple, Al Gore, Al Qaeda, and Assange
1997. After a period of exile, founder Steve Jobs makes a triumphant return to the management of Apple Computer.
1998. The collapse of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) puts hedge funds into the vocabulary of the common folk.
1999. The Euro is established as a currency, and the European Central Bank assumes full powers throughout the currency's zone.
2000. The US Supreme Court for the first time in its history intervenes decisively in the outcome of a Presidential election, in BUSH v. GORE.
2001. Al Qaeda attacks US targets and kills thousands.
2002. The US Dept of Homeland Security is brought into existence.
2003. The United States forces an end to the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein. Most Americans are likely under the impression that this had something to do with the Al Qaeda attack two years before. It does not.
2004: The Orange Revolution in Ukraine topples a Russian stooge.
2005: The Provo IRA calls an end to its armed campaign in Northern Ireland.
2006: The creation of Wikileaks. An artifact of the digital era, Wikileaks was founded in Iceland by an organization called Sunshine Press, with the hope of pouring sunshine into some dark places. It would be led by Julian Assange.
Financial Crises
2007: Subprime crisis afflicts the secondary mortgage markets, especially in the US. An unexpectedly large fraction of the mortgages originated in the preceding couple of years turned out to be VERY subprime.
2008: A global financial crisis, building up from the previous year's "subprime crisis," strikes banks beginning with Bear Stearns, which has to be sold at fire sale prices. Things go downhill from there.
2009: The creation of Bitcoin. The global financial crisis had brought to a new level a grassroots sense of distrust of traditional banking and the sovereignty-based currencies in which banks trade. Bitcoin offered something new, a currency inherently limited (in much the same way gold is), digital, decentralized, yet secure from tampering.
2010: The Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico explodes.
2011: Rebels, with U.S. assistance, overthrow Muammar Gadaffi's govt in Libya.
2012: Eurozone ministers agree on an expensive bailout of Greece.
2013: The elevation of an Argentine Cardinal to the title of Pope Francis.
2014: Scotland votes on the question of declaring independence from the United Kingdom. The "no" side wins a victory.
2015: Greece misses a payment to the IMF, as part of the deal developed in 2012 (see above). The furor this creates ends with Greece accepting a harsher set of terms than the original agreement, an "austerity" package.
2016: The Brexit vote in the UK. Brexit -- exit from the EU -- wins the vote. This causes many Scots -- who had largely voted "no," to say they wanted a do-over on their own secessionist vote two years before. They weren't aware when they voted that they would be choosing BETWEEN EU and UK. The no vote on their own secession was in the eyes of many a vote for both unions. Now? Sentiment may run in favor of joining the EU and letting the southerners exit from it by their own damned selves.
2017: A coup in Zimbabwe removes President Mugabe.
2018: US President Donald Trump this spring makes good on a 2016 campaign pledge to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Apple Again, And Other Stuff
2019: Apple becomes the first $1 trillion corporation in the history of the world measured by market cap. It is not merely or even mostly a "computer company" any longer -- whatever exactly that means nowadays -- since the invention of the iPhone it has become the world's leading telecom company, and that has been the catalyst for its breaking of the trillion dollar barrier.
2020: Julian Assange, co-founder of Wikileaks as mentioned above, is arrested by British authorities, originally with the idea of extradition to Sweden, but the U.S. soon enters the picture effectively bidding against Sweden to become the extradition destination.
2021: The EU and UK finally reach an accord on post-Brexit trade relations.
2022: The Russo-Ukraine crisis.
Make of this all what you will.
