[HN Gopher] Prehistoric timeline in Africa pushed back by more t... ___________________________________________________________________ Prehistoric timeline in Africa pushed back by more than 10M years Author : PaulHoule Score : 131 points Date : 2023-04-14 12:01 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (phys.org) (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org) | culi wrote: | I always like to keep a context for this sort of stuff. Here's my | growing list: giant impact that formed the moon | (4.5bya) great oxidation event (2.4-2.0bya) | multicellular life (1.5bya-600mya) trilobytes appear | (521mya) landplants (470mya) first land animal | (428mya) pangea forms (335mya) pangea breaks apart | (200mya) angiosperms (275mya) trilobytes disappear | (252mya) ginkgo (200mya) flowering plants become | abundant (100mya) antartica was a rainforest (90mya) | dinosaurs died (65mya) primates (55mya) azolla event | (49-48mya) pantherlike cats (10.8mya) first humans | (5mya) megalodons go extinct (2.6mya) modern humans | (300k years ago) yellowstone's last eruption (70k years | ago) humans reach turtle island (30-20k years ago) | african humid period, green sahara (14.5-5k years ago) | beringia land bridge gets inundated (11k years ago) saber | tooth tigers go extinct (10k years ago) horses go extinct | in north america (9k years ago) shift to wetter climate | makes Amazonia transition from grasslands to jungle (2k years | ago) | whiskers wrote: | I feel like you should add the appearance of the first | dinosaurs to this list (~240mya)! | chris_va wrote: | This was shared with me recently, graphical version of similar- | ish milestones: https://www.livingcarbon.com/deep-time | gmiller123456 wrote: | Probably need to add a reference to the creation of ChatGPT as | the last entry. | mihaic wrote: | Good list. I would add the evolution of sexual reproduction, | 1.2-2 bya. It seems to be a one-time leap and snowballed into | the modern complexity of life. | phkahler wrote: | Also, do flowering plant coincide with insects? | BeenAGoodUser wrote: | So modern humans knew a green Sahara? Amazing to think about! I | thought that was much older. | 8ytecoder wrote: | I was surprised to learn that as well. Apparently it's a | 20,000 year cycle. | | https://news.mit.edu/2019/study-regulating-north-african- | cli... | anonymouskimmer wrote: | I believe people have speculated that desertification is | where the idea of the Garden of Eden (that humans were | expelled from) may have come from. | thangalin wrote: | I wrote a coffee table photobook that includes some of those. | | https://impacts.to/downloads/lowres/impacts.pdf | | You may find that the bibliography cites slightly different | dates: | | https://impacts.to/bibliography.pdf | | For example, dinosaurs died out around 66.04 +- 0.05 Ma. | beambot wrote: | The timeline becomes wildly condensed in more-modern years. | Would love to see a "zoomed in" timeline from 250Ma-0Ma to | capture that detail on more pages. :) | jjulius wrote: | This is super cool! | narag wrote: | I had not read "coffee table photobook" before, nice concept. | (and yours is great, btw) | | That reminds me of those big table screens that Microsoft (?) | was selling years ago. Only seen in Hawai 5-0 again. Are they | still for sale? What was the name? | InvaderFizz wrote: | In standard Microsoft fashion, they were also called | Surface. | | See: https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-surface- | pixelsense-... | Bjartr wrote: | "Surface", it's no longer available and they repurposed the | name to use for their tablets. | avar wrote: | > dinosaurs died out around 66.04 +- 0.05 Ma. | | The dinosaurs didn't die out, and are alive in abundance | today. | | I know what you mean, but it's interesting how many otherwise | scientifically accurate publications use the taxonomic term | as if though our understanding of the origin of birds hadn't | evolved since the 1950s. | tshaddox wrote: | The term "dinosaur" is used almost exclusively to refer to | non-avian dinosaurs. In scientific literature the | qualification is usually made explicit, but I belief even | there it is sometimes clear enough from context to avoid | the explicit qualification. | kuhewa wrote: | Thats technically correct, the worst kind of correct. The | same way dinosaurs, and hominids are both lobed-fin fishes | (Sarcopterygii) as are all tetrapods. | maxxxxxx wrote: | Wow, this is beautiful. | limbicsystem wrote: | Recommend two nice books on this: the ancestor's tale by | Richard Dawkins and Otherlands by Thomas Halliday. Both | absolute page turners! | lkbm wrote: | > shift to wetter climate makes Amazonia transition from | grasslands to jungle (2k years ago) | | Wait, so all those forest species living there...did they | migrate from further north? | jamiek88 wrote: | There is a lot of evidence that the rainforest is largely man | made. | | https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pristine- | untou... | samth wrote: | A quick investigation on Wikipedia suggests that there are | two competing schools of thought: | | - the rainforest was somewhat smaller but still intact | (contra the OP) | | - the rainforest was reduced to small refuges separated by | grassland | darkteflon wrote: | That's excellent, thank you. My kid will love this, he's just | at that point where he's starting to understand the short scale | of human existence relative to what's come before. Always | looking for stuff that blows little minds. | jimmytucson wrote: | > first humans (5mya) | | This might be a little early - Wikipedia says the genus Homo | emerged from Australopithecus around 3.3 Ma | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo). | micah94 wrote: | you should throw this 'README' up on github | gsatic wrote: | Man have we observed and worked out a lot of stuff about our | past. Not bad for a 3 inch chimp brained creature. | codetiger wrote: | Can't miss the ice age timelines. Please add those. | brnt wrote: | Also interesting, a timeline going the other way: | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future | singularity2001 wrote: | Continuation of that list with a little overlap: | | https://github.com/pannous/hieros/wiki/inventions | 14 ka Shubayqa Jordan baked bread 13 ka: beer in | Haifa, Natufian 13 ka: dentistry in italy (bitumen | fillings) - 7000 BC in Baluchistan drill 12 ka: | chert arrows heads, with lateral notches, Khiamian? usage as | awls and drills 12-11 ka: Agriculture in the | Fertile Crescent, Hureyra Karaca 12-11 ka: | Domestication of sheep in Southwest Asia (followed shortly by | pigs, goats and cattle) 11.5 ka houses were built | on the ground level (before: half below ground) | 11.5-10.5 ka small female statuettes, symbolic burying of | aurochs skulls (Khiamian) 11.5 ka Totems (Shigir | Idol), later in Americas 11-8 ka: Domestication of | rice in China 11 ka: Constructed stone monument, | megaliths - Gobekli Tepe, in Turkey 11 ka: vat- | fulls of porridge and stew, made from grain coarsely ground and | processed on an almost industrial scale - gobekli | 11 ka: gobekli 10,000 grinding stones and nearly 650 carved | stone platters and vessels, up to 200 litres of liquid | 9000 BC: Polished basalt axe & Jerf al Ahmar plaques proto | writing? 9000 BC: White ware burned lime | containers 9000 BC: small clay tokens for counting | Mureybet 9000 BC: Square Houses, explosive rapid | growth of the use of cereals in near East 9000 BC: | Mudbricks, and clay mortar in Jericho. 9000 BC: | rammed earth walls in Fertile Crescent, later stabilized with | lime or blood! 8500 BC: millet cultivation Nan | Zhuang Tou Nanzhuangtou (& pottery) 8000 BC: | polished granite and alabaster jars (in Near East before | pottery) 8000 BC: Gesher basalt axes and various | other tools, exported 8000 BC Byblos arrowheads | replaced the Mureybetian types, and other technological | improvements 8000-7500 BC: Proto-city - large | permanent settlements, such as Tell es-Sultan (Jericho) and | Catalhoyuk, Turkey. 8000 BC: Patriarchic society | Asikli Hoyuk?? 8000 BC: Oversea settlement of | Mediteranian islands 8th millennium bark cloth | Catalhoyuk bast fibers from oak => barkcloth Guangxi [?]5900 BC | => Austronesia 3000 BC 7900 BC: deep sea fishing | (tuna), Franchthi Greece... see Whaling 7500 BC: | planned hunt & work camp : trading outpost(Umm Dabaghiya) | 7500 BC: Nabta Playa ceramics, megaliths, herding | 7500 BC: Neoliths reached Europe in Sesklo 7000 | BC: Tanned leather in the Indus Valley site of Mehrgarh, | Pakistan. 7000 BC: Dental drill in Mehrgarh, | Pakistan. 7000 BC: Alcohol fermentation - | specifically mead, in China 7000 BC: Sled dog and | Dog sled, in Siberia. 7000-6700 BC pottery | reaching Hassuna, stone vessels and White Ware were still being | used 7000 BC two level houses in Cayonu Mureybet | Beidha 7000 BC kitchen & living rooms separated, | upper levels used as granaries/workshops 7th | Millennium: copper hammering in Tell Sotto and Maghzaliyah | 7000-5000 BC Peiligang culture one of the oldest pottery in | ancient China 6500 BC Proper windows and doors in | Basta near Beidha 6500 BC Evidence of lead | smelting in Catalhoyuk, Turkey 6400 BC tholoi | burial buildings in Yarim Tepe 6200 BC Community | vessels 85 liters, Nea Nikomedeia, Greece 6200 BC | Hip roof, clay mixed with hay over thatch (todo: older!) | 6200 BC spindle whorls for spinning wool, Nea Nikomedeia, | Greece & Iran! => 6200 BC woolen threads, ropes, | lines, leashes! (woolen cloth and laces only 2000 years later!) | 6000 BC: Whaling in Korea, Mediteranian, Basques and a bit | later France (= Megaliths!) 6000 BC: Pottery Kiln | in Mesopotamia Yarim Tepe(Iraq) after oven, metal furnace later | 6th Millennium: lead smelting and hot copper hammering in | Anatolia and Yarim Tepe(Iraq) 6000-4800 BC Samarra | irrigation: Choga Mami 4700 BC channels, flax? | 6,400 to 5,000 BC 'Ain Ghazal & Sha'ar HaGolan: | 6th millennium BC Yarmukian : 700 km trade network obsidian, | pottery 6th polished stone vessels made of | alabaster (or marble) in Yarmukian 6th Pebble | streets in Yarmukian 6th courtyard houses, ranging | between 250 and 700 m2 in Yarmukian 6th Yarmukian | : 4.15 m well 6th Hassuna: jar burials with Venus | & food => belief in the afterlife 6th millennium | BC: Irrigation in Khuzistan, Iran 6000-3200 BC: | Proto-writing found in present day Serbia and China; later in | Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Pakistan. 5500 BC: Barbie | doll , Hamangia? 5300 BC: War massacres genocide | (again?) 5300 BC: Hacilar heavy fortifications and | small temple... newcomers! 5000 BC: stamp seal | with tally marks Tel Tsaf, Halaf culture 5000 BC: | silos with 200sq.m for 30 tons (20 families 1 year storage) | 5000 BC: Copper smelting in Serbia, after millennia of cold | metal working 5000 BC: Cotton thread, in Mehrgarh, | Pakistan, connecting the copper beads of a bracelet. | 5000 BC: Seawall in Israel 5th millennium BC: | Lacquer in China 5000-4500 BC: first preservation | of old rowing oars in China! 5000-4000 BC: two | tier settlement hierarchy in Ubaid culture | 5000-4000 BC: centralized large sites of more than 10 hectares | surrounded by smaller village sites of less than 1 hectare | 4800 BC: Sailing! Kuwait, Ubaid 3 4800-4400 BC: | City Walls to protect valuable oyster shell production in | Dimini & Sesklo (founded 7500 BC!) 4700 BC | Irrigation at Choga Mami vs Samarra channels quickly spreading | to Halaf 4500-3500 BC: Lost-wax casting in Israel | or the Indus Valley 4400 BC: Fired bricks in | China. 4th millennium specialized regional | production centers: 4000 BC?: silver Carpatho- | Balkan zone, 3600BC Tepe Sialk 4000 BC artificial | harbor, Limantepe Izmir, Anatolia 4000 BC: | Probable time period of the first diamond-mines in the world, | in Southern India. 4000 BC: Paved roads, in and | around the Mesopotamian city of Ur, Iraq (pebble roads see | above) 4000 BC: Plumbing. The earliest pipes were | made of clay, and are found at the Temple of Bel at Nippur in | Babylonia. Earthen pipes were later used in the Indus Valley c. | 2700 BC for a city-scale urban drainage system, and more | durable copper drainage pipes appeared in Egypt, by the time of | the construction of the Pyramid of Sahure at Abusir, c.2400 | BCE. 4000-3500 BC: Wheel: potter's wheels in | Mesopotamia and wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia (Sumerian | civilization), the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and | Central Europe (Cucuteni-Trypillia culture), reaching Harappa | 3500 BC and China. Slow wheel tournette replaced by fast wheels | after 3100 BC) 4000-3500 BC: specialized ropes | from fibers of reed, palms, flax, grass, papyrus, leather, or | hair (China 2800BC) 3500-2500 BC: Wheeled carts | replacing drawn sledges 3800-3500 BCE ox-plough | Bubenec, Czech Republic (replacing hoe and hand-ard rods) ! | 3630 BC: Silk garments (sericulture) in China 3500 | BC: Domestication of the horse (maybe 1000 years earlier) as | pack & drough animal, riding maybe later. 3500 BC: | Wine as general anesthesia in Sumer, after millennia of usage | as durable juice 3500 BC: Very early Indus script | signs in Pakistan | http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/334517.stm = King Scorpion | 3500 BC: Cylinder Seal emblem in Uruk and Susa after stamp | seals in the Halaf culture 3400-3100 BC: tattoos | in southern Europe, after Ubaid and likely Upper Paleolithic | 3300 BC: Rise of Cycladic culture and Minoan civilization | (Featuring 5500 BC Barbie doll , Hamangia) 3000 | BC: Internationally Standardized weights! 2800 BC: | copper mirror or earlier 2600 BC: Cotton was woven | and dyed for clothing in Harappa (see 5000BC Cotton threads) | 2600 BC: "fowl for fighting" Harappa | 64bittechie wrote: | [dead] | jimmytucson wrote: | I'd add when any life began: single-celled | life (3.8-4.3bya) | | ...which is notably close to when the Solar System formed | (4.6bya) | actionfromafar wrote: | ... 4.6bya - a good chunk of how long the universe even | existed. | RosanaAnaDana wrote: | One might assume then that life is inevitable. Seems like | too much if a coincidence (although I appreciate the | tautology of that thought). | muyuu wrote: | Or that "intelligent" life is very unlikely if you | consider that our planet will no longer be inhabitable in | roughly the next 10% of its total existence and 7% since | it's estimated microbial life appeared. | | If human equivalent creatures had taken just 10% longer | to appear the sun would have dried up all the water on | the earth and wiped its atmosphere before it happened. | anonymouskimmer wrote: | The satellites of Saturn and Jupiter will still be | chugging along. | | Our star is unusual, as well over 90% of stars are | smaller (and thus longer lived). Though if you go small | enough you start dealing with planets in the habitable | zone being tidally locked. | Tuna-Fish wrote: | But if a species capable of rocketry had not developed, | there is no way complex life would be able to get to | those satellites. | | The increased likelihood of being tidally locked is not | the only problem with smaller stars. As a rule, larger | stars are more stable and smaller stars are more active. | This is made worse by the fact that the habitable zone is | closer to the star for smaller stars. Most stars in the | universe probably can't support life as we know it | because any planet close enough to be warm would get it's | atmosphere stripped off by flares. | anonymouskimmer wrote: | > But if a species capable of rocketry had not developed, | there is no way complex life would be able to get to | those satellites. | | I'm talking about continuing evolution of the life that | may already be there. | | Informative points about stars. | narag wrote: | The alternative explanation is that seeds from a previous | evolution started colonizing the planet as soon as the | medium became viable. But that's like cheating. | lisper wrote: | Not really. It's 300-800 million years. That's not nothing. | It just looks small by comparison to the time elapsed since | then. | laxd wrote: | ... and overlapping the the Late Heavy Bombardement. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment | saalweachter wrote: | Similarly, I have a number from the back of the envelope in my | back pocket that roughly 2.2 trillion person-years have been | lived (by modern humans), roughly one third before agriculture | and one third after the industrial revolution. | | World War 2 was roughly one percent of history, weighted by | person-years. | OkayPhysicist wrote: | My favorite framing of that is that in homo sapiens, life has | only been proven to have a mortality rate of 93%. | pavlov wrote: | My personal mortality rate is 0% so far. Not sure what the | fuss is about. | andrewmutz wrote: | > World War 2 was roughly one percent of history, weighted by | person-years. | | Do you mean history since WW2 has been about one percent of | history? | saalweachter wrote: | The population during the ~decade WWII covered was 2.3 | billion, so about 23 billion person-years were lived, about | 1% of the total. | | You can argue that total down considerably -- other stuff | happened during that decade, and while something like 10% | of the population fought in the war, it wasn't _truly_ | global -- but it 's still impressive on the scale of | history. The US Revolutionary War was probably only | 1/1000th of that. | jbaber wrote: | What interval is the remaining third? | Infernal wrote: | Unless I'm misunderstanding, the remaining third would be | between the advent of agriculture and the industrial | revolution. | 988747 wrote: | So the first third took millions of years, second third | took roughly 6-7k years, and the last third took 200 | years? | tomjakubowski wrote: | Like everything on the prehistoric timeline, the dawn of | agriculture keeps getting pushed back. I think that's | believed to be older than 10k years ago now. | Tuna-Fish wrote: | With the caveat that the intensity of the increasingly | older agriculture is increasingly low. | | There are clearly agricultural societies, where >90% of | calories come from cultured plants, and there are clearly | hunter-gatherer societies that predate them, where ~0% | do. We used to believe in a relatively sharp cutoff | between these, where once people learned to grow food, | they quickly moved to mostly grow their food. This is no | longer thought to be the truth, and there was likely a | "transitional period" of many thousands of years as | people very slowly hunted and gathered less and planted | more. | | (Why believe in a sharp transition? Because there is a | lot of archeological evidence for it, so it clearly | happened in lots of places. It's just that this doesn't | represent people inventing agriculture, but it spreading | to a new area and displacing older lifestyles, either by | migrations of people or of ideas.) | saalweachter wrote: | The first is only hundreds of thousands, starting with | anatomically modern humans and not all of our precursors | who lived for millions of years before that. | | Though that may not change much -- depending on your | estimates, Neanderthals probably spanned 3-30 billion | person-years, as little as 0.1% of modern humans. All | human precursors (5-10My worth) might be margin of error | on the modern humans' totals. | | On the other end of things, if we plateau at around 10 | billion humans, it will only take about 75 years to | accumulate the next third (well, quarter) of human | existence. | baxtr wrote: | Very cool! | | There was an article a while arguing that we humans are very | early in this universe and that's why we don't see any other | alien species. | | There was a list of 7 steps that needed to happen for humans to | exists. | | I don't remember them, but I think would be to cross check if | all of them are on your list. | | Edit: found the theory. It's called Grabby Aliens and they use | a concept called "hard steps" of evolution. | nobody9999 wrote: | >There was an article a while arguing that we humans are very | early in this universe and that's why we don't see any other | alien species. | | I recall that discussion and added to it with a link to a PBS | SpaceTime Episode[0] which discusses this in some detail. | | Since you find it interesting (I certainly do), check it out. | Actually PBS SpaceTime has lots of other really awesome stuff | too![1] | | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTrFAY3LUNw | | [1] I am unaffiliated with PBS SpaceTime, rather I'm just | glad it exists! | chr-s wrote: | I never knew horses went extinct in North America. Apparently | we don't really understand why either. Fascinating. | oblio wrote: | Horses are from North America, originally. | | Crazy timeline. | | They're from North America. | | They seem to go extinct before local civilizations are able | to leverage them, missing out on a huge force multiplier. | | Europeans reintroduce them much later and use them | successfully to conquer large swaths of land. | | The "inferior" Native Americans realize the utility of horses | and very quickly they become so skilled at using them that | today their archetypal image is that of a horseman. | gadders wrote: | You could add Woolly Mammoths going extinct 4k years ago. | Notable it its own right, and also because they overlapped with | the pyramids being built. | finnh wrote: | Agree! Also Gobekli Tepe overlaps with saber tooth tigers | extinction (10kya). | gadders wrote: | I didn't know that. Good idea! | n_morningstar26 wrote: | Some one was trying to revive mammoth ! what happened to | that project. | vkou wrote: | For most intents and purposes, Wooly Mammoths became | irrelevant to the ecosystem, and to all but a few human | populations ~10,000 years ago. The last surviving mammoths | were isolated on a few scattered islands. | chiefalchemist wrote: | Yes. But the general perception is Wooly Mammoths were in | another era long before the more "modern" pyramids and | such. | | TBH I wasn't aware the two overlapped. Now I know :) | NationalPark wrote: | Here's a good one you can add: | https://www.wired.com/2010/01/ancient-seafarers/ | | _Somebody_ got on a boat and ended up in Crete 100k years ago! | | (Also you forgot the ice age, heh) | carabiner wrote: | [flagged] | DeusExMachina wrote: | If so, of what is this a simulation, exactly? | replwoacause wrote: | It's a constructed reality. It doesn't have to be a | simulation of anything in particular. | chronofar wrote: | Whether that's true or false changes virtually nothing about | this article or our understanding of anything in the universe. | tomrod wrote: | Personally, I find Solipsism and its cousins unsatisfying. | consumer451 wrote: | > Simulation theory is deism for techies. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33580896 | carabiner wrote: | I believe in a God outside of this simulation. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-04-14 23:01 UTC)