1 Million BC - 3300BC
Go to home
1Mil BC Ascension Island, the top
of a volcano, broke through the surface of the Atlantic Ocean about
this time. Since then the island has grown to about 100 square km.
(Econ, 12/18/10, p.159)
1Mil BC DNA evidence in 2008 suggested that the
black rat originated in South-East Asia about this time and then
split into 6 lines, one of which colonized India and the Middle East
and then spread to Europe.
(Econ, 3/15/08, p.97)
1Mil BC The Jaramillo event occurred and serves as
a paleomagnetic marker. In 1982 William Glen authored “The Road to
Jaramillo: Critical Years of the Revolution in Earth Science.” The
book's title comes from the Jaramillo magnetic event discovered in
rocks from Jaramillo Creek in the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico.
(PacDis., Spg. 96,
p.46)(www.asa3.org/ASA/book_reviews/12-92.htm)
1Mil BC A homo erectus skull from Daka, Ethiopia,
from this time was identified in 2001 as an ancestor to all modern
humans. Tim D. White and Berhani Asfaw led the team that discovered
the fossils in 1997.
(SFC, 3/21/02, p.A1)
1Mil BC Homo erectus arrived in Java about this
time. In 1891 Eugene Dubois, Dutch health officer, discovered the
skull of a human in Java, Indonesia that he named Pithecanthropus
erectus [Java Man]. The first Homo erectus skullcap was found near
Trinil, Java.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.434)(RFH-MDHP, p.153)(SFC,
12/13/96, p.A4)(SFC, 11/14/00, p.A9)
1Mil BC A Grand Canyon lava dam created a lake
larger than Lake Mead and Lake Powell combined. It extended from
Toroweap Canyon back through Lake Powell to beyond Moab, Utah-- a
distance of more than 400 miles.
(NH, 9/97, p.39)
1Mil BC The mean residence time for the water in
Lake Vostok was one million years as compared to 6 years for Lake
Ontario. Scientists in 1999 discovered living bacteria and theorized
that the lake was warmed either by hot magma beneath the Earth's
crust or by the downward pressure of ice.
(SFC, 12/11/99,
p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok)
c1Mil BC The Haleakala volcano created the eastern
half of Maui.
(SFEC, 8/27/00, p.T8)
c1Mil BC A star in the constellation Scorpius
exploded in a super nova and evidence revealed in 1999 that a black
hole was formed.
(SFC, 9/9/99, p.A10)
1Mil BC - 2000 BC In the last million or more
years several continental glaciations have chilled much of the
northern hemisphere and no small portion of the south.
(DD-EVTT, p.281)
950k BC An alteration in the Earth's magnetic
field occurred.
(E&IH, 1973, p.94)
900k BC In 2004 Scientists from the US, Britain
and Kenya reported that a skull fragment of a small adult with some
characteristics of Homo erectus was about 900,000 years old. It was
found in 2003 in Olorgesalie, 100 miles southeast of the capital,
Nairobi, Kenya.
(AP, 7/3/04)
900k BC In 2009 scientists reported finding
advanced hand axes made about this time in southeastern Spain.
Similar Acheulean type limestone tools, flaked on both edges, were
at another site nearby dated to 760,000 BC.
(SFC, 9/5/09, p.A1)
890k BC An alteration in the Earth's magnetic
field occurred.
(E&IH, 1973, p.94)
840k BC - 420k BC A large migration of people
from Africa to Asia and Europe took place over this period. A 2nd
migration period occurred from 150k-80k.
(SFC, 3/7/02, p.A2)
800k BC Soleilhac, in the Massif Central of
France, is the oldest unquestionable site of hominid occupation in
Europe. It offers faunal remains and tools, but no hominid bones.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p.612)
800k BC A few months ago a team of fossil hunters
reported 800,000 year-old hominids from the Gran Dolino site in the
Atapuerca Mountains in northern Spain. The date was older by 300,000
years than any other human remains in Europe. They called the new
species Homo antecessor. Among modern characteristics were a
prominent brow line and multiple roots for premolar teeth,
characteristics of early hominids.
(PacDis., Spg. 96, p.46)(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A8)
800k BC Some Indonesian and Dutch archeologist
have presented evidence that early hominids in Asia made it to the
island of Flores in the Javan archipelago.
(PacDis., Spg. 96, p.48)
800k BC The Haleakala shield volcano on Maui,
Hawaii, appeared about this time.
(SFEM, 3/16/97, p.28)
800k BC - 450k BC In 2007 researchers dated DNA from Greenland mud
under 1.2 miles of ice to about this time. The DNA indicated the
presence of pine, yew and alder trees, as well as insects. Due to
uncertainties in the dating, scientists could not rule out that the
samples dated to the last interglacial, 130,000 to 116,000 years
before the present.
(SFC, 7/6/07, p.A14)
780k BC Spanish scientists in 1997 announced a new
human species from a 780,000 year old fossil.
(www.anomalous-images.com/news/news049.html)
c760k BC Mono Lake in California has existed since
at least this time.
(PacDis, Summer '97, p.38)
c760k BC The Long Valley Caldera, a 10 by 20 mile
crater in central-eastern California, was created by a volcanic
eruption in what later became the Bishop area. Mammoth Lakes was
later set on the edge of the caldera, 215 miles northeast of LA. In
2003 it was reported that the Long Valley dome had been thrusting
upward about an inch a year for the last 8 years.
(SFC,11/15/97, p.A4)(SFC,12/11/97, p.A8)(SFC,
12/20/99, p.A8)(SFC, 12/8/03, p.A4)
760k BC In 2009 scientists reported finding
advanced hand axes made about this time in southeastern Spain.
Similar Acheulean type limestone tools, flaked on both edges, were
at another site nearby dated to 900,000 BC.
(SFC, 9/5/09, p.A1)
c750k BC California's Mono Lake was formed about
this time as the Sierra Range lifted and the Great Basin sank.
(SSFC, 9/28/03, p.C12)
740k BC The Red Mountain cinder cone at Flagstaff,
Arizona, dated to this time.
(SSFC, 7/23/06, p.G4)
730k BC A meteor crashed in Tasmania making Darwin
glass from the friction of hitting.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.466)
730k BC Stegodons, extinct elephant-like animals,
lived on the Indonesian island of Flores in association with stone
flakes.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.20)
700k BC End of the Early Pleistocene.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)
700k BC A pyroclastic flow (hot gasses, pumice and
other dry volcanic materials that roar down a volcano's slopes at
one hundred km an hour) in California's Long Valley was so huge that
it topped the Sierra Nevada.
(PacDisc. Spring/'96, p.31)
700k BC In 2005 scientists said that 32 black
flint artifacts, found in river sediments in Pakefield in eastern
England, date back 700,000 years and represent the earliest
unequivocal evidence of human presence north of the Alps.
(AP, 12/14/05)
700k BC – 130k BC In 2010 experts from Greece and
the US found rough axes and other tools, thought to be between
130,000 and 700,000 years, old close to shelters on the south coast
of Crete.
(AP, 1/4/11)
670k BC - 400k BC Homo erectus occupied the
Longushan cave. The Dragon Bone Hill site is 30 miles southwest of
Beijing. The bones were found in the 1920s-1930s and were popularly
referred to as Peking Man.
(Arch, 5/04, p.52)
690k BC An alteration in the Earth's magnetic
field occurred.
(E&IH, 1973, p.94)
640k BC Volcanic eruptions in northwest Wyoming,
extending to Idaho and Montana, created a caldera some 40 miles long
and 30 miles wide. The surface collapsed thousands of feet into a
magma pool and marked the area later known as Yellowstone.
Continuing eruptions caused climactic changes around the world.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.T5)(HC, 10/10/06)
600k BC The EETA 79001 meteorite was blasted from
Mars about this time and contained evidence of "microbially produced
methane." Its formation was dated to about 175 million years ago.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A16)
600k BC A skull of this age from Bodo, Ethiopia,
exhibits the largest nasal width of any Homo fossil.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.32)
600k BC Dr. Leakey discovered oldest human skull
to date, 600,000 years old, on Jul 17, 1959.
(MC, 7/17/02)
600k BC - 500k BC The last common ancestor
of modern humans and Neanderthals lived about this time most likely
in Africa.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A17)
600k BC - 300k BC Excavations begun in 1921
at Zhoukoudian, China, suggested evidence that Peking Man had
mastered fire and practiced cannibalism over this period.
(NH, 3/1/04, p.46)
600k BC - 250k BC Homo heidelbergensis. Described
in 1996 by Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar in: "From Lucy to
Language: The Record of Human Evolution."
(SFC, 12/29/96, BR p.11)
c560k BC Tectonic uplifting caused the California
Central Valley inland Corcoran Lake to rise and cut an exit to drain
into the Bay Area. This carved Carquinez Strait and plugged the
Salinas Valley outlet to Monterey Bay.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A8)
512k BC - 510k BC Anthropologists in 2005
identified fossil chimp teeth and stone tools from this period that
indicated humans and chimps inhabited a similar environment in
Africa’s Great Rift Valley.
(SFC, 9/1/05, p.A2)
c500k BC The Medicine Lake Volcano created lava
tubes that later became known as Lava Beds National Monument in
northern California.
(SFC, 5/29/04, p.B4)
500k BC In Boxgrove England, a fossilized
rhinoceros shoulder blade with a projectile wound was found recently
and dated to this time.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.25)
c500k BC A human jawbone of about this age, homo
Heidelbergensis, was found in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1907.
(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.T9)
500k BC - 250k BC Homo sapiens (archaic). Skull of
adult male found by Greek villagers at Petralona, Greece in 1960.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 572)
500k BC - 200k BC In Ethiopia a hominid skull
from this period was discovered in 2006 at the Gawis river drainage
basin in the Afar region.
(Reuters, 3/24/06)
450k BC - 180k BC In 2007 scientists using sonar
reported that at least 2 massive floods during this period cut
Britain off from the European continent. Evidence of humans living
in Britain began to show up only from about 60,000 BC.
(SFC, 7/19/07, p.A7)
c435k BC A major eruption by Mount Lassen in
California left sediment called the Rockland Ash that could later be
seen in the sea cliffs of Fort Funston on the SF coast.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A8)
c430k BC A prolonged warm period that lasted
28,000 years reached its peak about this time.
(SFC, 6/10/04, A15)
420k BC - 290k BC The youngest Homo erectus
(from China) date in this period.
(NH, 4/97, p.70)
400k BC In 2010 a Tel Aviv University team
excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are
about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of
modern man, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel.
The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old.
The prehistoric Qesem cave was discovered in 2000, and excavations
began in 2004.
(AP, 12/28/10)
400k BC Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus) lived in
temperate climates throughout Europe and western Asia from about
this time to a last record in Ireland at 10,600 years ago.
(NH, 8/96, p.17)
400k BC Human and wolf bones have been found in
the same place from about this time.
(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A10)
400k BC In 1998 researchers at Duke Univ.,
studying hypoglossal canals in fossil skulls, suggested that
Neanderthals could well have developed speech at this time. The
research was disputed in 1999.
(SFC, 2/16/99, p.A2)
400k BC Researchers in 2000 found evidence from a
homo erectus skull, Sm 3, of this period that individuals
communicated with each other.
(SFC, 11/14/00, p.A9)
400k BC - 380k BC Researchers in Germany in
1997 unearthed wooden spears made of spruce of this age from an
ancient lakeshore hunting ground. The spears were found in a coal
mine in Shöningen, near Hanover.
(SFC, 2/27/97, p.A6)(AM, May/Jun 97 p.25)
400k BC - 300k BC Articulate speech becomes
possible according to Dr. Laitman, anatomist at the Mt. Sinai School
of Medicine. His studies show that the degree to which the base of
the skull is flexed, or bent, is indicative of whether the larynx
can move up or down. Early Homo skulls are only slightly flexed at
the base, so that full command of articulate speech was a later
development.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 600)
400k BC-48k BC A human group, later called the
Denisovans, lived in Asia during this period. They then interbred
with humans expanding from Africa along the coast of South Asia. In
2010 fossil evidence from a Siberian cave revealed that their DNA
was related to the DNA of people from New Guinea, which contained
4.8% Denisovan DNA.
(SFC, 12/23/10, p.A4)
380k BC The skull of an archaic member of the
genus Homo was later found in Zambia. It exhibited a hypoglossal
canal similar to modern humans, which indicated at least the
potential for speech.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A5)
370k BC - 260k BC The site of
Diring Yuriakh in central Siberia has stone flakes and simple tools
known as unifacial choppers that date by thermoluminescence to this
period.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.21)
c350k BC Humans left tracks in the volcanic ash of
the Roccamonfina volcano in Italy.
(SFC, 3/13/03, p.2)
300k BC Erectus seems to give way to his
successor, Homo sapiens.
(NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p.600)
300k BC - 250k BC In 1981 Russian Archeologist
Yuri Mochanov of the Yakutish Academy of Sciences announced the
discovery of human habitation in northern Siberia that dated back to
at least 30,000 years. More precise techniques later measured the
stone artifacts at the site to 250k-300k BC.
(SFC, 2/28/97, p.A15)
300k BC - 200k BC Swanscombe skull. Fragments of
sapiens skull representing Britain's oldest known human remains.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 612)
300k BC - 200k BC In the Sierra
de Atapuerca fossil remains of 32 people from this time were found
at Sima de los Huesos (Pit of Bones) in northern Spain. They
represented an early stage in the development of Neanderthals.
Grooves were observed in the roots immediately under the crowns of
rear teeth, probably from the use of toothpicks.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.31)
300k BC - 30kBC The Neanderthal man of the type
first found in 1856 lived over this period. Dental evidence in 2004
indicated that they reached adulthood by about age 15.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.A1)
300k BC - 12k During the periodic ice ages the
Loess Hills formed along the eastern side of the Missouri River when
westerly winds blew the silty sediments of the melted glaciers along
the low walls of the river valley.
(NH, 11/96, p.76)
c280k BC A mastodon tooth and camel jaw of about
this time were found in 1997 in tunnels under Los Angeles in 1997.
(SFC, 2/12/97, p.A11)
c250k BC About this time the human brain size
stopped its slow trend toward enlargement. It may correspond with
the human attainment of the rudiments of language.
(NH, 9/97, p.6)
c250k BC The ice dome at Summit, the center of the
Greenland ice cap, was about this age at its bedrock.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.C18)
c250k BC In Siberia stone tools along a river near
Irkutsk were dated by radioisotope to about this time.
(SFC, 2/17/98, p.A2)
250k BC - 100k BC The period of
the Lower Paleolithic.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)
c200k BC In 1911 a broken wooden spear shaped
earlier than this age was found at Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, UK.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.E3)
200k BC A recent theory suggests that we're all
descended from one African "Eve" who lived some 200,000 years ago.
The theory is based on DNA studies from the placentas of 147 women
of different racial backgrounds.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.434,460)
200k BC Within the past 200,000 years our own
species, Homo sapiens, dispersed out of Africa.
(PacDis., Spg. 96, p.46)
200k BC It is speculated that the Neanderthals and
Homo Sapiens split from a common ancestor about this time. DNA
research in 2008 indicated that shortly after this time Homo Sapiens
split into 2 groups. Most people in 2008 represented one group,
while the bushmen of southern Africa represented the other.
(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A2)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.101)
200k BC About this time a major earthquake in
Hawaii caused a large tsunami that crossed the Pacific in 4 hours
and up the shoreline of Japan for 300 yards.
(SFC, 2/17/97, p.A4)
200k BC Human speech began no earlier than about
this time.
(SFC, 1/10/00, p.A6)
200k BC In 2010 Israeli archeologists found shards
of flint found scattered around a fire pit in a cave near Tel Aviv
dating to this time. They said the shards might be the world's
oldest known disposable knives.
(AP, 8/30/10)
200k BC - 30k BC The Neanderthals lived in Europe
and southwest Asia. In 1996 it was discovered that skulls of
Neanderthals showed oblong, vertical swellings in the bone along the
sides of the nasal hole. Researchers also claimed that their noses
were unusually large.
(WH, 1994, p.21)(SFC, 10/1/96, p.A2)
195k BC Human fossils found in Ethiopia in 1967
were dated in 2005 to be about 195k years old.
(SFC, 2/17/05, p.A6)
186k BC Human footprints that dated back to this
time were discovered along Langebaan Lagoon some 60 miles north of
Cape Town, South Africa, in Sep, 1995. The 117,000 year-old prints
were cut out and moved to the South African Museum in 1998.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A1,17)(SFC, 2/27/98, p.D3)(SFC,
6/24/98, p.A12)
186k BC An ice age began about this time.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A17)
18k 0BC On Malta the Ghar Dalam cave near the
harbor of Marsaxlokk revealed bones of an extinct pygmy hippo and
elephant.
(AM, Jul/Aug '97 p.42)
c170k BC In 2000 the Mitochondrial Eve, the single
female ancestor of all humans, was dated to this time.
(NH, 3/1/04, p.32)
170k BC A supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud
occurred and was not detected until its light reached earth in
1987CE. It was a catastrophic implosion of matter in less than a
second to a dense object about 15 miles across, a neutron star.
(NG, 5/88, p.629,635)
165k BC In 2009 scientific analysis of stone age
tools from South Africa suggested that humans about this time began
using fire to make it easier to flake stone tools and to make them
sharper. The process was believed to have become widespread by about
70000BC.
(SFC, 8/26/09, p.A3)
164k BC In 2007 scientists reported that shellfish
evidence from the a cave at Pinnacle Point near Mossel Bay, South
Africa, indicated human habitation at this time and that red ochre
at the site indicated a cognitive world enriched by symbols.
(SFC, 10/18/07, p.A8)
160k BC An ice-core drilled by Russian scientists
at Vostok Station in East Antarctica was analyzed by a group of
scientists in Grenoble, Switzerland and is bound to go back to an
ice-age of this period.
(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.67)(See Nature 329, 10/87)
160k BC - 154k BC Fossils of human skulls, found
in 1997 near Herto, Ethiopia, were dated in 2003 to this period. Tim
D. White and colleagues made the find.
(SFC, 6/12/03, p.A10)
150k BC The La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, Ca.,
are no older than 150k years.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A17)
c150k BC In 1980 evidence of Aboriginal habitation
in Australia were discovered in charcoal remains deep in the bed of
the Great Barrier Reef and dated to this time.
(SFEC, 2/28/99, p.T4)
c150k BC Humans moved out beyond Africa about this
time.
(WSJ, 7/13/01, p.W16)
150k BC - 80k BC A large migration of people from
Africa to Asia and Europe took place over this period. An earlier
migration period occurred from 840k-420k.
(SFC, 3/7/02, p.A2)
140k BC - 70k BC DNA evidence indicated that a
hunter-gatherer group diverged from an original common ancestor in
Africa about this time and migration out of Africa followed.
(SFC, 6/9/03, p.A4)
135kBC DNA evidence in 1997 indicated that the
modern dog has been around since about this time.
(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A10)(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
135k BC - 90k BC Severe droughts impacted Eastern Africa over this
period.
(WSJ, 4/25/08, p.A2)
130k BC The "first true Homo sapiens" about this
time from Ethiopia. It is described in 1996 by Donald Johanson and
Blake Edgar in: "From Lucy to Language: The Record of Human
Evolution."
(SFC, 12/29/96, BR p.11)
130k BC The lineage that includes the domestic cat
and its wild relatives originated about this time. Genetic analysis
in 2007 suggested that the transformation of a vicious predator into
a docile tabby took place about 10,000 years ago.
(www.livescience.com/animals/070628_cat_family.html)
130k BC - 30k BC The Middle Stone Age.
(SFC, 4/28/95, p.A-1)
125k BC Neandertal Homo sapiens indicates that
brain size and organization were basically modern. The Neanderthals
were the first people known to bury their dead. The Neanderthals
spread all across Europe, the Middle East, and western and central
Asia.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 612, 614, 616)
125k BC Scientists in 2000 identified human stone
tools of this time from a fossil reef along the Red Sea coast of
Eritrea. They identified the area as the "world's first oyster bar."
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A2)
125k BC A long period of global warming began that
lasted to about 11.5k BC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ice_Age_Temperature.png)
120k BC End of the Middle Pleistocene. Middle
Pleistocene began 700,000 years ago.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)
120k BC A Chinese fossil skullcap, named Maba, is
stored in Beijing at the Inst. of Vertebrate Paleontology.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.464)
120k BC The ice age that began around 186,000BC
receded about this time.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A17)
120k BC An alteration in the Earth's magnetic
field occurred.
(E&IH, 1973, p.94)
120k BC - 80k BC Bone fragments from this period
of Neanderthals from the Moula-Guercy cave site in France were
reported in 1999 to show evidence of cannibalism.
(SFC, 10/1/99, p.A3)
120k BC - 60k BC The Klasies River Mouth fossils,
found in caves in a bluff overlooking the Indian Ocean on the
southern tip of (Africa) the continent. Although fragmented, the
fossils indicated early modern man.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 460)
120k BC - 10k BC In Thailand the site at Chiang
Saen indicates long term occupation that dates back to the late
Pleistocene.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.G)
114k BC Controversial data from the Jinmium
rock-shelter in northern Australia suggests humans may have reached
the continent at this time.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.21)
110k BC An alteration in the Earth's magnetic
field occurred.
(E&IH, 1973, p.94)
110k BC A Homo sapiens skull of this time was
later found near the Kebara site in Israel. It had a hypoglossal
canal the size of modern humans, which was thought to be indicative
of speech.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A5)
100k BC The last high stand of the sea at the
middle coast of California was about this time. (GH-CEH, p.20)
100k BC In 2008 DNA evidence indicated that much
of the human population had descended from a small band of migrants
that left Africa for the Middle East about this time.
(SFC, 2/22/08, p.A4)
100k BC Neanderthal man began to bury his dead.
(NG, Nov. 1985, R. Leakey & A. Walker, p.629)
100k BC Spear-like tools are found in eastern
Zaire near Lake Rutanzige. Three sites along the Semlike River in
the Katanda region of Africa's Great Rift Valley show tools made
from the rib bones of large mammals. The tools have rows of barbs
cut along one edge of the bone. New testing techniques for age
determination were used; i.e. thermoluminescence, electron spin
resonance, and uranium series dating. The three ranges were:
180,000BC-75,000; 160,000BC-89,000; and 173,000BC-139,000. [see 88k]
(SFC, 4/28/95, p.A-1)
100k BC Small stone tools found in Gaojia near
Fengdu on the banks of the Yangtze indicate a tool workshop. More
than a 1,000 tools have been found and were probably used to collect
roots.
(NH, 7/96, p.32)
c100k BC In 1943 construction workers in Millbrae,
Ca., uncovered elephant bones that dated to about this time.
(Ind, 9/21/02, 5A)
100k BC About this time another major earthquake
in Hawaii caused a large tsunami that crossed the Pacific in 4 hours
and up the shoreline of Japan for 300 yards. [see 200,000BC]
(SFC, 2/17/97, p.A4)
100k BC The Caribbean rodent Amblyrhiza, a
300-pound rat, died out about this time.
(NH, 4/97, p.84)
100,000 In 2008 scientists unearthed human-made
paint “toolkits” from the Blombos Cave in South Africa dating to
about this time.
(SFC, 10/14/11, p.A5)
100k BC Hunters stalked giant camels in the Syrian
desert about this time. Bones of the “Syrian Camel,” as tall as some
modern-day elephants, were discovered 150 miles north of Damascus in
2005.
(AP, 10/11/06)
100k BC - 80k BC In 2007 a human skull from this time, consisting of
16 pieces, was dug up after two years of excavation at a site in
Xuchang in China’s Henan province.
(AFP, 1/23/08)
100k BC - 80k BC In 2010 Polish scientists
announced the discovery of 3 Neanderthal teeth, dating back to
about this time, in the Stajnia Cave, north of the Carpathian
Mountains.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100201/ap_on_re_eu/eu_poland_neanderthal_teeth)
100k BC - 50k BC The 200-pound Genyornis newtoni,
an ostrich-like bird, and the 25-foot Megalonia lizard were among
the megafauna that flourished in Australia during this period.
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A2)
100k BC - 35k BC This is the approximate
Mousterian cultural period.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)
100k BC - 35k BC This is the Middle Paleolithic.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)
95k BC In 2003 a 3-foot-tall adult female skeleton
was found in a cave believed to be 18,000 years old on the
equatorial island of Flores, located east of Java and northwest of
Australia. Scientists named the extinct species Homo floresiensis.
Scientists in 2005 said the group emerged some 95,000 years earlier
and went extinct about 12,000 years ago.
(AP, 10/27/04)(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A1)(SFC, 3/4/05,
p.A2)
90k BC An Israeli-French team working in Israel
use the technique of thermoluminescence to show early modern humans
from Qafzeh cave. A Neandertal from Kebara cave showed an age of
60,000 years. The study was meant to find out the relationship
between the two groups.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 460)
90k BC Humans migrated into the Levant if not
Europe proper by this time.
(NH, 7/96, p.72)
90k BC Potassium-argon dating and
thermoluminescence can be used to date pieces of pottery back to
about this time.
(SFEC, 12/15/96, BR p.7)
88k BC The Katanda site in Zaire (Congo) was dated
to this time. Evidence in the 1990s showed bone points showed barbs
on 3 edges and rings carved in the base to tie them to shafts.
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A2)
80k BC In 1983 an international expedition of
American, Polish and Egyptian anthropologists in the Aswan region
unexpectedly came upon the skeleton of a prehistoric man thought to
be about 80,000 years old, the oldest human skeleton ever found in
Egypt. Early modern humans were present in the Levant between
130,000-80,000 BP.
(http://tinyurl.com/2l2rmz)(www.athenapub.com/8shea1.htm)
80k BC - 70k BC The human population declined
suddenly according to evidence from the mutation rate of
mitochondria evaluated in 2000. The survivors provided the gene pool
for all humans thereafter.
(DC, 7/1/00)
77k BC In 2011 scientists in South Africa said
layers of cave floor at a natural rock shelter called Sibudu dated
to this time with evidence of plant-based bedding used by humans.
(Econ, 12/10/11, p.90)
75k BC In 2002 evidence from the Blombos Cave in
South Africa indicated possible symbolic thinking. Sophisticated
tools of stone and carve bone had etchings that indicated complex
behavior. Evidence of ornamental bead-making was reported in 2004.
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A2)(SFC, 4/16/04, p.A2)
75k BC Human head lice and body lice diverged
about this time, which means that human clothing began about this
time.
(Econ, 12/24/05, Survey p.7)
74k BC The major Toba volcanic eruption occurred
in Sumatra about this time. It was later believed that this eruption
caused a major temperature drop and reduction in the human
population. An ice age soon followed. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA
seemed to corroborate a significant reduction in human population
around this time.
(DC, 9/2/02)(Econ, 12/24/05, Survey p.9)
70k BC Two Neanderthal skulls from France of this
time were later found. They had a hypoglossal canal the size of
modern humans, which was thought to be indicative of speech.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A5)
70k BC Genetic studies in 2008 estimated that the
human population at this time may have shrunk to as low as 2000 in
Eastern Africa due to a long period of severe droughts there.
(WSJ, 4/25/08, p.A2)
66k BC Scientists in 2010 said Mammoth Mountain in
the central California Sierras was formed about this time as a
result of volcanic eruptions that took place over less than 2,000
years.
(SFC, 3/8/10, p.C1)
c65k BC Geneticists in 2005 used DNA evidence to
conclude that human emigration from Africa took place about this
time from the southern end of the Red Sea and then pushing along the
coast of India and Southeast Asia. The Orang Asli people of Malaysia
likely descended from this 1st migration.
(SFC, 5/13/05, p.A7)(Econ, 12/24/05, Survey p.5)
60k BC A Neandertal from Kebara cave (Israel)
showed an age of 60,000 years. An Israeli-French team working in
Israel use the technique of thermoluminescence to study the
relationship between early humans and Neanderthals.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 460)
60k BC At Shanidar, a large cave in the Zagros
mountains of northeastern Iraq soil samples from a grave of a
[Neanderthal] man of this time indicated pollen grains from 8
different types of flowers. [2nd ref dated at c.10,000BC]
(WH, 1994, p.21)(SFEM, 6/7/98, p.52)
60k BC - 10k BC The Acheulian Age or early Stone
Age culture lasted over this period.
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.165)
57k BC Scientists in 2000 estimated that a
Y-chromosome African male, nicknamed Adam, dated to about this time.
Genetic analysis traced all modern human males back to this
ancestor.
(NH, 3/1/04, p.34)(NG, 8/04, p.42)
53k BC - 50k BC During this period the first
humans migrated to Australia from the islands of Indonesia. It is
believed that they came in bamboo rafts from Indonesia and also from
southern China.
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A2)(NG, Oct. 1988, p.467)
53k BC - 45k BC Australia's early human population
wiped out the continent's megafauna over this period.
(SFC, 6/8/01, p.A8)
53k BC - 27k BC Prehuman fossils from a site on
the Solo River near the Javanese town of Ngandong were dated in 1996
to this period, and identified as belonging to the species of Homo
erectus. Brain size was equivalent to modern humans.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.A4)(NH, 4/97, p.70)(NH, 9/97,
p.6)
51k BC The fossil of a Diprotodon, a giant
marsupial from this time, was excavated in 2001 from Cox's Creek in
New South Wales.
(SFC, 6/8/01, p.A8)
50k BC Homo sapiens sapiens, man the doubly wise,
appeared about this time. In 2000 DNA evidence indicated that modern
man evolved out of Africa as recently as this time.
(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.5)(SFC, 12/7/00, p.A3)
50k BC Research on hair DNA in 2011 indicated that
the first humans arrived in Australia about this time.
(SFC, 9/23/11, p.A10)
50k BC The stone age culture of Papua New Guinea
goes back this time.
(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A8)
50k BC Arizona’s Barringer Crater was created
about this time by a meteor. Named after mining engineer Daniel
Barringer, it measures 3/4 of a mile wide and 640 feet deep and is
suspected to have resulted from a meteor of about 100 feet in
diameter. An iron meteor 100 feet in diameter and weighing about
60,000 tons crashed into the desert at about 45,000 miles per hour
near Winslow, Az. A crater 4,000 feet wide and 570 feet deep was
created. 85% of it melted and the rest broke into bits called Canyon
Diablo meteorites.
(SFC, 7/2/99,
p.A7)(www.barringercrater.com/science/)
50k BC - 40k BC Homo sapiens (Neandertal). Skull
of adult male found by D. Peyrony and L. Capitan at La Ferrassie,
France in 1909. Neandertal is the German site of discovery in 1856.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 573)
50k BC - 40k BC A Homo neanderthalensis skull was
found at the Amud cave in Israel in 1961.
(NH, 4/97, p.22)
50k BC - 20k BC Archaeologists later identified
evidence of stone age technology in Aq Kupruk, and Hazar Sum dating
to this period. Plant remains at the foothill of the Hindu Kush
mountains indicate, that North Afghanistan was one of the earliest
places to domestic plants and animals.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
48k BC In 2004 archeologists claimed to have found
evidence of human habitation at a site along the Savannah River in
Allendale County, SC.
(SFC, 11/18/04, p.A7)
c48k BC An iron meteor 100 feet in diameter and
weighing about 60,000 tons crashed into the desert at about 45,000
miles per hour near Winslow, Az. near the current Lowell
Observatory. Meteor Crater measured 4,000 feet wide and 570 feet
deep. 85% of it melted and the rest broke into bits called Canyon
Diablo meteorites. This was the first crater to be identified as
being caused by a meteor.
(SFC, 7/2/99, p.A7)
c48k BC Charcoal from camp fires in the Pedra
Faruda site of Piaui state, Brazil, were carbon dated in 1987 to
this time.
(SFEC, 2/20/00, p.A18)
48k BC - 44k BC In Australia about 85% of the
land-dwelling megafauna weighing over 100 pounds went extinct about
this time. It was later suspected that systematic burning of the
forests by humans contributed to the extinction. Some 55 species
died off including the 230-pound flightless "thunder bird" called
Genyornis.
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A2)(SFC, 6/8/01, p.A8)
48k BC - 30k BC In 2010 scientists reported that
genetic material, pulled from a pinky finger bone found in a
Siberian cave dating to this period, showed a new and unknown type
of pre-human living about this time alongside modern humans and
Neanderthals.
(Reuters, 3/24/10)(SFC, 3/25/10, p.A4)(Econ,
3/27/10, p.87)
48k BC -18k BC In 2011 the journal Current Biology
reported that all polar bears today have descended from one female
brown bear in Ireland between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A6)
45k BC The extinction of most of Australia’s large
animals occurred about this time, shortly after the arrival of
humans.
(SFC, 7/8/05, p.A2)
45k BC - 42k BC Archeologists in 2007 reported on
human teeth, tools, beads, carved ivory and other artifacts dug up
at the Kostenki archeological site on the Don River in Russia, about
250 miles south of Moscow. They dated these artifacts to 45,000 to
42,000 years ago, an age similar to other items found in Western
Europe.
(Reuters, 1/11/07)
43k BC A flute-like instrument made of bear bone
was found by archeologist Janez Dirjec at the Divje Babe site in the
valley of the Idrijca River in Slovenia. It was believed to be about
45,000 years old.
(SFC, 10/31/96, p.A12)
c43k BC About this time some 7 women led to the
descendants of the population of modern Europe. In 2001 geneticist
Bryan Sykes authored "The Seven Daughters of Eve."
(WSJ, 7/13/01, p.W16)
43k BC Scientists in 2008 reported that one of two
genetically distinct mammoth groups went extinct about this time.
(www.science.psu.edu/alert/Schuster6-2008.htm)
41k BC Scholars surmised that diggers in Africa's
Swaziland began to seek iron about this time.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, Z1 p.7)
41k BC In 2006 archeologists reported evidence of
cannibalism about this time from Neanderthal bones at the El Sidron
cave in the Asturias region of Spain.
(SFC, 12/11/06, p.A1)
41k BC The skull of a giant kangaroo dating to
this time was found in a cave in the thick rainforest of the rugged
northwest of Tasmania in 2000. Scientists used the skull to argue
that that man likely hunted to death the giant kangaroo and other
very large animals on the southern island of Tasmania.
(AP, 8/12/08)
40.7k BC In 1992 rock engravings in South
Australia are carbon dated at 42,700 years.
(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, T-4)
40k BC This date approximately marks the
Aurignacian cultural period represented by characteristic stone and
bone tool kits.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)(AM, 7/00, p.30)
40k BC The oldest Asian Homo sapiens are about
this age.
(NH, 4/97, p.70)
40k BC The earliest evidence for personal
ornaments appeared in anatomically modern humans about this time.
(AM, 7/00, p.30)
40k BC The bones of a Neanderthal baby from this
time were found in southwestern France in 1914. The "Le Moustier 2"
bones were put away and re-discovered in 1996.
(SFC, 9/5/02, p.A16)
40k BC In later Washington state Mount St. Helens
was born and intermittent eruptions continued to about 500BC.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)
c40k BC Volcanic activity began forming the
craters and mountains around Mono Lake, Ca.
(PacDis, Summer '97, p.2)
40k BC - 20k BC DNA evidence indicated that 4
distinct population lineages entered the New World across the Bering
Sea during this period.
(SFC, 2/17/98, p.A2)
40k BC - 12k BC A great river of ice formed in
Oregon’s Wallowa Valley. The moraines around Wallowa Lake remained
after the glacier melted.
(SSFC, 7/9/06, p.G4)
40k BC - 2000 Sea level seems to have dropped at
least four times in this period.
(DD-EVTT, p.300)
39k BC In 2005 scientists suggested that a
supernova took place about this time at a distance of 250 light
years from Earth. A shock wave of iron rich grains hit Earth 7,000
years later. Slower debris accumulated into comet-like objects. They
suggested that one may have hit North America about 11,000BC and
caused the extinction of mammoths.
(SFC, 9/24/05, p.B2)
38k BC Stone-age humans came to Europe, probably
from central Asia and the Middle East, in 2 waves of migration that
began about this time. DNA evidence from Y-chromosomes in 2000 CE
suggested that 4 of 5 European men shared a common ancestor from
this 1st wave.
(SFC, 11/10/00, p.A7)
c38k BC In 2003 British scientists found
40,000-year-old human footprints in central Mexico, shattering
theories that mankind arrived in the Americas tens of thousands of
years later from Asia. The footprints were found in an abandoned
quarry close to the Cerro Toluquilla volcano and were subsequently
studied and dated by a multinational team of scientists.
(AFP, 7/5/05)
38k BC The carbon dating process can be used to
date specimens that were alive as long as 40,000 years ago.
(SFEC, 12/15/96, BR p.7)
c38k BC Volcanic activity on Kauai, Ha., ended
about this time.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.T6)
38k BC One group of wooly mammoths died off in
North America about this time for unknown reasons. The demise of a
2nd group took place about 10,900BC.
(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A22)
38k BC - 1996 Scientists in Australia said that
they found a shrub in Tasmania that began growing 40,000 years ago.
Dubbed "King's Holly," the plant clones itself and now covers 2
secluded river gullies in the remote southwest.
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.A17)
36k BC A woolly mammoth died on the Texas Gulf
Coast. It was unearthed in 2004 and tentatively dated to this time.
(AP, 1/13/04)
36k BC - 34k BC In 2002 the jawbone of a cave-man
living in what is now Romania was found in Pestera cu Oase. It was
reported as the oldest fossil from an early modern human to be found
in Europe and was carbon-dated to this time.
(AP, 9/22/03)
35k BC Human kind does not seem to have been
addicted to war throughout its history on earth. Paleontologists
believe that before about 35,000BC men many have dealt with one
another the way higher apes do today. There is conflict among the
higher apes, but no warfare.
(V.D.-H.K.p.408)
35k BC This date approximately marks the
Neandertal Chatelperronian cultural period with characteristics
copied from Aurignacian neighbors.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)(AM, 7/00, p.30)
35k BC In 2008 archeologists unearthed tools
dating back at least 35,000 years in a rock shelter in Australia's
remote northwest, making it one of the oldest archaeological finds
in that part of the country.
(AP, 4/7/08)
35k BC A piece of a stone axe dating to this time
was discovered in 2010 on sacred Aboriginal land in Australia, the
oldest object of its type ever found. Archeologists said the
discovery is evidence that Aboriginal Jawoyn people from Arnhem Land
could have been the first to grind axes to sharpen their edges.
(AP, 11/5/10)
35k BC - 23k BC In Australia Aboriginal rock
paintings were made as far back as this time.
(SFEC, 2/28/99, p.T4)
35k BC - 10k BC The Upper Paleolithic Period.
There was considerable variation in the types of tools that were
used and according to prehistorian J.D. Clark, a new self-awareness
or concern for matters that had no relation to fulfilling biological
needs. This is shown by the burial of the dead together with food
and weapons.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)(Enc. of Africa, 1976,
p.165)
35k BC - 10k BC A rich Paleolithic site, Diuktai
Cave, was discovered on the Aldan, a tributary of the Lena in
Siberia by Dr. Yuri Mochanov ~1968.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.464)
34k BC A Neanderthal skeleton from this time was
found near the village of St. Cesaire, France, in 1979. It indicated
survival following a fractured skull.
(WSJ, 4/23/02, p.B1)
34k BC Researchers have confirmed that
Neanderthals of this time in central France had more sophisticated
stone tools than their predecessors. The tools may have been
acquired by trade with Cro-Magnons. The site of the artifacts was
Auxierre, France.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-7)
33k BC In 2004 archaeologists of the University of
Tuebingen said a 35,000BC-year-old flute made from a woolly
mammoth's ivory tusk had been unearthed in a German cave and pieced
together from 31 fragments. In 2009 a flute from about this same
time, made from vulture bone, was displayed. Its 12 pieces had been
found in the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany.
(AP, 12/11/04)(SFC, 6/25/09, p.A4)
33k BC Av ivory carving dating to about this time
depicted a busty woman. It was found in 2008 in a German cave and
was unveiled in 2009 by archaeologists who believed it to be the
oldest known sculpture of the human form. The carving found in six
fragments in Germany's Hohle Fels cave depicts a woman with a
swollen belly, wide-set thighs and large, protruding breasts.
(AP, 5/14/09)
33k BC About this time scattered hunter-gatherer
groups underwent a cultural revolution. For the first time, humans
began to create symbols of themselves, of the animals around them,
and perhaps of the passage of time.
(NG, Oct. 1988 , p. 440)
c33k BC About this time, or more recently, a
catastrophic earthquake carved out the Golden Gate and the waters of
the Pacific rushed into the exposed plain to form the SF Bay. [see
8000BC]
(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)
33k BC - 9k BC Europe's Upper Paleolithic age.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 440)
32k BC Late Neandertal skeleton excavated in 1979
CE at St. Cesaire in southwestern France, and studied by French
anthropologist Bernard Vandermeersch. The associated stone tools
found with the remains were those of Upper Paleolithic man, who
displaced the Neanderthals.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p.615-616)
32k BC - 21k BC In 2004 Some 70 clay hearths of
this age were identified in a single cave in the northwestern
Peloponnese.
(Arch, 1/05, p.13)
31k BC In the northern Moluccas humans were
visiting the coastal caves of Golo and Wetef on Gebe Island at this
time.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.21)
31k BC Stone tools from Monte Verde, Chile,
indicate that people lived there about this time.
(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A13)
c30.4k BC Radiocarbon date for the Cave paintings
at Chauvet, France. The first period of cave art is called
Aurignacian.
(NH, 7/96, p.18,70)
30k BC An ivory pendant strung by a hole at the
narrow end bears rows of dots, a common motif 32,000 years ago.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 451)
30k BC Carved body of a man whose arms bear
striations was excavated from a cave at Hohlenstein, West Germany.
The head is shaped as a lion muzzle.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.467)
30k BC - 22k BC This marks approximately the
Gravettian cultural period. [see 26-20k]
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)
30k BC - 14k BC Scientists in 2007 said that
prevailing winds in North America during this period blew from the
East Coast. The Laurentide Ice Sheet covered much of the eastern
two-thirds of the continent deep into the Midwest and the later
Middle Atlantic states.
(SFC, 2/15/07, p.A20)
c29k BC Bones with Neanderthal traits from this
time were later found in a cave in Mladec, Czech Republic. Some
scientists believed they represented interbreeding between
Neanderthals and Home Sapiens.
(SSFC, 6/19/05, p.F2)
28k BC Neanderthals persisted to about this time
at the site of Zafarraya in Andalucia, Spain.
(Arch, 9/00, p.53)
28k BC In 2010 it was reported that starch grains
found on 30,000-year-old grinding stones suggest that prehistoric
man may have dined on an early form of flat bread, contrary to his
popular image as primarily a meat-eater. The grinding stones were
discovered at sites in Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic.
(Reuters, 10/19/10)
28k BC In 2001 Russian and Norwegian archeologists
reported evidence that date to about this time of humans camped at
Mamontovaya Kurya on the Usa River at the Arctic circle. A tusk was
dated at 36,600 years of age and plant remains at 30,000.
(SFC, 9/6/01, p.E2)
28k BC In 2003 Russian scientists reported
evidence of a hunting site on the Yana River, Siberia, 300 miles
north of the Arctic Circle that dated to about this time.
(SFC, 1/2/04, p.A2)
28k BC The Ainu were the aboriginal inhabitants of
the Japanese islands back to this time. They had European features,
wavy hair and thick beards before they intermarried with the
Japanese.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A10)
28k BC Homo sapiens (modern). Skull of adult male
found by French workmen (L. Lartet) at Cro-Magnon, France in 1868.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 573)
28k BC The Cussac cave in France was found in 2000
to contain drawings from this time. Bones of 5 people from the
Neolithic era were also found.
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.A8)
28.8k BC - 12.2k BC Analysis of core sediment from
the bottom of Lake Pata in the western Amazon River basin in 1996
indicated that the area remained covered with lush tropical rain
forest during this time of maximum glacial coverage in the northern
latitudes.
(LSA, Spg/97, p.32)
27k BC In 2000 DNA analysis of a Neanderthal
infant skeleton from this time showed a 7% difference in DNA to
modern humans, which indicated that modern humans did not descend
from them.
(SFC, 3/29/00, p.A8)(WSJ, 3/29/00, p.A1)
27k BC - 26k BC Neanderthals lived in Croatia.
Their remains were later found at the Vindija cave and dated to this
time in 1999 with accelerator radiocarbon dating.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B3)
26k BC France's Dordogne Valley is the site of
caves in Le Conte cliff where items such as the illustrated ivory
bead or button have been found.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 451)
26k BC Experts in 2006 reported that charcoal
evidence indicated that small bands of Neanderthals took refuge in
Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar about this time.
(SFC, 9/14/06, p.A9)
26k BC In Sungir, an open-air settlement northeast
of later-day Moscow, people were being buried with thousands of
carved ivory beads and little wheel-shaped bone ornaments.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.131)
26k BC - 20k BC This marks approximately the
Gravettian (see 30-22k) cultural period. It was named after the
southern French site of La Gravette.
(AM, 9/01, p.12)
26k BC - 16k BC Africa’s oldest known rock art
dated to about this time at a site in Namibia.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.56)
25k BC San Francisco and the Bay Area were home to
mammoths indicating cold temperatures of an Ice Age. In 1934 a
10-pound mammoth tooth from this time was found by engineers working
on the new Bay Bridge.
(SSFC, 1/15/09, DB p.43)
25k BC In 2005 archaeologists in northern Austria
reported finding the remains of two newborns dating back 27,000
years while excavating a hillside near Krems. The newborns were
buried beneath mammoth bones and with a string of 31 beads,
suggesting that the internment involved some sort of ritual.
(AP, 9/26/05)
25k BC In 2006 France took over ownership of a
cave in the Vilhonneur forest where a human skeleton that dated to
this time was found in a decorated room.
(SFC, 6/3/06, p.A2)
25k BC The earliest known atlatl dated to this
time. This example from France of the device, use to throw a spear,
was made of reindeer antler.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.90)
25k BC Sand rock art from Namibia, part of an art
exhibit of African Art, is dated to this period.
(WSJ, 11/16/95, p.A-18)
24k BC An early representation of a human was
carved from mammoth ivory about 26,000 years ago. It was discovered
in Brno, Czechoslovakia. The tiny "Venus of Dolni Vestonici,"
more than 25,000 years old, is the earliest known sculpture of a
human figure.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 440)(SFEC, 5/23/99, DB p.43)
24k BC A multiple burial was unearthed at Dolni
Vestonice, Czechoslovakia. Three skeletons whose skulls were adorned
with circles of arctic fox and wolf teeth and ivory beads.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.466)
23k BC An ivory head known as the Venus of
Brassenpouy named after the site of its recovery in France bears
distinct facial features and coiffure. A bird bone flute of similar
age is here illustrated.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 449)
23k BC Homo erectus survived in Indonesia to about
this time.
(Arch, 1/05, p.14)
23k BC The oldest known baked clay figurine (11
cm) is from Dolni Vestonice, now at the Moravian museum.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 459)
23k BC Lake Bonneville crested and covered some
20,000 sq. miles over what is now Utah, Nevada, and Idaho.
(NH, 9/96, p.62)
23k BC Puget Sound off the state of Washington was
carved by glaciers 25,000 years ago.
(AAM, 3/96, p.84)
23k BC - 10k BC The Sandia Cave in New Mexico
provided human shelter back to this period and was excavated by
archeologist Frank Hibben in the 1930s after it was discovered by
Boy Scouts.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.T8)
23k BC - 18k BC The last glacial maximum took
place over this period.
(SFC, 1/2/04, p.A2)
22.5k BC On Nov 28, 1998, Portuguese archeologists
led by Dr. Joao Zilhao found the skeleton of a young boy (the Lagar
Velho child) in the Lapedo Valley, who reportedly exhibited both
Neanderthal and Homo sapiens features, the first possible hybrid to
be found.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.A4)(AM, 7/00, p.25)
c22k BC The last ice age began and humans in
Europe retreated to Spain, the Balkans and the Ukraine.
(SFC, 11/10/00, p.A7)
22k BC - 18k BC This marks approximately the
Solutrian cultural period. Researcher in 1999 proposed that people
of this culture crossed the Atlantic from the Iberian peninsula and
settled on the eastern American seaboard.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A9)
c21k BC Plant remains from this time were found at
the Ohalo II site on the shore of the Sea of Galilee indicating use
of barley and perhaps other grains in the human diet.
(SFC, 6/22/04, p.A3)(SFC, 8/16/04, p.A6)(Econ,
8/7/04, p.65)
c21k BC In Mexico the Popocatepetl volcano
erupted with a force equal to the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in
Washington.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, Z1 p.8)
21k BC - 18k BC In 2008 researchers reported that
DNA evidence indicated that 95% of native Americans had descended
from 6 women of this period. It was believed that the women had
lived in Beringia, a land bridge that stretched from Asia to North
America during this time.
(SFC, 3/14/08, p.A12)
21k BC - 18k BC The site of Kostenki by the River
Don was inhabited for ~3,000 years when glaciers moved in. Shelters
were built partly underground for warmth with large mammoth bones.
The site was first excavated in 1879 CE and includes human burials,
animal bones, female figures of limestone and ivory, necklaces of
arctic fox teeth, and headbands of mammoth ivory.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 449)
20k BC In Australia scientists in 2005 said
hundreds of human footprints dating back 20,000 years were
discovered in a dry lake bed near Willandra Lakes, southwest of
Sydney.
(Reuters, 12/21/05)
20k BC Some scientists believe that ancient people
from Siberia crossed the Bering land bridge about this time and
began their southward migration into the Americas. In 2001 skull
measurements indicated that members of the Jomon-Ainu of Japan made
the first crossings.
(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A13)(SFC, 7/31/01, p.A4)
20k BC - 10k BC This was a generally wet period.
(NH, 9/96, p.32)
20k BC - 5k BC In 2004 Stephen Mithen authored
“After the Ice: A Global Human History,” an account of human
survival during this period.
(Arch, 1/05, p.54)
18k BC Innovations in weapon design included the
spear thrower invented about this time.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 451)
c18k BC In 1999 a French-led expedition chopped
clear the fully preserved carcass of a 20 thousand-year-old woolly
mammoth, the "Jarkov Mammoth," from the permafrost of Siberia at
Khatanga, Russia.
(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A1)
c18k BC Researchers in 1999 proposed that
Solutrean people crossed the Atlantic from the Iberian peninsula and
settled on the eastern American seaboard.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A9)
c18k BC In Zimbabwe caves in the Matopos Hills
were decorated with paintings.
(WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A13)
18k BC - 11k BC This marks approximately the
Magdalenian cultural period. It was named after the site of La
Madeleine, France, marked by fine art and tool-making and the use of
bone for harpoons, spear points, and other purposes.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 489,495)
17.8k BC - 12.8k BC Tasmania, a Paleolithic site
was filled with bones and stones and the charcoal from cooking
hearths. The remains are 90% wallaby and 8% wombat.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.466)
17.5k BC Dr. D.J. Mulvaney in 1961 and
1964 unearthed human artifacts at Carnarvon
National Park in Queensland, Australia, subsequently dated at 19,500
years.
(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, T-4)
17k BC A site at Meadowcroft ,Pa., has been carbon
dated for human habitation to this age.
(USAT, 2/11/97, p.A1)
17k BC - 15k BC The Cactus Hill site, 45 miles
south of Richmond, Va., was reported in 2000 to contain evidence of
human settlers from this period.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.A2)
16k BC The last major glaciation reaches its
maximum. The English channel was dry; Australia adjoined Tasmania
and New Guinea. Venice lay 200 miles from the sea.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 446)
16k BC A mile-high glacier covered the area of
Connecticut.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A16)
16k BC On Manhattan Island the ice was a half-mile
thick. In western North America, the ice covered parts of
Washington, Idaho, Montana, and all of Western Canada. In Europe it
buried Scandinavia and Scotland, most of Great Britain, Denmark,
France, Germany, much of Poland and much of the Soviet Union. In the
Southern Hemisphere, there was ice in Australia, New Zealand, and
Argentina. See levels fell by 350 feet.
(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.102)
16k BC The glaciers in North America from New
Jersey to Seattle began to recede.
(NH, 5/96, p.30)
16k BC The west coast of North America deglaciated
by this time allowing people, who had crossed the Bering Strait land
bridge, to move south.
(SFC, 4/4/08, p.A4)
16k BC In Sep, 2003, a 3-foot-tall adult female
skeleton was found in a cave believed to be 18,000 years old. A
trove of fragmented bones accounted for as many as seven primitive
individuals that lived on the equatorial island of Flores, located
east of Java and northwest of Australia. Scientists have named the
extinct species Homo floresiensis. Scientists in 2005 said the group
emerged some 95,000 years earlier and went extinct about 12,000
years ago. In 2009 new studies suggested the people, dubbed hobbits,
were a previously unknown species altogether.
(AP, 10/27/04)(SFC, 10/28/04, p.A1)(SFC, 3/4/05,
p.A2)(AP, 5/7/09)
16k BC - 9k BC Sculptures of stone, bone, ivory
and clay record animals familiar to the Cro-Magnon peoples, whose
artistic expertise peaked in France and Spain during this time.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 620)
15k BC The cave art of Paleolithic man of Lascaux,
France dates to this time. It contains some 600 paintings, 1,500
engravings, and innumerable mysterious dots and geometric
figures.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.434,485)
c15k BC The San Francisco west coast extended out
6 miles past the Farallon Islands.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A8)
c15k BC Dogs first began to associate with some
humans as people began to form settlements.
(WSJ, 11/22/02, p.B1)
15k BC - 13k BC During the last Ice Age dams of
glacial meltwater repeatedly failed and eroded land in southeastern
Washington state and Oregon. This exposed petrified logs in what
later became Gingko Petrified Forest State Park. An ice dam, which
blocked the Clark Fork River in Montana and created lake Missoula,
broke at least 40 times and caused cataclysmic floods. One Missoula
flood left Portland under 400 feet of water.
(CW, Fall ‘03, p.20)(SSFC, 9/12/04, p.D9)
15k BC - 12k BC The Solutrean phase of the Upper
Paleolithic is named after the Roche de Solutre near Macon, France.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.T4)
15k BC - 10k BC The Mesolithic or Middle Stone
Age.
(WH, 1994, p.19)
14.6k BC - 14.1k BC A canine jaw, dating to this
time, was found in Switzerland in 1873. Analysis in 2010 indicated
the age of the bone and proved humans were keeping dogs at this
time.
(SFC, 8/4/10, p.A2)
14k BC A 35 cm (14-inch) stone head that seems to
be half man and half lion or leopard, found in the El Juyo cave, in
the foothills southwest of Santander, Spain. Anthropologists suggest
the cave held a sanctuary for religious rituals.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 623)
14k BC Several thousand engravings are made at La
Marche, France, mostly of animals but also including some humans.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 448)
14k BC The bas-relief of a bison on a limestone
slab was found in a shelter at Angles-sur-l'Anglin, France.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 452)
14k BC The earliest fossils of domestic dogs date
to this time. They were found in Germany.
(MT, Fall 02, p.14)
14k BC - 10k BC Rock art was inscribed in the Coso
Mountains of California. In 2005 the area was designated as the Coso
Rock Art National Historic Landmark.
(SSFC, 10/23/05, p.F12)
14k BC – 9k BC The Columbia mammoths, Mammuthus
columbi, went extinct during this period. The species grew as tall
as 14 feet and ranged widely in California. Remains were later found
as far south as Florida and Central America.
(SFC, 3/31/11, p.A13)
13.5k BC A sandstone tablet from the Enlene cave
in the French Pyrenees, excavated by R. Begouen and J. Clottes.
Fragments were found between 1930 and 1983 and reveal possible human
figures and a definite bison.
(NG. Nov. 1985, p. 618)
13.5k BC ¬- 11.2k BC In 2011 archeologists reported the
discovery of 56 stone tools found in central Texas dating to about
this time. The dating prefigured the “Clovis culture” by about 2
thousand years.
(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A7)
13k BC Archeologist Tom Dillehay and others
believe that the first people arrived in the Americas about this
time.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.62)
c13k BC Human teeth and skull fragments from the
Pedra Faruda site of Piaui state, Brazil, were carbon dated to this
time. Niede Guidon began excavations at the site in 1970.
(SFEC, 2/20/00, p.A18)
13k BC Early Natufian settlements began in the
Middle East according to archeological evidence later found in
Jordan. A drying climate from 10,800 BC to 9,500 BC made them
nomadic again. A 2nd attempt to settle began around 9.500 BC and
became known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.86)
13k BC An ivory plaque excavated at Malta in
Siberia was designed with circles of dots, a possible indication of
marking time.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 440)
13k BC About this time the Barents Ice Shelf, a
vast piece of ice that sat north of Scandinavia, collapsed into the
sea. It may have raised sea level by more than ten feet per century
for nearly five centuries.
(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.109)
13k BC The Lake Missoula Floods occurred as
recently as 15,000 years ago.
(Smith., 4/95, p.50)
13k BC The Great Lakes originated about this time.
(NH, 7/98, p.68)
13k BC A supernova explosion occurred about 15,000
years ago that is revealed as the Cygnus Loop, the expanding blast
wave of the explosion.
(NH, 8/96, p.72)
13k BC Mt. St. Helen's in Washington State erupted
about this time. It left a sediment of ash in between layers of
sediment from the glacial floods of Lake Missoula. This evidence
indicates that there may have been as many as a hundred gigantic
floods from Lake Missoula repeatedly breaking the glacial ice
build-up.
(Smith., 4/1995, p.58)
13k BC - 8k BC Stanley J. Olsen, author of the
"Origins of the Domestic Dog" (1985), posits that Paleolithic
hunter-gatherers domesticated various subspecies of wolf during this
time period in northern Europe, North America, the Near East and
China.
(Nat. Hist. 3/96, p.36)
c12.5k BC The Altamira Cave in Spain and its wall
paintings dated to this time. The cave was rediscovered in 1879 by
Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, a lawyer and amateur archeologist.
(WSJ, 9/18/01, p.A20)
12.3k BC In 2008 scientists reported that
fossilized human feces found in 8 caves near Paisley, Ore., dated to
about this time. The coprolites contained DNA with characteristics
matching those of living Amerindians.
(SFC, 4/4/08, p.A4)(Econ, 4/5/08, p.84)
12k BC The last ice age ended about this time
flooding the land bridge between Alaska and Siberia.
(SFC, 4/4/08, p.A4)
c12k BC The Broken Mammoth settlement in central
Alaska dated to this time.
(SFC, 7/25/03, p.A1)
c12k BC In 2004 archaeologists in Kansas working
near the Colorado-Kansas border reported radiocarbon dating results
finished in February that showed mammoth and prehistoric camel bones
dating back to about this time.
(AP, 6/13/05)
12k BC In 2008 evidence from Monte Verde, Chile,
indicated that a small band of people inhabited the area. Initial
evidence was found in a peat bog there in 1977.
(SFC, 5/9/08,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Verde)
12k BC Bison are shaped from moist clay in the Tuc
d'Audoubert cave of the French Pyranees, discovered in 1912 CE.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 443)
12k BC The Niaux cave in Tarascon, France, dated
back to the Ice Age.
(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.T1)
12k BC As the earth warmed, the rain forest came
up. It pushed away the wallabies, the wombats, the possums, and so
the people (of Tasmania) had to follow their food.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.467)
c12k BC During the last ice age the Channel
Islands off California were part of one vast island geologists call
Santarosae. The northern islands were linked, but probably not with
the mainland.
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.T11)
12k BC Lake Lahontan, which spread across
northwest Utah, reached its highest level during the last phase of
the last Ice Age.
(NH, 9/96, p.35)
12k BC The first known fossil evidence of
human-canine cohabitation dates to about this time.
(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A10)
12k BC - 10k BC A site along the Nile River in
Sudan has a graveyard (Site 117) of this period that indicates
warfare between communities.
(NH, Jul, p.31)
11.5k BC - 10.2k BC A site near Kenosha, Wisc.,
indicates human butchery of woolly mammoths during this period.
(Arch, 7/02, p.50)
11.05k BC - 10.9k BC Clovis points (from Clovis
New Mexico), tools of Paleo-Indian hunters (known as Clovis people),
were dated in 2007 to this period. They pursued ice-age mammoths,
camels, bison and horses. These people were ancestral to the Folsom
culture and were believed to have arrived across a land bridge from
Asia. Clovis culture was reported to be very similar to Solutrean.
(NH, 2/97, p.22)(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A9)(Arch, 7/02,
p.51)(SFC, 2/23/07, p.A4)
11k BC The last warming period began about 13,000
years ago. It melted the glaciers and put Beringia back under the
Bering Sea.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.434)
11k BC A cooling period in the northern
hemisphere, called the Younger Dryas, began about this time and
lasted for over a thousand years.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.94)
11k BC A mass extinction about this time occurred
in parts of North America and coincided with the growing population
of Indian hunters [see 10,900BC].
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A2)
11k BC Scientists in 2005 said archeological sites
dating to this time in Michigan, Canada, Arizona, New Mexico, and
the Carolinas showed evidence, magnetic metal spherules, for a comet
impact that may have wiped out North American mammoths and many
other animals [see 10,900BC].
(SFC, 9/24/05, p.B2)
11k BC In 2008 Colorado landscapers in Boulder
stumbled onto a cache of more than 83 ancient tools buried by the
Clovis people, ice age hunter-gatherers, dating back 13,000 years.
(AP, 2/27/09)
11k BC Scientists in 2009 said an oak bush in the
Jurupa Hills of Riverside County, Ca., was about 13,000 years old,
dating to about this time.
(SFC, 12/23/09, p.A8)
11k BC Scientists in 2001-2002 discovered
skeletons in caves along Mexico’s Yucatan coast that dated to about
this time.
(SFC, 9/10/04, p.A2)
11k BC Peñon Woman, found in central Mexico
in 1959, dated to about this time. She shared many of the features
found in the Kennewick Man (1996) of Washington State.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.77)
11k BC The earliest amber artifacts are from this
time and were found in caves in Cheddar, England. The British Isles
were connected to Europe and the English Channel could be walked
across.
(PacDis, Winter/'97, p.9)
11k BC A Paleolithic burial in San Teodoro Cave,
Sicily, revealed an arrowhead embedded in the pelvis bone of an
adult female. Another arrowhead is known from the vertebra of a
child buried in the Grotte des Enfants on the Italian coast.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.24)
11k BC A meteorite from Mars (ALH 84001),
discovered in 1984, landed in Antarctica about this time. It had
been knocked into space from Mars around 16 million BC. Scientists
in 1996 claimed to have found evidence of organic minerals,
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, in the meteorite that formed some
3.6 billion years ago.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A1,9)(SSFC, 2/19/06, p.M6)
11k BC - 9k BC A woman's bones were discovered in
1959 at Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island, one of the Channel
Islands off California. Two tests in 1999 dated the bones as 11,000
and 13,000 years of age.
(SFC, 4/12/99, p.A1,15)
11k BC - 4k BC Trinidad was once part of the South
American continent. The lowlands to the continent flooded either
after the melt of the last Ice Age or more recently from erosion
caused by the Orinoco River of Venezuela.
(SFEC,2/16/97, p.T5)
10.9k BC Wildfires about this time broke out
across the US and Canada after an object, roughly a kilometer
across, grazed the Earth and broke up in the atmosphere depositing
its oomph as heat. A mass extinction about this time occurred in
parts of North America and coincided with the growing population of
Indian hunters. Archeologists later identified a layer of charcoal
and glass-like beads of carbon as evidence of the event. Fires
melted substantial portions of the Laurentide glacier in Canada
sending waves of water down the Mississippi that caused changes in
the Atlantic Ocean currents. This started a 1,300-year ice age known
as the Younger Dryas.
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A2)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.94)(SFC,
1/2/09, p.A2)
10.8k BC - 10.3k BC A village in Monte Verde,
Chile was identified to be this old by a team of anthropologists.
The site is described in the 1997 book: "Monte Verde: A Pleistocene
Settlement in Chile" by Tom Dillehay. Dillehay later reported that
new excavations revealed evidence that human bones and tools may
date back to about 28,000BC.
(USAT, 2/11/97, p.A1)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.61)(SFC,
2/17/98, p.A2)
10.8k BC - 9.5k BC People of Early Natufian
settlement in the Middle East were forced to go nomadic again due to
a drying climate over this period. A 2nd attempt to settle began
around 9,500 BC and became known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.86)
10.7k BC Melting glaciers caused a deluge of some
2,000 cubic miles of fresh water from a prehistoric lake in
southwestern Ontario. This impacted the Atlantic thermohaline
circulation and sent temperatures over the North Atlantic
plummeting. Temperatures in Greenland dropped by 18 degrees
Fahrenheit.
(WSJ, 7/17/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/14/04, p.B1)
c10.5k BC The climate of the Earth abruptly warmed
by 20 degrees or more and ended an ice age. Ice cores from Greenland
later revealed a temperature increase of almost 59 degrees in the
north polar region within a 50-year period.
(SFC, 10/2/98, p.A10)
10.4k BC - 10.2k BC In 2003 Scientists reported
that human bone fragments found in a cave from Aveline's Hole in the
Mendip Hills of southwest England date from this period.
(AP, 9/23/03)
10k BC The Paleolithic period comes to a close.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 623)
10k BC The Nez Perce are a North American Indian
people of the Sahaptin family. The name is from the French and means
pierced nose. They lived in the Wallowa Valley of Oregon, Washington
and Idaho for some 12,000 years.
(WUD, 1994, p.964)
10k BC Little Petroglyph and an adjacent canyon in
the Coso Mountains, northwest of the Mojave Desert, contains
carvings dated to this time.
(PacDis, Summer '97, p.8,10)
c10k BC Petroglyphs dating to this time were later
discovered in the Big Smokey Valley of Nevada, where Lake Tolyabe
and Lake Tonopah provided for human habitation.
(USDI, 2004)
10k BC The 1st known outbreaks of smallpox
occurred about this time among agricultural settlements in
northeastern Africa.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
10k BC This marks the approximate time of the
Natufian cultural stage, just before the domestication of plants and
the spread of settled farming groups. The Natufians were the last
group to occupy Kebara cave in Israel for a long period.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.463)
c10k BC Hunter gatherers settled for part of the
year at a site later called Wadi Hammeh in the Jordan Valley.
(NH, 11/1/04, p.15)
10k BC In 2008 archeologists in northern Israel
found a female skeleton in a grave containing 50 tortoise shells, a
leopard pelvis, a cow tail and part of an eagle wing and believed
they were the remains of a witch doctor from the Natufian culture.
(AP, 11/18/08)
10k BC Ice from this period is stored at the
Physics Inst. of the Univ. of Bern, Switzerland.
(NOHY, 3/1990, p.240)
10k BC Austronesians began to settle the island of
Taiwan about this time. Their descendents became known as the
aboriginal Seediq people.
(Econ, 9/17/11, p.41)
10k BC An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field
occurred.
(E&IH, 1973, p.94)
10k BC The world’s human population was about 5
million.
(Econ, 12/24/05, Survey p.9)
10k BC - 3.5k BC The Neolithic or New Stone Age.
(WH, 1994, p.19)
10k BC - 400 BC The Jomon culture of Japan is
associated with the introduction of rice agriculture and the use of
metal and probably came from the Asian mainland.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.34)
9.6k BC Radiocarbon date for the cave paintings at
Le Portal, France. The last period of cave art is called
Magdalenian.
(NH, 7/96, p.18)
9.6k BC A site of human habitation in Peru was
dated to about this time. Later excavations indicated complex stone
tools that appeared to date back to at least 28,000BC.
(SFC, 2/17/98, p.A2)
9.6k BC - 8.5k BC Some dozen villages piled one on
top of the other occupied the site of Jerf el-Ahmar at a bend of the
Euphrates River. In 1999 Syria flooded the area under the Tishrin
Dam.
(AM, 11/00, p.56)
9.5k BC In 2011 scientists identified the cremated
bones, dating to about this time, of a 3-year-old child buried in
the Tanana lowlands of central Alaska.
(SFC, 2/25/11, p.A8)
c9.5k BC A female skull, aged 20-25, from this
period was found near Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in c1995 and named
Luzia. It was found to have characteristics similar to people from
the South Pacific.
(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A13)
9.5k BC Romito 2, a dwarf from a cave in Italy's
Calabria region, suffered from a form of chondrodystrophy, a lack of
normal cartilage growth and stood no more than four feet. That he
lived to about 17 years of age indicates group support. He was found
buried with an old woman, possibly his mother.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 452)
c9.5k BC Two cultures of
migrating hunters lived in the present territory of Lithuania in the
2nd half of the 10th millennium BC. One group came from the banks of
the middle Vistula river in the south-west. The other was from the
north-west of Europe.
(DrEE, 10/12/96, p.2)(TB-Com, 10/11/00)
9.5k BC People of the Early Natufian settlements
in the Middle East began to settle for a 2nd time following 1300
years of drying climate. They became known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.86)
9.5k BC - 6.1k BC The Neolithic site of Abu
Hureyra, 40 miles downstream from Jerf el-Ahmar, Syria, was flooded
under the waters of the Taqba Dam in the 1970s.
(AM, 11/00, p.58)
9.4k BC - 9.2k BC In 2006 researchers reported the discovery of nine
carbonized fig fruits stored in Gilgal I, an early Neolithic
village, located in the Lower Jordan Valley, which dated to this
time.
(Reuters, 6/2/06)
9k BC Humans reached Florida at
least by this time, before the end of the Ice Age. Sea level was
lower and the peninsula was much larger.
(NH, 11/96, p.46)
9k BC Harpoon heads of
intricate design were in use by this time. They were hafted to
wooden shafts and easily replaced.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 451)
9k BC The wooly mammoth became
extinct about 11,000 years ago. [article about the atlatl, i.e.
spear thrower]
(WSJ, 10/24/95, p.A-1)
9k BC Fisher in the late
1980's, while he was excavating an 11,000-year-old mastodon found at
the Heisler site in southern Michigan, found evidence of butchery
and under water meat caching by Ice Age hunters in North America.
(LSA, Fall 1995, p.38)
9k BC Caribou lived in the area
of Connecticut.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A16)
9k BC Archeologists in 2010
reported that a circular shaped home was built about this time next
to an ancient lake at Star Carr, near Scarborough, in northeastern
England. At this time Britain was still connected to continental
Europe.
(AP, 8/11/10)(SFC, 8/12/10, p.A2)
c9k BC Plato later wrote that
the island continent of Atlantis existed about this time. In 1998
Richard Ellis wrote an account of the Atlantis literature:
"Imagining Atlantis."
(SFEC, 7/26/98, BR p.3)
9k BC In 2007 French
archaeologists discovered an 11,000-year-old wall painting
underground in northern Syria which they believe is the oldest in
the world. The 2 square-meter painting, in red, black and white, was
found at the Neolithic settlement of Djade al-Mughara on the
Euphrates, northeast of the city of Aleppo.
(Reuters, 10/11/07)
9k BC The town of Chemi
Shanidar, later part of Iraq, was the largest city of the time with
150 people.
(SFEC, 8/27/00, Z1 p.2)
9k BC Human middens began
piling up along the coast of Peru reflecting a diet of tropical
mollusks.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A2)
c9k BC - 8k BC In Neolithic times Mongolia was the
home of small groups of hunters, reindeer breeders, and nomads.
(www.gobiexpeditions.com)
9k BC - 4k BC The finest record of Mesolithic and
Neolithic peoples exists in Denmark, due to the country's numerous
bogs.
(PacDis, Winter/'97, p.9)
8.6k BC Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus) lived in
temperate climates throughout Europe and western Asia from about
this time to a last record in Ireland at 10,600 years ago.
(NH, 8/96, p.17)
8.2k BC Archaeologists in 2007 found tools in the
seabed off Cyprus at two sites indicating they were used by
seafaring foragers who frequented the island well over 10,000 years
ago, before the first permanent settlers arrived around 8,200 BC.
(AP, 7/19/07)
8k BC The Holocene
(completely-recent) Epoch, our current age began 10,000 years ago.
(CEH, GHMC,1979, p.24)(LSA, Spg/97, p.6)
8k BC In 1958 anthropologist
Frank Livingstone proposed that Plasmodium falciprum, the deadliest
of 4or 5 parasites that cause human malaria, hopped from chimps to
humans about this time and human hunter-gatherers began settling on
farms.
(Econ, 8/8/09, p.69)
8k BC In 2007 new genetic
analysis suggested that the transformation of a vicious predator
into a docile tabby took place about this time in the remote deserts
of the Middle East.
(www.livescience.com/animals/070628_cat_family.html)
8k BC About this time Vulcan’s
Throne was formed from a volcanic eruption near the rim of the inner
gorge of the Grand Canyon over Toroweap Canyon, Az.
(NH, 9/97, p.40)
8k BC In 2007 workers digging
at the future site of a Wal-Mart store in suburban Mesa, Az.,
unearthed the bones of a prehistoric camel that's estimated to be
about 10,000 years old.
(AP, 4/28/07)
8k BC Researchers in 1986 dated
a clay floor in Stanislaus National Forest, 150 miles east of SF, to
this time.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A3)
8k BC About 10,000 years ago a
tribe of Indians lived in the Florida panhandle at the Aucilla River
for a few generations near the present town of Perry. The site was
nearly 100 miles inland. Within a hundred years rising water flooded
the village and sealed the remains under a layer of clay.
(SFC, 11/11/96, p.D1)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.17)
8k BC In Nevada about this time
the Lathrop Wells Cone erupted. It is less than a mile from Yucca
Mountain, a site later proposed for the long-term storage of
radioactive waste.
(Smith., 5/95, p.44)
8k BC Early bison hunters of
the American southwest were named the Folsom People after a nearby
town. Bones of the Bison antiquus were initially discovered by
cowboy George McJunkin in 1908 in eastern New Mexico.
(NH, 2/97, p.17)
8k BC Mastodons roamed over
Ohio. In 1887 Newton S. Conway discovered the skeleton of a mastodon
on his farm on the Clark-Champaign County line. It became known as
the Conway Mastodon.
(SSFC, 1/9/11, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/2ecv34t)
8k BC A genetic mutation among
northern Europeans about this time made lactose tolerance continue
beyond childhood.
(WSJ, 2/12/0/09, p.A11)
8k BC About 10,000 years ago
Thingvallavatn Lake, a flooded graben in southwestern Iceland, was
born in a valley gauged from volcanic rock and ash by the Langjokull
Glacier.
(NH, 6/96, p.48)
c8k BC Traces of a man-made
shelter from this time were found in northern South Africa north of
Johannesburg.
(SFC, 1/15/99, p.A14)
8k BC The potato was first
cultivated some 10,000 years ago by South American Indians. In the
16th century Spanish explorers brought potatoes back to Europe,
where it was first used primarily as livestock feed. The potato was
introduced to North America in the 17th century. In the 18th
century, the poor of Europe began to use potatoes as a replacement
for cereals in their diets. The failure of the potato crop in
Ireland in 1845-46 led to great famine and pushed tens of thousands
of Irish to emigrate to the United States. In 2008 it was reported
that genetic studies by potato experts indicated that all potatoes
originated over 10,000 years ago from a single ancestor, Solanum
brevicaule, found on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca.
(HNQ, 5/10/98)(SSFC, 10/5/08, p.A15)
8k BC Asian peoples settled the
island of Taiwan about this time.
(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.G6)
c8k BC The West Antarctic ice
sheet started retreating at a rate of about 2 inches per year.
(SFC, 1/3/03, p.A7)
8k BC There is good evidence
that the continental crust is capable of some plastic flow, and the
rebound is shown most dramatically in parts of the Baltic, the
Arctic and the Great Lakes regions of North America where
Pleistocene beaches and coastal features are now raised high above
sea level and some are tilted. The process seems to have been going
on for the last 10,000 years and is still continuing.
(DD-EVTT)
8k BC Sand of Ocean Beach and
on hills of western San Francisco. Alluvium of river bottoms. Silts
and muds of Sacramento Delta.
(GH-CEH, p.25)
c8k BC Rising ocean waters
flowed into the Golden Gate and formed the nascent SF Bay.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.A8)
8k BC Pigmy mammoths browsed on
the Channel Islands off the California coast.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, Z1 p.1)
8k BC Grinding tools from this
time were found in 1999 in the Cross Creek site of San Luis Obispo.
Beads, shells, tools, seeds and carved stone fish suggested that
humans came to the area by sea and did not rely on hunting for
subsistence.
(SFC, 6/25/99, p.A6)
8k BC Wine was produced in the
region known as Colchis (later Georgia) as early as this time.
(Econ, 11/15/08, p.100)
8k BC The 15-foot, 3-toed
Macrauchenia, a native of Patagonia, went extinct about this time.
It had a body like a camel, a neck like a giraffe, and a flexible
nose like an elephant’s trunk. Its fossil was discovered by Charles
Darwin during his trip to the region (1833-1834).
(SFC, 4/2/10, p.C5)
8k BC About this time the
inhabitants of Mesopotamia (centered about modern Iraq) began using
distinctively shaped clay tokens- spheres, disks, cones, cylinders,
triangles, among others- to keep track of foodstuffs, livestock, and
land.
(I&I, Penzias, p.42)(V.D.-H.K.p.10)
8k BC Tel Sultan, an
archaeological dig, indicated that Jericho was first settled about
this time.
(AP, 10/1/10)
c8k BC - 7k BC In the early Mesolithic the climate
warmed and settlers of the Paleolithic followed the deer north.
Those who stayed mixed with the fisherman who moved from the west to
form the ethnic groups of Baltic culture.
(DrEE, 10/12/96, p.2)(TB-Com, 10/11/00)
8k BC - 1.5k BC This period is covered by Barry
Cunliffe in his 2001 book: “Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and Its
Peoples 8000BC - 1500 AD.
(Arch, 7/02, p.20)
c7.975k BC Humans lived in a cave near Oaxaca,
Mexico, named Guila Naquitz (White Cliff). Scattered remains of
tools, seeds and plants were found in 1966 by archeologist Kent
Flannery and some of the seeds were dated to this time. The squash
seeds showed signs of cultivation.
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.A2)
7.542k BC In 2008 Umeaa University said the
world's oldest living tree on record, a spruce, took root about this
time in central Sweden.
(AP, 4/17/08)
7.5k BC Pre-historic Indians inhabit areas of N.
Cascades in Washington state at elevations of 6,600 ft. It appears
that the local chert was used to fabricate stone tools.
(NG March 1990, Geographica)
7.5k BC The Illinois River Valley, where humans
have lived since this time lost 5-10% of its archeological record in
the great Mississippi flood of 1994 CE.
(NG, Geographica, Jan, 94)
c7.5k BC The Twin Dutch Site in Illinois is the
location of the oldest house in the Midwest US.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, C17)
c7.5k BC A research team in 2004 uncovered a
carefully buried cat on Cyprus, placed just inches from a human
burial that also contained polished stones, shells, tools and
jewelry. The graves were estimated to be 9,500 years old.
(AP, 4/9/04)
7.5k BC In 2001 Indian engineers began dredging
operations in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) and pulled up human
fossil bones, fossil wood, stone tools, pieces of pottery and many
other things that indicated that a human habitation site dating to
about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_archaeology_in_the_Gulf_of_Cambay)
7.5k BC - 7k BC Evidence of human habitation has
been found from this time at El Portal in Yosemite.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)
c7.4k BC In 1998 specimens of sandals were
analyzed from a Missouri cave that dated to this time.
(SFC, 7/3/98, p.A2)
7.4k BC The mummy, known as the Spirit Cave Man,
was found in Nevada in 1940, but in 1996 was dated to be more than
9,400 years old. The mummy was discovered by archeologists S.M. and
Georgia Wheeler in a cave 13 miles east of Fallon. The mummy was
wrapped in a skin robe and sewn into two mats woven of a marsh plant
called tule.
(SFC, 4/27/96, p.A-5)
7.2k BC A skeleton of about this age was
found in July, 1996, by the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wa. It
became known as the "Kennewick Man" or "Richland Man." The 9,200
year old bones were later studied and determined to be most closely
related to Asian people, particularly the Ainu of northern Japan. It
was concluded in 2000 that he was an American Indian. The bones were
dated to 7514-7324 BC.
(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A11)(SFC, 1/14/00, p.A7)(SFC,
9/26/00, p.A5)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.76)
c7k BC Some American
Indian graves in Newport Beach, CA., were believed to be this age.
(SFC, 3/10/97, p.A16)
7k BC An alteration in the
Earth's magnetic field occurred.
(E&IH, 1973, p.94)
c7k BC A flute dating to this
time was found in the 1980s in Jiahu. 6 flutes from the hollow wing
bones of cranes were found in Zheng-zhou province from about this
time.
(SFC, 9/23/99, p.A8)(SFC, 4/29/00, p.D4)
7k BC Scientists in 2004 found
the earliest evidence of winemaking from pottery shards dating from
7,000BC in northern China.
(Reuters, 12/7/04)(SFC, 12/7/04, p.A1)
c7k BC Early Danish Mesolithic:
In the Maglemose culture large amber pendants were hardly changed.
(PacDis, Winter/'97, p.8)
c7k BC In 1903 a skeleton of a
man, 9,000 years old, was discovered in the underground caves at
Cheddar, 130 miles west of London, England.
(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A8)
c7k BC The Ain Ghazal farming
settlement in Jordan dated to this time. It was uncovered in 1974
during road construction near Amman.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C7)
c7k BC The site of Catalhoyuk
in south-central Turkey was settled about this time and vanished
after about 1,200 years. It marks the world’s first urban center.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.72)(SFC, 4/18/05, p.A6)
c7k BC The first regular
milking of animals was begun in the Shara about this time.
(SFEC,11/2/97, Z1 p.6)
c6.8k BC Jarmo in northern Iraq was later said to
be the first town.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, Z1 p.2)
6.2k BC The archeological record shows traces of
domesticated cattle back to this time.
(Acad, Jul/Aug 1996)
6.2k BC In Germany the Adonis of Zschernitz, a
male fertility figurine dating to this time, was excavated near
Leipzig in 2003. In 2005 a female counterpart was found at the same
site.
(SFC, 8/17/09, p.12)
6.2k BC The development of irrigation in
Mesopotamia at this time seems to coincide with a cool dry period.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.114)
6.2k BC The glacial lake Agassiz-Ojibway, body of
water so vast that it covered parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, North
Dakota, Ontario and Minnesota, massively drained, sending a flow of
water into the Hudson Strait and the Labrador Sea. The sudden flood
of fresh water diluted the saltiness of the Gulf Stream weakening
its flow.
(Econ, 9/9/06, Survey p.6)(AFP, 2/24/08)
6k BC Carbon levels began to
rise about this time and caused a deviation in the climatic patterns
called the Milankovitch cycles. These cycles were regulated by the
Earth's orbit and angle towards the sun.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.115)
6k BC The Wappo Indians settle
in the area northern California around Mt. Konocti 8,000 years ago.
The eruption of Mt. Konocti millions of years earlier left a fissure
in the earth through which ground water reaches the hot magma at
4,000 feet, and resurfaces as Indian Springs' three thermal geysers
at 212 degrees. The water rises through old sea beds adding rich
mineral and salt traces.
(Flyer on Indian Springs, 7/95)
c6k BC The Hokan Indians
preceded the Miwoks in Northern California.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.B5)
c6k BC Remains of a probable
human structure in Hells Gap, Wyoming, were dated to this time.
(SFC, 9/19/97, p.A3)
c6k BC A more advanced
Neolithic people migrated to Europe from the Middle East bringing
with them a new Y chromosome pattern and an agricultural way of
life.
(SFC, 11/10/00, p.A7)
6k BC In 2010 Israeli
archaeologists uncovered the remains of an 8,000-year-old
prehistoric building as well as ancient flint tools in the modern
city of Tel Aviv.
(AP, 1/11/10)
6k BC The site of Lepenski Vir
on the Danube River at the Iron Gates gorges was occupied by people
living in huts. Sculpted boulders at the site represent the first
monumental art from central and eastern Europe.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.24)
c6k BC Bronze age settlements
were established and later found in Moldova.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A5)
6k BC Ash from ancient
campfires of this time were found in Muscat, Oman, in 1983.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.48)
c6k BC Lead beads were
fashioned in Anatolia by craftsmen whose forced-air furnaces were
able to reach 1,100 degrees, the melting point of galena, a common
mineral of lead.
(NH, 7/96, p.50)
c6k BC The milodon, a giant
sloth, became extinct in South America.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, T6)
6k BC Researchers in 2007
reported that evidence for the use of chili peppers date back to
this time in Ecuador. Botanists if general agreed that chili peppers
originated in Bolivia. Evidence for early use was also found in the
Bahamas, Colombia, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.
(SFC, 2/16/07, p.A7)
6k BC In 2008 scientists
reported that robust hunter-gathers, known as Kiffians, apparently
abandoned the Gobero region of Niger during a long drought that
dried up a lake about this time. The dried-up lake in the Sahara was
found brimming with the skeletons of people, fish and crocodiles who
thrived when the African desert was briefly green.
(Reuters, 8/15/08)
6k BC - 5.5k BC In 2005 archaeologists in northern Greece uncovered
traces of two prehistoric farming settlements dating back to this
period.
(AP, 11/28/05)
6k BC - 4k BC The Pleistocene-Holocene date line,
i.e. the 'end' of the glacial epoch, is perhaps best marked at the
end of the last rapid rise in sea level between 6 & 8 thousand
years ago.
(DD-EVTT, p.298)
c5.6k BC The Mediterranean Sea, swollen be melted
glaciers, breached a natural dam that separated it from the fresh
water lake later known as the Black Sea. Sea water from the
Mediterranean poured in for as long as 2 years. An ancient coastline
with this date was verified in 1999. [see 2348BC]
(SFC, 9/28/99, p.A14)(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C6)(SFC,
9/13/00, p.A7)
5.5k BC Hahnhofersand Man was dated in 2001 to
about this time by Oxford University’s Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit.
German Prof. Reiner Protsch von Zieten had earlier dated the fossils
to about 34,300BC. In the 1980s the Hahnhofersand fossils were said
to have both Neanderthal and human characteristics.
(Arch, 5/05, p.15)
5.5k BC - 4k BC In Japan the Sannai Maruyama site
in northern Honshu uncovered postholes of houses and longhouses,
graves, figurines and animal remains of the early to middle Jomon
period.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.72)
5.4k BC - 5k BC Archeologists have determined that
wine was made in villages in Iran's remote Zagros Mountains about
this time. Wine jars were dug up near the ruined village called
Hajii Firuz Tepe and analyzed to have contained a retsina type of
wine.
(SFC, 6/6/96, p.A3)(Reuters, 12/7/04)
5.2k BC - 4.5k BC In 2008 Egypt’s supreme council
of antiquities said a team of US archaeologists had discovered the
ruins of a city dating back to this period of the first farmers in
the Fayyum oasis.
(AFP, 1/29/08)
c5.1k BC A slate plaque from pre-dynastic Egypt
was carved with scenes of battlefield carnage on one side and leaf
munching antelope on the other. It was part of an exhibit at the
Guggenheim.
(NYT, 6/7/96, p.B9)
c5.1k BC In 2001 evidence in Mexico was reported
for corn cultivation from sediments of this time.
(SFC, 5/18/01, p.A7)
5k BC War had become endemic in
almost all human societies.
(V.D.-H.K.p.408)
5k BC Since the last glacial
phase, an interglacial had been in effect, beginning about this
time.
(DD-EVTT, p.301)
5k BC Stone age farmers and
fisherman inhabited the area around Byblos, Lebanon. Archeologists
at Byblos found at least 12 layers of civilizations that dated back
7,000 years.
(NG, Aug., 1974, p.154)(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T9)
c5k BC A complex of slabs and
stones in southern Egypt that may date this far back was found
during field work that ended in 1997. The site included 10 slabs,
some 9 feet tall, 30 rock-lined ovals, 9 burial sites for cows, and
a "calendar circle" of stones. They were thought to have been
constructed by cattle-herders and used for astronomical
observations.
(SFC, 4/2/98, p.A6)
5k BC Mt. Mazama in what is now
Oregon blew up about this time and left what is now called Crater
Lake.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, Z1 p.7)(SFC, 10/26/06, p.B8)
5k BC Shell and fishbone
middens indicated a fishing village of this time at Ras al Hamra in
Qurum, Oman.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.48)
5k BC The Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act gives large portions of prime bear habitat to the
Alutiiq people, who have hunted and fished on the island for 7,000
years.
(NG, Jan. 94, p.141)
5k BC Native people were
traveling through the Barrens, northwest of Canada's Hudson's Bay,
(NH, 5/96, p.35)
5k BC In 2008 archeologists
reported the discovery of a farming village in Egypt’s Faiyum Oasis,
50 miles south of Cairo, that dated to about this time. Residents
grew wheat and barley, and raised sheep, goats and pigs.
(SFC, 2/13/08, p.A11)
5k BC Dried-up riverbeds as
well as cave paintings indicate that at this time the Sahara was a
land of flowing rivers, lush green pastures, and forests.
(ATC, p.108)
5k BC On Malta the Ghar Dalam
cave near the harbor of Marsaxlokk revealed bones of domesticated
animals and potsherds.
(AM, Jul/Aug '97 p.42)
5k BC The Thracian village of
Nebet Tepe, later Plovdiv, Bulgaria, dated to about this time. It
was redeveloped by the Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, Bulgars and
Turks.
(SSFC, 7/16/06, p.G4)
c5k BC Research in 2003
indicated that bananas and taro were cultivated in the highlands of
Papua New Guinea as long as 7,000 years ago. The first signs of
human habitation in the area occurred c5,800BC and included a change
from forest to grasslands and increase in charcoal in the sediments.
The earliest Asian influence on the islands occurred about 1,500BC.
(AP, 6/19/03)
5k BC The human population was
about 5 million at this time.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, Z1 p.3)
5k BC - 3.5k BC The predynastic period of Egypt.
(R4,1998)
5k BC - 3k BC Pinto Man, a Native American nomad,
left arrow points in the desert basin near Twenty-Nine Palms in
Southern California.
(Sp., 5/96, p.64)
5k BC - 2.5k BC Scientists in 2008 said a second
group settled the Gobero region of Niger during this period. These
were Tenerians, smaller, shorter people who hunted, herded and
fished.
(Reuters, 8/15/08)
4.8k BC - 4.6k BC More than 150 large temples,
constructed between during this period, were unearthed in fields and
cities in Germany, Austria and Slovakia in 2002-2005. A village at
Aythra, near Leipzig in eastern Germany, was home to some 300 people
living in up to 20 large buildings around the temple.
(AP, 6/12/05)
4.713k BC The most recent time that the three
major chronological cycles (28 year solar, 19 year lunar, and 15
year Roman Indication) began on the same day as determined by Joseph
Scaliger in 1582.
(CFA, '96,Vol 179, p.23)
4.5k BC Neolithic burial mounds dating to this
time were later discovered at Carnac, northwest France.
(Arch, 5/05, p.32)
4.5k BC Northern Oman has a ceramic tradition back
to this time.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.52)
4.5k BC Horses were first domesticated in what is
now the Ukraine. Hunters who ate them wild found that they could
milk them tamed and ride them.
(SFC, 6/9/96, Zone 1 p.2)
4.5k BC - 4.2k BC The Skorba phase on Malta was
marked by a growing population, with increased forest clearance for
agriculture and grazing that may have led to erosion. Obsidian on
Malta from the islands of Lipari and Panteleria indicate links to
the outside world.
(AM, Jul/Aug '97 p.40)
4.5k BC-3.5k BC The Galgal Refaim, or the "wheel
of ghosts," first noticed by scholars in 1968, was built during this
period. It consists of four circles, the outermost more than 500
feet across, made up of an estimated 42,000 tons of basalt stone,
the remains of massive walls that experts believe once rose as much
as high as 30 feet. The enormous feat of construction was carried
out by a society about which little is known. Scholars tended to
agree that a tomb in the center of the site was added a millennia or
two after the circles were erected in the Chalcolithic period. In
2011 a scholar suggested that Galgal Refaim was an excarnation
facility.
(AP, 11/3/11)
4.5k BC - 2k BC A sacrificial dump in Guanghan,
Sichuan Province, in China was uncovered in 1976. Large quantities
of elephants tusks reveal that elephants roamed the area. Human
figures, monster masks, and tree fragments made of bronze tubes were
also found.
(WSJ, 9/27/96, p.A16)
4.431k BC Timbers of a possible ship of this time
were found off Hayling Island near Portsmouth, England, in 1997. The
structure might also have been a causeway.
(AM, Jul/Aug '97 p.13)
4.2k BC - 3.8k BC On Malta the Zebbug phase
indicated evidence of collective burials.
(AM, Jul/Aug '97 p.40)
4.241k BC The Egyptian calendar was established.
(WSJ, 1/5/05, p.B1)
4.05k BC Agriculture arrived fully formed in Kent,
England, about this time.
(Econ, 6/11/11, p.82)
4.004k BC Oct 23, According to 17th century divine
James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, and Dr. John Lightfoot of
Cambridge, the world was created on this day, a Sunday, at 9 a.m.
"If you grew up with the King James edition of the Bible that I did,
you learned that the world was created in 4004 BC."
(NG, Nov. 1985, edit. p.559)(HN, 10/23/98)
4k BC In 2011 it was reported
that the earliest known winery, dating to about this time, had been
discovered in Armenia.
(SFC, 1/11/11, p.A2)
c4k BC People in the Yellow
River Valley switched from hunting and gathering to agriculture.
(SFC, 3/4/02, p.A3)
c4k BC Apples (Malus Sieversii)
similar to modern day varieties began to appear around Almaty,
Kazakhstan. These ultimately produced the Red Delicious and Golden
Delicious in America. The Red Delicious was hybridized into the Fuji
and the Empire. The Golden Delicious was hybridized into the Gala,
the Jonagold, the Mutsu, Pink Lady and Elstar.
(WSJ, 7/3/03, p.A1)
4k BC The Hittites settled
around Cappadocia in present day Turkey.
(Smith., 5/95, p.25)
4k BC Skilled goldsmiths
[proto-Thracians] lived in the area of Varna, now in Bulgaria, on
the Black Sea.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T3)(SFEC, 8/2/98, DB p.22)
4k BC Stone tablets show cheese
as early as this time.
(HFA, '96, p.121)
4k BC Evidence of tuberculosis
was found in a Neolithic burial ground near Heidelberg, where the
skeleton of a young man showed fusion of the fourth and fifth dorsal
vertebrae.
(WP, 1951, p.5)
4k BC Circumcision was part of
religious rites in Egypt and Greece dating back to this time.
(SFC, 5/19/96, p.A-10)
c4k BC In Malta the Hypogeum, a
complex of rock-cut chamber tombs, dated to this time. They were
discovered in 1902.
(SFEC, 9/17/00, p.T3)
4k BC The Orkney Islands were
inhabited at least since this time.
(SFEM, 10/10/99, p.23)
c4k BC In Poland the
archeological site at Oslonki uncovered some 30 longhouses and 80
graves.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.73)
4k BC Chiefdoms of northern
Europe were trading in amber.
(PacDis, Winter/'97, p.10)
4k BC The comet Hale-Bopp
visited the inner solar system about this time. It next appeared in
1997.
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.A2)
c4k BC The Pistol Star, located
between the Earth and center of the Milky Way, was first seen with
infrared equipment in the early 1990s. It was measured to be 25,000
light-years away with a radius of 93-140 million miles. It was
estimated to have formed 1-3 million years ago and shed much of its
mass in violent eruptions estimated to have occurred about 6,000
years ago.
(USAT, 10/8/97, p.3A)
4k BC The oldest artifacts of
the Mesopotamian city of Ur dated to about this time.
(ON, 8/20/11, p.9)
c4k BC The last wooly mammoths,
Mammuthus primigenius, went extinct on Wrangel Island, north of the
Arctic Circle.
(NH, 12/98, p.78)
4k BC - 3k BC The Indo-European language group
divided into different branches.
(DrEE, 9/21/96, p.1)
4k BC - 2.5k BC A rock painting from this time in
Tassili n'Ajjer, southeastern Algeria, illustrates a battle between
2 prehistoric groups armed with bows and arrows.
(NH, Jul, p.29)
4k BC - 1.5k BC Southern Britain was settled by
emigrants from what is now the Netherlands and the French province
of Brittany. They started farming, herding and burying their dead
and are called the "beaker people" after a distinctive drinking
vessel found in chambered mounds called "barrows." It is speculated
that these people and their descendants began worshiping inside
"henges," circular areas enclosed by big ditches and small banks of
dirt. Four phases of development at Stonehenge in the Salisbury
plain have been defined.
(HT, 3/97, p.20,22)
3.8k BC The Supe people, a maritime farming
community, was established about this time along the coast of Peru.
(SFC, 1/20/09, p.A13)
3.8k BC - 3.7k BC In 2010 archeologists in Israel
uncovered two fragments of a clay tablet with writing that resembled
portions of the Code of Hammurabi of the 18th century BC. The
fragments referred to issues of personal injury law relating to
slaves and masters.
(SFC, 7/27/10, p.A2)
3.8k BC - 3.2k BC In Ireland at Poulnabrone Dolmen
in County Clare, one of some 120 wedge tombs, bodies were interred
over a 600 year period that ended about 3200BC.
(SFEC, 11/12/00, p.T8)
3.6k BC - 1k BC The Mesopotamian settlement of
Nagar (in northeastern Syria) grew to become one of the first large
cities of the Middle East. It began before 6,000BC and continued to
about 1000BC.
(MT, summer 2003, p.11)
c3.761k BC The first year of the Jewish calendar
that begins with Rosh Hashana. [1997 was year 5758]
(SFC, 10/1/97, p.A16)(WUD, 1994, p.767)
3.652k BC Archeologists found ears of popcorn
5,600 years old in the Bat Cave in New Mexico in 1948.
(HFA, '96, p.66)
3.627k BC - 3.377k BC In Armenia a leather shoe
dating to this period was found in 2010 in a pit outside a cave.
(AP, 6/10/10)
3.6k BC In 2005 a team working for five years in
the area of Kom El-Ahmar, Egypt, known in antiquity as
Hierakonpolis, excavated a complex thought to belong to a ruler of
the ancient city who reigned around this time. Archaeologists
unearthed seven corpses believed to date to the era, as well as an
intact figure of a cow's head carved from flint.
(AP, 4/22/05)
3.6k BC In Washington state the Osceola mudflow
from Mount Ranier covered an area from Rainier to Puget Sound.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A22)
3.6k BC The Supe people, a maritime farming
community along the coast of Peru, disappeared about this time. In
2009 researchers found their disappearance coincided with
earthquakes and landslides followed by massive flooding.
(SFC, 1/20/09, p.A13)
3.6k BC - 3.5k BC An Egyptian cemetery of working
class inhabitants at Hierankopolis of this time showed evidence of
mummification.
(AM, 9/01, p.13)
3.6k BC - 3k BC On Malta the Gantija phase saw the
construction of the first megalithic temples.
(AM, Jul/Aug '97 p.43)
3.6k BC - 1.7k BC Neolithic jade pieces represent
some of the oldest of Chinese art.
(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A20)
3.5k BC Sumerians and Babylonians use a
sexigesimal (base 60) number system according to historian Eric
Temple Bell.
(V.D.-H.K.p.27)
3.5k BC King Etena of Babylonia was pictured on a
coin, flying on an eagle’s back.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
3.5k BC A linen shroud dating to this time was
later put on display at the Egyptian museum in Turin, Italy.
(SSFC, 1/22/06, p.E6)
3.5k BC - 3.1k BC In Egypt the "Knife of
Gebel-el-Arak" was made with an ivory handle carved with hunting and
battle scenes. It is now in the French Louvre.
(WSJ, 1/29/98, p.A16)
3500BC - 3k BC In 2008 a team of German and
Peruvian archaeologists reported the discovery of a ceremonial plaza
near Peru's north-central coast dating to this period.
(AP, 2/27/08)
3.5k BC - 2.4k BC The Tower of Babel was built
during this period by people of one language who inhabited the land
of Shinar in the kingdom of Nimrod.
(Econ, 4/26/08, p.108)
3.45k BC The first cities appeared along the banks
of the Tigris and Euphrates just north of what is now the Persian
Gulf. The cities made up the Uruk culture named after the principal
city of Uruk, which corresponds to the Biblical Erech. The culture
invented writing, the lunar calendar, used metal and built
monumental architecture. The cities remained independent for almost
a thousand years.
(eawc, p.1)
3.309k BC Mar 10, A primordial Maya god, named GI
by scholars, began his mythical reign.
(AM, Jul-Aug/99, p.16)
Go to 3300-1300BC