History by historical land mass is yet another wonderful lens into knowledge. These insights are the backbone to Mike‘s articles and his longer effort books. A part of his lifelong commitment to study. While they are not complete, they are useful.

History of the Lands: Europe

Terra Amata Site, France

Imagined imaged of the 400,000-year-old structure likely built by Homo heidelbergensis in France located on the coast at the Terra Amata site in Nice, France. The shelter is estimated to be around 4-5 meters (13-16 feet) wide and 6-7 meters (20-23 feet) long. It's believed to have been constructed using a simple framework of wooden posts, with branches and leaves used to create a roof and walls.

circa 400,000 Years Ago

Nice, France

Hominin World Population: 2 Million (maybe)

300,000 BCE

Very speculative.

Extinction: Homo heidelbergensis

Imagined image: the last of the Homo heidelbergensis, circa 200,000 BCE.

200,000 Years Ago

World Population: 1.5 Million

By 70,000 BCE

Divje Babe Flute

50 to 60 Thousand BCE

Upper Paleolithic Cave Art with Symbols

"<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/50193753@N02/5961953059" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lascaux II - Hall of The Bulls</a>" by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/50193753@N02" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Adibu456</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-NC 2.0</a>

circa 40,000 BCE

Spain & France

Bone Flute

38,000 BCE

38,000 to 33,000 BCE

Extinction: Neanderthals

Imagined image, circa 29,000 BCE. Left is a neanderthal; right is a Homo sapien.

38,000 BCE

Extinction range: 38,000 BCE to 22,000 BCE

Czeck: Dolní Věstonice Community

Around 30,000 years ago, the Dolní Věstonice community in the Czech Republic thrived. They built huts from mammoth bones and animal hides, crafted ceramic figurines, and engaged in hunting and daily activities.

30,000 BCE

29 to 32 thousand years ago.

Sunghir Burial Site

30,000 BCE

32,000 Years Ago

Modern Skin Color Variety Emerges

By 25,000 Years Ago (+/- 10,000 years)

Seasonal Settlements at Franchthi Cave

20,000 BCE

From circa 20,000 to 3,000 BCE

Earliest Known Domesticated Animal: Dogs

Wolf-to-dog: same species, dogs are a subspecies

Wolves were domesticated between 15 to 40 thousand BCE and evolved to a subspecies. Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are generally considered the same species as wolves (Canis lupus) but are classified as a subspecies.

By 20,000 BCE

Ukraine: Mezhyrich Community

Mezhyrich archaeological site, 15 to 20 thousand years ago.

18,000 BCE

15 to 20 Thousand Years Agao

World Population: 4 Million

10,000 BCE

Estimates range from 2 to 5 million

Neolithic Revolution

Trevethy Quoit a Portal Dolmen in Cornwall

9,700 BCE

Start of "our" Holocene geological epoch

Phenotype Variation: Blue Eyes

Photo of Woman With Blue Eyes and Black Hair

Photo by <a href="https://www.pexels.com/@valeriya?utm_source=instant-images&utm_medium=referral" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Valeria Boltneva</a> on <a href="https://pexels.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pexels</a>

8000 BCE

Genetic Mutation from the Neolithic Era

Greece: Sesklo Culture (Agrarian)

circa 7500 BCE

Europe/Mediterranean Agrarian Society

Cheese

Delicious Cheese board. Assortment of cheese, camembert, brie, Gorgonzola, parmesan, olives

Before 5500 BCE

Poland

Dispilio Tablet: European Proto-Writing

This ancient wooden tablet, etched with intricate symbols, dates back over 7,000 years, making it one of the oldest examples of proto-writing ever found.

circa 5,260 BCE

7,260 Years Ago

Vinor Circular Building: a roundel

Roundel, the Vinor Circular Building, featuring a modest height typical of Neolithic construction, a thatched roof, and entrances appropriate for the time. The image includes a cutaway to reveal the interior details.

4900 BCE

Up to 7,900 Years Ago (Neolithic)

Skara Brae Scottish Village

3180 BCE

3180 to 2500 BCE

World Population: 15 Million

3000 BCE

Estimates range from 9 to 16 million

Cretan Hieroglyphic script: Greek Island

"<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141943738" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Phaistos Disc - Side B - 6381 - crop1</a>" by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:C_messier" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">C messier, edit by Bammesk</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>

1900 BCE

from circa 1900 BCE to 1700 BCE

Dragons: Early Dinosaur Fossils

Mythical Creatures and Fossil Discoveries: The Roots of Ancient Legends. Many various ancient mythical creatures were likely inspired by fossil discoveries including Chinese dragons, Greco-Roman giants, griffins, cyclopes, and other mythical beasts.

By 1600 BCE

The Birth of Logic

624 BCE

Circa 624-546 BCE

Pythagoras (570-495 BCE)

Pythagoreanism

Father of Mathematics

Heraclitus

RoyFokker, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

born circa 535 BCE

circa 535 to 475 BCE, likely aged about 60 years old

Anaxagoras (circa 500-428 BCE)

500 BCE

circa 450 BCE

Socrates (469 – 399 BCE)

Portrait of Socrates. Marble, Roman artwork (1st century), perhaps a copy of a lost bronze statue made by Lysippos

Socratic Questioning

Father of Western Ethics

Democritus (460 BCE – circa 370 BCE)

Two and a half millennia ago, Democritus imagined atoms in the void — long before microscopes, equations, or particle accelerators confirmed the intuition.

Atomist

The Laughing Philosopher

Law of the Twelve Tables

451 BCE. Law of the Twelve Tables. Think well by remembering that law is not just rules. It is one of society’s great methods for forcing claims into the open.

451 BCE

Plato

b. 428 BCE

428 to 347 BCE

Aristotle

Portrait of Aristoteles. Copy of the Imperial era (1st or 2nd century) of a lost bronze sculpture made by Lysippos

b. 384 BCE

384 to 322 BCE

Pyrrho of Elis

b. 360 BCE

360 to 270 BCE

Epicurus

Roman marble copy of a 3rd-century BCE Greek original, likely created before 1st century CE.

b. 341 BCE

341 to 270 BCE

Zeno of Citium (334-262 BCE)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paolo_Monti_-_Servizio_fotografico_(Napoli,_1969)_-_BEIC_6353768.jpg

Stoicism

Father of Stoicism

Cicero (106-43 BCE)

106 BCE

84 Generations Ago

Seneca the Younger (4 BCE – 65 CE)

Stoic Tradition

Roman Stoic Statesman

Epictetus (50-135 CE)

circa 100 CE

78 Generations Ago

Marcus Aurelius

born 121

121 to 180 CE

Word-Spacing

Use grammar to strengthen clarity, not to suffocate communication. Before about 1,000 CE, we didn't even have spaces!

1000 CE

Bernard of Chartres (circa 1070 – 1130)

There are no surviving images of Bernard of Chartres. As a scholastic, the best we can do is an artistic representation of scholasticism.

Neoplatonist

French Philosopher

Peter Abelard

born 1079

1079 to 1141

Magna Carta

1215

Upper and Lowercase Starts

On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres by Nicolaus Copernicus, 1543. By this groundbreaking book, the widespread adoption of modern punctuation had evolved.

1300 CE

Hourglass

Hourglass on the Beach

1400

Printing Press Invented

The printing press gave journalism reach, making public scrutiny possible at a larger scale.

1440

Germany

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

28 Feb 1533

Francis Bacon

born 1561

1561 to 1626

Galileo Galilei

Portrait of Galileo at about 74. He included a copy in his 1638 Two New Sciences book.

born 1564.

Lived from 1564 to 1642, aged 77.

Microscope Invented = Microworld Discovered!

Various bacteria cells in microscope. Streptococcus pneumonia, p

1590 to 1640 CE

Rene Descartes

1596-1649

The Birth of Baroque Art

white and brown concrete building painting

Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@birminghammuseumstrust?utm_source=instant-images&utm_medium=referral" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Birmingham Museums Trust</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Unsplash</a>

circa 1600 CE

Late 16th to Early 18th Century

King James Bible Published

1611

Bartholomew Legate Burned at the Stake

18 Mar 1612

Baruch Spinoza

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spinoza_(cropped).jpg

born 1632

1632-1677, aged 44

John Locke

born 1632

1632 to 1704

The Invention of Calculus

Photo by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/?utm_source=instant-images&utm_medium=referral" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">geralt</a> on <a href="https://pixabay.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pixabay</a>

5 Jul 1687

Voltaire

The transformation of François-Marie Arouet into Voltaire: From a budding scholar in Paris, to a prisoner of ideas in the Bastille, to a celebrated playwright whose words ignited the Enlightenment.

born 1694

1694-1778

David Hume

The Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and historian Hume was a leading exponent of empiricism. The belief that all human knowledge derives solely from experience.

born 1711

1711-1776

Immanuel Kant