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
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
Bone Flute
38,000 BCE
38,000 to 33,000 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
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 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
Impermanence is the idea that things do not stay the same forever. Becoming is the process of changing, growing, and unfolding over time.
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)
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
René Descartes was born into minor nobility in the Kingdom of France on March 31, 1596. In 1637, Descartes published "Discourse on the Method," he sought to identify certain knowledge by using doubt to strip away uncertain beliefs. Cartesian Skepticism is a system of doubt aimed at identifying certainties by dismissing all beliefs susceptible to even the slightest uncertainty. On February 11, 1650, in the presence of a small circle of friends, he exhaled his last breath.
Lived from 1596 to 1649.
17 Generations Ago.
The Birth of Baroque Art
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
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
Lived from 1711 to 1776.
Immanuel Kant
born 1724
1724-1804
John Stuart Mill
born 1806
1806-1873
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
British Naturalist
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
British Naturalist and Explorer
Father of Biogeography
Friedrich Nietzsche
Chapter 30 in "30 Philosophers" explores Nietzsche's story and philosophy.
born 1844
1844-1900
Electromagnetic Radiation Theory
1864
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre lived from 1905 to 1980, He was a French existentialist philosopher and writer best known for the idea that “existence precedes essence.”
born 1905
1905-1980
Electron Microscope = Nanoworld Discovered!
pathogen virus background
1931
Discovery: Neanderthal Symbolic Thought
Neanderthal art in Spain 64k BCE, before Homo sapien arrived.
2018