Prehistory.
Quick Hits
10 random key ideas.
1.
Despite popular belief, we did not spend a lot of time in caves. We do find lots of artifacts in caves, and we tend focus on them too much. This is our preservation bias.
2.
From History: 50 Million Years Ago
Emerging in the lush forests of the Eocene, Miacis represents an experimental moment in the evolution of cognitive abilities among mammals.
3.
Fossil evidence shows that Homo habilis, living over 2 million years ago, used small sticks or similar objects to clean their teeth, leaving characteristic grooves.
4.
From History: 635 to 590 Million Years Ago
By the late Ediacaran, the animal world was already moving toward proto-nervous systems and the long road to brains.
5.
Academic paper summary:
A new look at dividing up the paleolithic era switches from lower, middle, and upper to Stone, Fire, Cultural, Symbolic, Cognitive, and prehistory ending specifically at 4,000 BCE.
6.
From History: 14.5 Million Years Ago (+/- 2 million)
Laughter is older than language, older than humans, and probably older than the human-chimp split. Its first purpose was not comedy, but connection. In the breathy play sounds of ancient apes, we can hear the early roots of emotional intelligence, friendship, and social trust.
7.
Article summary:
The evolution of language is the evolution of communication. From touch which evolved about 800 million years ago to human words. Along the journey, communication included things like gestures, postures, and grunts.
8.
From History: 375 Mya
By about 375 million years ago, several animal lineages had evolved long-term memory to navigate a changing world, remembering feeding sites, water access, and safe routes between land and water. This likely included vertebrates like Tiktaalik.
9.
Article summary:
Human extinction is not the story of one straight line leading neatly to us. It is the story of many ancient human species living at different times, sometimes side by side, with most eventually disappearing while one lineage survived and spread.
10.
From History: 295 Million BCE
By about 280 million years ago, Dimetrodon was one of the best-known predators of the Early Permian. It stalked rivers and floodplains alongside caseid synapsids, large amphibians like Eryops, and a landscape of Calamites, Sigillaria, ferns, and early seed plants.
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