WWB Trainer
WWB Takeaways
Prehistory by Mike Prestwood.
Stories before 4004 BCE.
The epoch of wonder and the battle for survival.
Rediscovering our prehistoric roots.
MODE:
~
5 minutes
of takeaways.
H1-Prehistory.
10 random takeaways.
1.
Homo habilis started using toothpicks by about 1.84 million years ago. They emerged about 2.3 million years ago, so this suggests their cognitive abilities and cultural use of those abilities evolved during that half million years. The first commercial toothpicks were sold in 1869.
2.
Quote:
- Charles Darwin.
- 1859.
Evolution is not about desire, nor is it a contest of strength, or intellect. It’s about reproductive success. The individuals, and species, that possess traits best suited for the current environment are more likely to survive, and to pass on those traits. Over millennia, these traits accumulate, leading to races, sub-species, and eventually separate species unable to interbreed.
3.
From History: circa 5,260 BCE
7,260 Years Ago
About 7,260 Years Ago someone etched symbols into a wood block. While Cuneiform is the earliest surviving writing system, artifacts like the Dispilio Tablet (5,260 BCE) hint at earlier forms of written communication. This wooden artifact barely survived the test of time—imagine how many other objects like this have been lost over the last 50,000 years.
4.
Writing is recent; wisdom is ancient. The last of the great orators are remembered only because writing came along Long before texts, humans relied on structured oral traditions to transmit culture, ethics, and worldview across generations.
5.
Writing systems emerged as a permanent way to document what was said. Writing systems either represent full words, the syllables that make up words, or our basic sounds.
6.
The discovery of Neanderthal cave art in Spain, dated to before sapiens arrived there, helped force a major rethink. Intelligence is not measured by old stereotypes, and the story of Neanderthals reminds us that human-like cognition, creativity, and culture did not belong to our lineage alone.
7.
If you mean “human species” as members of the genus Homo, then yes: more than 15 have gone extinct, and around 20 is a fair estimate, depending on whether you count debated classifications like Homo ergaster as separate species. The key fact is the pattern: Homo repeatedly diversified across Africa and Eurasia, then most lineages ended: through climate shifts, competition, isolation, and absorption into other populations.
8.
The past looks simpler than it was because fragile things disappear. Caves dominate our imagination not because people lived in them, but because caves preserve evidence. To understand early humans, we must correct for preservation bias and imagine the everyday structures, communities, and routines that rarely fossilize.
9.
Timeline topic summary:
From chemical reactions to first life.
10.
Divide the lower period into three ages: Stone, Fire, and Cultural. Divide the middle period into two ages: Symbolic and Cognitive. Finally, redefine the upper as “prehistory” and end it when our stories start: about 4,000 BCE.
WWB Trainer
(c) 2025-2026 TouchstoneTruth.
Writing and coding by Michael Alan Prestwood.
(c) 2025-2026 TouchstoneTruth.
Writing and coding by Michael Alan Prestwood.
