TimeScale : See table(s) from the Big Bang to Monday
The last class discussed the men who developed science. That class and this discussed
the astronomy timeline of the Big Bang and this discusses the formation of the Solar System.
To keep these in my head, I've had to create time scale charts (one in Billions of years and one in
years Ago. I've added things of interest (to me) to try to fit it all together.
Miscellaneous Thoughts
ANCHIENT MAN
7,000,000 Sahelanthropus, ape man
6,000,000 Orrorin, upright man
5,600,000 Ardipotherus, chimp-like
3,700,000 Australopthecus, Lucy → Homo
2,500,000 Homo Habilis to 1.5M. Start Paleolithic (Old Stone, pebble) (barely homo).
2,000,000 Homo Erectus to 500,000? control fire, speech, world-wide
1,700,000 Homo Ergaster to 1.4M. Lose fur, skin black, nose.
1,200,000 Homo Antecessor to 800,000 .Hair loss, darken skin. Asian branches are Java and Peking man
800,000 Homo Heidelbergensis to 250,000 (archaic homo sapiens)-- wide spread -- evolved to H.S.)
300,000 Homo Neanderthal (Europe, MiddleEast) to 25K -- died out, no offspring in today's population ?!?
MODERN MAN
There are three generations of homo sapiens that evolved from Homo Heidelbergensis (probably).
Homo Sapiens -- Eve is considered modern, evolved in Africa 200,000 and grew to a few thousands people,
of which a few hundred moved "out of Africa" about 80,000 across the Red Sea to India and beyond.
Homo Sapiens Idaltu (elder man) 200,000 till ?? -- Eve. "Out of Africa 80,000 by Adam.
Homo Sapiens Cro-Magnon, before 40,000 to 0
Homo Sapiens Sapiens, about 10-15,000 to 0;
1. Idaltu, popularly, "Eve", is considered modern, evolved in Africa 200,000 yrs ago and grew to a few thousands people,
of which a few hundred moved "out of Africa" about 80,000 across the Red Sea to India and beyond. Adam (Y-DNA)
Note that Australia and Melanesia were populated about 40,000 (range: 70,000-30K) years ago,
at a time when at least three homo groups existed and HSS had not yet appeared..
We are told there are no survivors of Neanderthal with no evolutionary markers in today’s population.
They seem to be cousins, not linear ancestors of modern man. Perhaps the offspring were sterile.
Cro-Magnon arrived in Europe from Asia about the same time. There are genetic markers.
Are there significant differences to suggest that
fairly well known Cro-Magnon markers exist in early Australia?
If not, this leads one to speculate that aborigines are survivors from original "out of Africa" Idaltu.
The pygmy races of Africa and Melanesia are also genetically distant from modern Africans.
2. The second group are Cro-Magnon of which we have genetic information and are told he could (and do)
pass unnoticed in today’s population. In fact, the Finns and Laplanders (Sami) share many genetic markers with Cro-Magnon.
Some markers also found in Basque, Middle East, and East Africa.
Cro-Magnon seem to have developed from the rapidly spreading "out of Africa" people -- a superior branch
or a superior culture (farming, herding?), But C-M bones are older than agriculture.
Note that Cro-Magnon was introduced to Europe from Asia and the major language pattern called Indo-European
suggests it spread as man spread (and evolved) from northern branches of the initial "Out of Africa".
Options: A second out of Africa thru Lavant ; or settlers from the first (and only) Out of Africa up the T&E valley ; up the great rivers of Asia ; to Beringia and spread inland. or all of these.
Note too that North America was populated during this period (before HSS) and have markers of
North Asian populations. Possibly Sami (Laps =?= Eskimos) or other Asian branch of Cro Magnon? (Or even
Heidelberg or Idaltu pushed from Asia?).
3. Modern Man, HSS. What features set us apart?! Photos only show oriental appearing Sami vs.
the diversity of modern world groups.
Lighter bones, bulging head (C-M has parallel skull), no bone ridge above eye brows in males,
Are ten thousand years sufficient to repopulate the whole world (ex-Australia)? I-don’t-think-so.
Either the dates are wrong, or we have all three sub-species of Homo Sapiens amongst us still.
Humm? This topic is politically taboo. Politically correctly taught as world language groups, not species or race.
Every article I have found searching for post-IceAge evolution points to the non-utility of race as a
concept, whereas I am looking for migration patterns now available from genetics. All get lost in
showing that race is undefinable because of overlap of measurable qualities and culture.
True, Look at the breeds of dogs, all are canine. We can follow them from wolf to poodle without cultural/color bias, yet still identify the working dog group, (husky, shepard), the sporting dog group (spaniel, setter)
and all the rest as designer breeds.
Discussion.
Oppenheimer's "Out of Africa" seems to suggest that Homo Sapiens developed in Africa (from Homo Heidelbergensis?) as H.S. Idaltu (genetic Eve) and in the following 100,000 years grew to a few thousand pairs, from which a small group (genetic Adam) crossed from Africa to Aden, prospered and followed the
coast through India and down the Pacific to Australia. I have only read reviews of the book, but it seems that
a northern branch must have evolved into Cro-Magnon eventually populating Eurasia.
There seem to be currents of levels of genetically similar men swirling into various parts of earth and forcing Neanderthal into pockets that died out.
The last Neanderthals seem to be found on Iberian Peninsula (Spain) and the northern-most reaches of Europe (and Asia?) eventually displaced by Sami (Laplanders).
An interesting pocket (Idaltu or Cro-Magnon?) settled Siberia-Beringa some of whom moved south into the Americas when the glaciers retreated and Beringa flooded. Was this before or after the Cro-Magnon evolved or reached there, ie. are AmerIndians from Idaltu (Aborigine) or Cro-Magnon (Sami(Lap-Eskimo)) stock? (Could Siberians-Eskimos be Beringa-ians that went West-North.)
A marked advance in the rate of cultural growth started about 50,000 years ago. Our tracking clues are from
culture (tools, pottery, etc.), DNA (there are male and female markers), and possibly language.
Was this because Cro-Magnon was more language fluent. Remember Eurasia is one place, there were no national boundaries such as we were raised with.
My guess is that homo sapiens variations exist as:
Idaltu → Aborigine, pygmy
Cro-Magnon → Laps, Eskimo, Basque, Ainu, AmerIndian, 80% of European genes
Sapiens → Iowans and parts of Minnesota
More Research To Do.
Find if the Laps (Sami people) and Eskimo (Aleut, Inuit) link is more than skin deep.
Sami is part of the Uralic languages, a group from Finland thru Siberia.
Yupik language spoken from Siberia to Greenland.
Find a timeline for the spread of Indo-European language.
Proto-Indo-European is thought to have developed north-east of Turkey by mixing cultures of
indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherer (H.S.C-M) and foreign Neolithic farmer (H.S.S.) communities
between 8,000-6,000 years ago and spread east to India and as far west as Iceland.
By 4,000 years ago Proto-Indo-European had been replaced by localizations.
Eastern branches include : Persian, Bengali, Hindi ; Bulgarian, Polish, Russian
Western branches include : Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Italic.
Proto-Uralic is the other northern hemisphere language group, spreading from Finland to Greenland that originated about the same time, 6,000 years ago, probably in the Ural mountains.
What came before?
Eurasiatic is postulated with links to most other languages including the Amerindian. My presumption is it was the language of Cro-Magnon with a simple grammar. (Ref: Basic English)
Language migration is guessed at by similarities of names of things and their inclusion and exclusion. Example "fish", but not "sea", suggests origination inland, but with lakes. Language interacts with neighboring cultures, just as does genetics ; there is seldom, if ever, a clear line of demarcation. Some nouns, even verbs, may date from earliest speech, before language -- wódr continues as 'water'.
Language trees
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About this page: timescale2.html -- Some implications of timeline in human time period.
Last updated on November 9, 2008 -- add "race".
October 28, 2008 -- add Indo-European
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