Prehistoric. When did history start? And do most of those headlines start with things like “Prehistoric discovery in … cave … rewrites human history?” I saw that headline today.
Prehistoric is basically “before writing.” Written records of “early civilization” started around 5000 or so years ago.
Do a little searching and we find out there is a precise sense of time spans, but for us non-academics and general lay people, prehistoric covers the time from the appearance of Homo Sapiens - 315,000 years ago in Africa to the invention of writing - 5,000 or so years ago. So the span of Prehistory is Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) to the beginning of “ancient history. “
Moving on to more precise terms for time, here’s something I’ve seen for the first time today: kya. This is an abbreviation for “kilo years ago” - a thousand years ago. We didn’t learn this expression in school - it came into common usage in the mid-to-late 20th century. Radiometric dating made it standardized.
Each of us could have our own timeline terms and abbreviations - after high school - ahs or maybe before undergraduate university - buu. What about the graduate degrees? Maybe before masters degree - bmd and amd. That’s got a Tolkiensian quality to it, don’t you think?
There’s a scientific term called Before Present (BP) - and it is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and similar disciplines. They account for a million years ago - abbreviated as Mya, Myr or Ma - equal to a million years (or approximately 31.6 teraseconds). No quoting me here, as there’s a debate over this terminology. And there are conflicts with the International System of Units. As the planet is billions of years old, I assume there is also a bya - yes there’s a billion years - however, that’s ga, and a trillion years - that’s ta, one quadrillion years - that’s pa, and one quintillion years - that’s ea.
So now that we know we can go a long way back, what was this prehistoric discovery news? The oldest known pieces of sewn clothing are from a cave in Oregon. This will rewrite the log of human history. The items were approximately 2,000 years old. That dates advanced skills working with plants, animals and wood thousands of years before the Great Pyramid of Egypt was constructed. Do you think it will change the chart below?
This is a re-examination of a collection first dug up in the 1950s and stored in a museum. Current modern lab tests were able to date them accurately. Pictures of the discoveries are HERE. I see some ma years in this geologic time scale chart - isn’t it a beautiful one page view of things? Given it is geological, it won’t get any updates from this discovery.
Here’s one of my wreaths that goes to the Grimsby Garden Club meeting on February 26th meeting where I speak on Nearby Gardens to Visit in Ontario. If you are nearby, please come - it is free to all.
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