Timeline of environmental history
The timeline lists events in the external environment that have influenced events in human history. This timeline is for use with the article on environmental determinism.
For the history of humanity's influence on the environment, and humanity's perspective on this influence, see timeline of the history of environmentalism.
See List of periods and events in climate history for a timeline list focused on climate.
Pre-Holocene (1.5 Mya)
The time from roughly 15,000 to 5,000 BC was a time of transition, and swift and extensive environmental change, as the planet was moving from an Ice age, towards an interstadial (warm period). Sea levels rose dramatically (and are continuing to do so), land that was depressed by glaciers began lifting up again, forests and deserts expanded, and the climate gradually became more modern. In the process of warming up, the planet saw several "cold snaps" and "warm snaps", such as the Older Dryas and the Holocene climatic optimum, as well as heavier precipitation. In addition, the Pleistocene megafauna became extinct due to environmental and evolutionary pressures from the changing climate. This marked the end of the Quaternary extinction event, which was continued into the modern era by humans. The time around 11,700 years ago (9700 BC) is widely considered to be the end of the old age (Pleistocene, Paleolithic, Stone age, Wisconsin Ice Age), and the beginning of the modern world as we know it.
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
c. 2,588,000 BC |
c. 12,000 BC |
Pleistocene era |
c. 21,000 BC |
Recent evidence indicates that humans processed (gathered) and consumed wild cereal grains as far back as 23,000 years ago.[1] |
c. 20,000 BC |
Antarctica sees a very rapid and abrupt 6 °C increase in temperatures[2] |
c. 19,000 BC |
Last Glacial Maximum/sea-level minimum |
c. 20,000 BC |
c. 12,150 BC |
Mesolithic 1 period |
c. 17,000 BC |
c. 13,000 BC |
Oldest Dryas stadial (cool period) during the last Ice age/glaciation in Europe. |
c. 13,000 BC |
Beginning of the Holocene extinction. Earliest evidence of warfare.
Meltwater pulse 1A raises sea level 20 meters. |
c. 12,670 BC |
c. 12,000 BC |
Bølling oscillation interstadial (warm and moist period) between the Oldest Dryas and Older Dryas stadials (cool periods) at the end of the Last glacial period. In places where the Older Dryas was not seen, it is known as the Bølling-Allerød. |
c.12,340 BC |
c.11,140 BC |
Cemetery 117: site of the world's first known battle/war. |
c.12,500 BC |
c.10,800 BC |
Natufian culture begins minor agriculture |
c. 12,150 BC |
c. 11,140 BC |
Mesolithic 2 (Natufian culture), some sources have Mesolithic 2 ending at 9500 BC |
c. 12,000 BC |
c. 11,700 BC |
Older Dryas stadial (cool period) |
c. 11,700 BC |
c. 10,800 BC |
Allerød oscillation |
c.13,000 BC |
c.11,000 BC |
Lake Agassiz forms from glacial meltwater floods through the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean at 11,000 BC, possibly causing the Younger Dryas cold period |
c. 12,000 BC |
c. 8,000 BC |
Göbekli Tepe, world's earliest known temple-like structure, is created. |
c. 10,900 BC (calibrated) or c. 8900 BC (non-calibrated) |
Younger Dryas impact event suspected at either of these dates. |
c. 10,800 BC |
Younger Dryas cold period begins. |
c. 10,000 BC |
|
10th millennium BC
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
c. 9700 BC |
|
c. 9660 to c. 9600 BC |
Younger Dryas cold period ends. Pleistocene ends and Holocene begins. Large amounts of previously glaciated land become habitable again. Some sources place the Younger Dryas as stretching from 10,800 BC to 9500 BC. This cool period was possibly caused by a shutdown of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (Gulf Stream/Jet Stream), due to flooding from Lake Agassiz as it reformed. |
c. 9500 BC |
- Ancylus Lake, part of the modern-day Baltic Sea, forms.
- There is evidence of harvesting, though not necessarily cultivation, of wild grasses in Asia Minor about this time.
- End of the pre-Boreal period of European climate change.
- Pollen Zone IV Pre-boreal, associated with juniper, willow, birch pollen deposits.
- Neolithic era begins in Ancient Near East.
- Evidence of the earliest settlement in Jericho
- In Antarctica, long-term melting of the Antarctic ice sheets is commencing.
- Creosote bush - Larrea tridentata clonal colony, named "King Clone", germinates in the Mojave Desert near the Lucerne Valley in California.[3][4]
|
c. 9270 BC |
Greenland sees an abrupt and rapid 4 °C rise in temperatures[5] |
c. 9000 BC |
First stone structures at Jericho built. |
9th millennium BC
8th millennium BC
7th millennium BC
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
c. 6600 BC |
Jiahu symbols, carved on tortoise shells in Jiahu, Northern China |
c. 6500 BC |
|
c.6440±25 BC |
Kurile volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula has VEI 7 eruption. It is one of the largest of the Holocene epoch |
c. 6400 BC |
Lake Agassiz drains into oceans for the final time, leaving Lakes Manitoba, Winnipeg, Winnipegosis, and Lake of the Woods, among others in the region, as its remnants. The draining may have caused the 8.2 kiloyear event, 200 years later |
c. 6200 BC |
8.2 kiloyear event, a sudden significant cooling episode |
c. 6100 BC |
The Storegga Slide, causing a megatsunami in the Norwegian Sea |
c. 6000 BC |
- Climatic or Thermal Maximum, the warmest period in the past 125,000 years, with minimal glaciation and highest sea levels. (McEvedy)
- Rising sea levels form the Torres Strait, separate Australia from New Guinea.
- Increasing desiccation of the Sahara. End of the Saharan Pluvial period.
- Associated with Pollen Zone VI Atlantic, oak-elm woodlands, warmer and maritime climate. Modern wild fauna plus, increasingly, human introductions, associated with the spread of the Neolithic farming technologies.
- Rising sea levels from glacial retreat flood what will become the Irish Sea, separating the island of Ireland from the British Isles and Continental Europe.
|
6th millennium BC
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
c. 5600 BC |
According to the Black Sea deluge theory, the Black Sea floods with salt water. Some 3000 cubic miles (12,500 km³) of salt water is added, significantly expanding it and transforming it from a fresh-water landlocked lake into a salt water sea. |
c. 5500 BC |
Beginning of the desertification of north Africa, which ultimately leads to the formation of the Sahara desert from land that was previously savannah, though it remains wetter than today. It's possible this process pushed people in the area into migrating to the region of the Nile in the east, thereby laying the groundwork for the rise of Egyptian civilization. |
c. 5300 BC |
|
c. 5000 BC |
|
5000 BC |
700 BC |
Megalithic Temples of Malta were created |
5th millennium BC
4th millennium BC
3rd millennium BC
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
c. 30th century BC |
- c. 3000 BC: Stonehenge begins to be built. In its first version, it consists of a circular ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts. (National Geographic, June 2008).
- Sumerian Cuneiform script, considered among the oldest alphabets, is created.
|
2900 BC |
Floods at Shuruppak from horizon to horizon, with sediments in Southern Iraq, stretching as far north as Kish, and as far south as Uruk, associated with the return of heavy rains in Nineveh and a potential damming of the Karun River to run into the Tigris River. This ends the Jemdet Nasr period and ushers in the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia cultures of the area. Possible association of this event with the Biblical deluge. |
c. 2880 BC |
Germination of Prometheus (a bristlecone pine of the species Pinus longaeva), formerly the world's oldest known non-clonal organism. |
c. 2832 BC |
Germination of Methuselah (a bristlecone pine of the species Pinus longaeva), currently the world's oldest known non-clonal organism. |
2807 BC |
Suggested date for an asteroid or comet impact occurring between Africa and Antarctica, around the time of a solar eclipse on May 10, based on an analysis of flood stories. Possibly causing the Burckle crater and Fenambosy Chevron.[7][8] |
2650 BC |
- Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh describes vast tracts of cedar forests in what is now southern Iraq. Gilgamesh defies the gods and cuts down the forest, and in return the gods say they will curse Sumer with fire (or possibly drought). By 2100 BC, soil erosion and salt buildup have devastated agriculture. One Sumerian wrote that the "earth turned white." Civilization moved north to Babylonia and Assyria. Again, deforestation becomes a factor in the rise and subsequent fall of these civilizations.
- Some of the first laws protecting the remaining forests decreed in Ur.
|
c. 2630 BC |
1815 BC |
Construction of the Egyptian pyramids. |
2500 BC |
Sahara becomes fully desiccated, and conditions become largely identical to those of today. Desiccation had been proceeding from 7500-6000 BC, as a result of the shift in the West African tropical monsoon belt southwards from the Sahel, and intensified by the 5.9 kiloyear event. Subsequent rates of evaporation in the region led to a drying of the Sahara, as shown by the drop in water levels in Lake Chad. Tehenu of the Sahara attempt to enter into Egypt, and there is evidence of a Nile drought in the pyramid of Unas. |
2300 BC |
Neolithic period ends in China. |
2200 BC |
Beginning of a severe centennial-scale drought in northern Africa, southwestern Asia and midcontinental North America, which very likely caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt as well as the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia. This coincides with the transition from the Subboreal period to the subatlantic period. |
21st century BC |
Construction of the Ziggurat of Ur. |
2nd millennium BC
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
c. 2000 BC |
c. 1000 BC |
Continued mountain formation in the Himalayas contributes to the drying up of the Sarasvati River and the desertification of the Thar Region. This contributes to the decline of the Harappan civilization. |
1900 BC |
The Atra-Hasis Epic describes Babylonian flood, with warnings of the consequences of human overpopulation. |
1600 BC |
Minoan eruption destroys much of Santorini island, and destroys the Minoan civilization on Crete. This may have inspired the legend of Atlantis. |
1450 BC |
Minoan civilization in the Mediterranean declines, but scholars are divided on the cause. Possibly a volcanic eruption was the source of the catastrophe (see Minoan eruption). On the other hand, gradual deforestation may have led to materials shortages in manufacturing and shipping. Loss of timber and subsequent deterioration of its land was probably a factor in the decline of Minoan power in the late Bronze Age, according to John Perlin in A Forest Journey. |
1206 BC |
1187 BC |
Evidence of major droughts in the Eastern Mediterranean. Hittite and Ugarit records show requests for grain were sent to Egypt, probably during the reign of Pharaoh Merenptah. Carpenter has suggested that droughts of equal severity to those of the 1950s in Greece, would have been sufficient to cause the Late Bronze Age collapse. The cause may have been a temporary diversion of winter storms north of the Pyrenees and Alps. Central Europe experienced generally wetter conditions, while those in the Eastern Mediterranean were substantially drier. There seems to have been a general abandonment of peasant subsistence agriculture in favour of nomadic pastoralism in Central Anatolia, Syria and northern Mesopotamia, Palestine, the Sinai and NW Arabia. |
1st millennium BC
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
800 BC |
500 BC |
- Sub-Atlantic period in Western Europe.
- Pollen Zone VIII, sub-Atlantic. End of last Sea Level rise.
- Spread of "Celtic fields", Iron Age A, and Haalstadt Celts.
- Increased prosperity in Europe and the Middle East.
|
200 BC |
Axial age, a revolution in thinking that we know as Philosophy, begins in China, India, and Europe, with people such as Socrates, Plato, Homer, Lao Tzu, Confucius, among others, alive at this time. |
753 BC |
Ancient Rome begins, with the founding of Rome. This marks the beginning of Classical antiquity. |
508 BC |
Democracy created in Athens, Ancient Greece |
356 BC |
323 BC |
Alexander the Great |
269 BC |
232 BC |
Reign of Ashoka the Great, and the beginning of propagation of Buddhism |
c. 225 BC |
The Sub-Atlantic period began about 225 BC (estimated on the basis of radiocarbon dating) and has been characterized by increased rainfall, cooler and more humid climates, and the dominance of beech forests. The fauna of the Sub-Atlantic is essentially modern although severely depleted by human activities. The Sub-Atlantic is correlated with pollen zone IX; sea levels have been generally regressive during this time interval, though North America is an exception. |
c. 200 BC |
Sri Lanka first country in the world to have a nature reserve, King Devanampiyatissa established a wildlife sanctuary |
1st millennium AD
1st century
2nd century
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
114 |
117 |
Rome reaches its greatest expanse in terms of territory, stretching from the Sahara desert, to England and Belgium, along the Danube River and Black Sea to Mesopotamia and modern-day Kuwait. |
186 |
Hatepe eruption in New Zealand turns the skies red over Rome and China.[9] |
3rd century
4th century
5th century
6th century
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
535 |
536 |
535-536: global climate abnormalities affecting several civilizations. |
7th century
8th century
9th century
10th century
2nd millennium
11th century
12th century
13th century
14th century
15th century
16th century
17th century
18th century
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
c. 1750 |
Beginning of Industrial Revolution, which eventually turns to use of coal and other fossil fuels to drive steam engines and other devices. Anthropogenic carbon pollution presumably increases. |
1755 |
Great Lisbon earthquake occurred in the Kingdom of Portugal on Saturday, 1 November, the holiday of All Saints' Day, at around 09:40 local time; subsequent fires and a tsunami almost totally destroyed Lisbon and adjoining areas, accentuating political tensions in the kingdom and profoundly disrupting Portugal's colonial ambitions. |
1770 |
Failure of the monsoons in the late 1760s contribute to the Bengal famine of 1770 where 10 million people die. This forces a change in tax policy in the British Empire, which was a cause of the American War of Independence. |
1783 |
The volcano Laki erupts, emitting sufficient sulfur dioxide gas and sulphate particles to kill a majority of Iceland's livestock and cause an unusually cold winter in Europe and Western Asia. |
1789 |
1793 |
A recent study of El Niño patterns suggests that the French Revolution was caused in part by the poor crop yields of 1788-89 in Europe, resulting from an unusually strong El-Niño effect between 1789-93.[14] |
1798 |
Thomas Robert Malthus publishes An Essay on the Principle of Population, thus beginning Malthusian economics. |
19th century
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
1804 |
World human population reaches 1 billion |
1815 |
Eruption of Mt. Tambora in what is now Indonesia, largest in the 2nd millennium AD. Leads to the...
|
1816 |
|
1845 |
1857 |
Unusually wet weather in Northern Europe causes crop failures. The worst crop affected was the potato on which both Ireland (the Great Famine) and Scotland (the Highland Potato Famine) were heavily dependent. Elsewhere in Europe, the food shortages lead to civil unrest and the revolutions of 1848. Counting the Irish diaspora and the forty-eighters, millions of Europeans emigrate to North America, South America, and Australia. |
1883 |
Eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia. The sound of the explosion is heard as far as Australia and China, the altered air waves causes strange colours on the sky and the volcanic gases reduce global temperatures during the following years. A disputed but vivid sunset was captured in Edvard Munch's The Scream. |
20th century
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
1900 |
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 hits Galveston, Texas and reverses the city's previously rapid growth. |
1906 |
San Francisco earthquake causes collapse of insurance markets and the Panic of 1907.[15] |
1908 |
Tunguska Explosion decimates a remote part of Siberia |
1914 |
1918 |
World War I, which involves heavy bombardment, explosions, and poison gas warfare. |
1918 |
Spanish Flu kills between 50 to 100 million people worldwide shortly after World War I. |
1927 |
World human population reached 2 billion mark |
1932 |
1937 |
Exceptional precipitation absence in northern hemisphere exacerbated by human activities causes the Dust Bowl drought of the US plains and the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 (harsh economic damage in US and widespread death in USSR) |
1937 |
1945 |
Pacific War and World War II, with heavy bombardment, genocide, and explosions. Towards the end of the war, nuclear warfare occurs for the first and only time when Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bombed. |
post-1945 |
Nuclear tests are performed by the United States, Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, China, North Korea, the United Kingdom, and France. Above-ground detonations continue until the Partial Test Ban Treaty is signed in 1963, causing fallout and spreading radiation around the explosion sites. |
1957 |
Sputnik is launched, becomes first man-made object to orbit the earth, and triggers the Space Race between the United States and USSR, culminating with the First man in space in 1961, and the Moon landing, humanity's first ventures to the Moon in 1969 |
1960 |
World human population reached 3 billion mark.[16] |
1974 |
World human population reached 4 billion mark.[16] |
1970s |
2010s |
Deindustrialization occurs in the Midwest and then much of the United States, as manufacturing industries (and their pollution) move to China, India, and other countries. |
1980 |
Mount St. Helens erupts explosively in Washington state. |
1984 |
Bhopal disaster. |
1986 |
Chernobyl meltdown and explosion, contaminating surrounding area, including Pripyat. |
1987 |
World human population reached 5 billion mark.[16] |
1999 |
World human population reached the 6 billion mark. |
3rd millennium
21st century
Year(s) |
Event(s) |
Start |
End |
2004 |
- Earthquake causes large tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, killing nearly a quarter of a million people.
|
2005 |
|
2008 |
- Cyclone Nargis makes landfall over Myanmar, causing widespread destruction and killing over 130,000 people
|
2010 |
|
2011 |
|
2012 |
|
2013 |
|
See also
References
- ↑ Dolores R. Piperno; Ehud Weiss; Irene Holst; Dani Nadel (August 5, 2004). "Processing of wild cereal grains in the Upper Palaeolithic revealed by starch grain analysis" (PDF). Nature 430 (7000): 670–3. doi:10.1038/nature02734. PMID 15295598.
- ↑ Taylor, K.C.; White, J; Severinghaus, J; Brook, E; Mayewski, P; Alley, R; Steig, E; Spencer, M; Meyerson, E; Meese, D; Lamorey, G; Grachev, A; Gow, A; Barnett, B (January 2004). "Abrupt climate change around 22 ka on the Siple Coast of Antarctica". Quaternary Science Reviews 23 (1–2): 7–15. Bibcode:2004QSRv...23....7T. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2003.09.004.
- ↑ Creosote Bush: Long-Lived Clones in the Mojave Desert, Frank C. Vasek, American Journal of Botany, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Feb, 1980), pp. 246-255
- 1 2 http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=11165 Larrea tridentata - King Clone
- ↑ Kobashi, T.; Severinghaus, J.P.; Barnola, J. (30 April 2008). "4 ± 1.5 °C abrupt warming 11,270 yr ago identified from trapped air in Greenland ice". Earth and Planetary Science Letters 268 (3–4): 397–407. Bibcode:2008E&PSL.268..397K. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2008.01.032.
- ↑ Science Daily: World's Oldest Living clonal tree, 9550 years old, Discovered In Sweden
- ↑ Cambridge Conference Correspondence
- ↑ Blakeslee, Sandra (November 14, 2006). "Ancient Crash, Epic Wave". The New York Times.
- ↑ Wilson, C. J. N.; Ambraseys, N. N; Bradley, J; Walker, G. P. L. (1980). "A new date for the Taupo eruption, New Zealand". Nature 288 (5788): 252–253. doi:10.1038/288252a0.
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/malaria_01.shtml
- ↑ http://news.yahoo.com/space-explosion-blame-tree-ring-mystery-astronomers-205516367.html
- ↑ http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0859541.html
- ↑ Witze, Alexandra (2008-04-11). "The volcano that changed the world". Nature.Com News. Nature Publishing Group. Retrieved 2008-04-14.
- ↑ Richard H. Grove, “Global Impact of the 1789–93 El Niño,” Nature393 (1998), 318-319.
- ↑ Kerry A. Odell and Marc D. Weidenmier, Real Shock, Monetary Aftershock: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the Panic of 1907, The Journal of Economic History, 2005, vol. 64, issue 04, p. 1002-1027.
- 1 2 3 "United Nations Population Fund moves Day of 6 Billion based on new population estimates". Population Connection. 1998-10-28. Archived from the original on 2006-02-20. Retrieved 2006-03-11.
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