This 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 history of environmentalism.
See List of periods and events in climate history for a timeline list focused on climate.
Pre-Holocene (1.5 Ma)
The time from roughly 15,000 to 5,000 BCE 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 (9,700 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. Missoula floods occur.
|
| 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 warming.
|
| 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. It bursts and floods out 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. 10,800 BC
|
Younger Dryas impact event is proposed to have occurred, causing the onset of the Younger Dryas.
|
| 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
