Each bead in this indigo string represents a thousand years, from the beginning of human migration to the present. Descriptions are taken from the short version of the Great Story Timeline. Note that some of the beads are identical to those on the earlier strings that represent the same event.
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50,000 years ago - humans enter AUSTRALIA via a land bridge from
Southeast Asia, uncovered by a decline in sea level resulting from glacial
ice piling up on land. They, and the dingo they bring with them, cause
an "extinction of the massive" among Australia's biggest marsupials,
reptiles, and flightless birds. Australia loses all but one of its sixteen
genera of terrestrial vertebrates weighing 100 pounds or more. THE
SIXTH MAJOR MASS EXTINCTION thus begins with this
AUSTRALIAN EXTINCTION.
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13,000 years ago, humans enter the Americas. In just 300 years, the
CLOVIS culture causes EXTINCTION OF THE MASSIVE IN NORTH
AMERICA. Mastodons, mammoths, ground sloths,
glyptodonts, horses, camels, long-horned bison, giant tortoises, and
those who preyed or scavenged upon them (sabertooth cats, shortfaced
bear, American lion, dire wolf, giant hyena, teratorn birds) all go
extinct. Mammals that
had learned to cope with humans in Asia now successfully migrate into
North America for the first time: elk, moose, plains bison, grizzly bear. (The bead for this event is a brown Kokopelli figure.)
11,000-9,000 years ago the practice of AGRICULTURE (farming)
emerges independently three times in the New World and twice in the
Old World Ñ and dogs are tamed in both hemispheres. Humans begin
domesticating plants and animals the world over. Within five thousand
years we domesticate in the Eastern Hemisphere goats, sheep, wheat,
barley, rice, pigs, chickens, cattle, millet, horses, camels, donkeys,
elephants. Meanwhile in the Western Hemisphere we domesticate corn,
squash, peppers, beans, amaranth, quinoa, peanuts. (The bead for this event is a rake.)
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7,000 years ago, humans arrive in Cuba and cause CUBAN
EXTINCTION of the massive (including the loss of all six species of tree
and ground sloth). (This bead is from Puerto Rico, which is at least near Cuba...)
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5,500 years ago the WHEEL AND CUNEIFORM WRITING are
invented by the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia. Writing allows for,
even encourages, a level of abstraction of thought not possible in oral
cultures.
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3,500-4,000 years ago megalithic structures are built in Europe. The
earliest ALPHABET arises in the region of Palestine. Aryan-Vedic
peoples with Sanskrit language enter India.
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3,200-2,400 years ago is the AXIAL AGE; philosophy and CLASSICAL
RELIGIONS emerge. This is the time of Homer, Zoroaster, Moses,
Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagoras, etc.
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2,000 years ago CHRISTIANITY begins. (This bead is a fish with a cross on it.)
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1,000 years ago ISLAMIC SCIENCE (This bead is a pair of binoculars)
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