Timeline: 65 to 1 Million Years BP
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2-1 Million Camelids arrived in South America and diversified to the guanaco, alpaca and vicuna. (PacDis, Summer '97, p.24)
1.98 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
1.95 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
1.8-10,000 The Pleistocene (most-recent) Epoch. (ADH, GHMC,1979, p.24)
The epoch is divided into Early (to 700,000), Middle (to 120,000) and Late geologic periods. The Lower Paleolithic extends (c250,000-100,000) through the early and middle Pleistocene. The Middle Paleolithic extends from ~100-35,000 yrs in the late Pleistocene. The Upper Paleolithic extends from ~35-10,000. (NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)
Terraces near Millerton: sand and gravel. Road cuts at Colma: old beach and sand dunes. Quarries at Irvington: sand and gravel. Volcanic rocks of Mt. Konocti at Clear Lake. (GH-ADH, p.24)
The great coastal mountain ranges and the eastern California mountains were pushed up. The climax of the movements seem to have been reached in Pleistocene times and uplift is still going on. (DD-EVTT, p.291)
1.8-10,000BCE In the Philippines the Cagayan Valley archaeological site has revealed stone tools from the Pleistocene. (AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.F)
1.8-700,000 The Early Pleistocene. (NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)
1.8 Million The Olduvai subchron occurred and serves as a paleomagnetic marker. (PacDis., Spg. 96, p.47)
1.8 Million Scientists dated early human remains in Java to this time. Sumatra, Java, Bali and Borneo were joined to each other and the Asian land mass during glacial periods of low sea level. (SFC, 12/13/96, p.A4)(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.20)
1.8 Million A possibly 1.8 million-year-old Homo erectus jaw was dug up in Dmanisi, Georgia (formerly of the USSR). (PacDis., Spg. 96, p.46)
1.8-1.75 Million Australopithecus boisei (first called Zinjanthropus boisei), robust form from East Africa. Skull of adult male found by M.D. Leakey in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. He had a brain of 530 mm, the same as robustus, but so massive were his face and cheek teeth that he became know as Nutcracker man. (NG, Nov. 1985, p. 570, 575,599)
1.8-1.6 Mil BP New and more precise radio-potassium dates on the Indonesian sites gave dates earlier than 1.25 million [for Homo erectus]. [see 53,000-27,000] (PacDis., Spg. 96, p.46)
1.8-1.2 Mil BP The Ross Sea off Antarctica was 6-7 degrees warmer. This was determined from shellfish fossils and 15 previously unknown species of algae found under the seabed off Cape Roberts. (SFC, 1/31/98, p.A10)
1.79 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
1.75 Million Mary Leakey found a hominid fossil skull of about 1,750,00 years old at Koobi Fora, Kenya, in 1970. It was named Australopithecus boisei. [see 1.8 mil] (Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.164)(NH, 4/97, p.21)
1.7 Mil to100,000 This is the approximate cultural period named Acheulean. Cultural period names are derived from sites in western Europe where Paleolithic remains: such as bones, tools, weapons, ornaments or cave art, were first identified. The Acheulean refers to the Lower Paleolithic Age lasting from the 2nd to the 3rd interglacial epoch and marked by the use of finely made bifacial tools with multiple cutting edges. (NG, Oct. 1988, p. 447)(WUD, 1994, p.11)
1.7-1.6 Mil Time of the "Oldowan Core," a chunk of quartzite which appears to owe its status as a hominid tool wholly to paleontologist Richard Leakey. (SFC, 6/18/96, p.B3)
1.64 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
1.63 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
1.61 Million An alteration in the Earth's magnetic field occurred. (E&IH, 1973, p.94)
1.6 Million Homo erectus found at Kenya's Lake Turkana (Koobi Fora) was dated by Dr. Francis Brown of the Univ. of Utah using chemical analysis of volcanic ash. (NG, Nov. 1985, K.F. Weaver, p.588)
1.6 Million Homo ergaster, the "Turkana boy" skull from Nariokotome, Kenya, was discovered in 1984. (NH, 4/97, p.71)
1.6 Million Homo erectus dates from at least this far back and had a brain capacity of some 1,000 ml, compared with our own 1,400. He was the first to control fire and to move out of Africa into Europe and Asia. (NG, Oct. 1988, p. 452)
1.6 Million Josep Gibert, a Spanish fossil hunter, found a human skull fragment in southern Spain near Orce. It was dated by reference to paleomagnetic markers and confirming faunal evidence. The skull came from a site called Venta Micena and had associated stone tools of Oldowan type. Of the 15,000 bones found here, one of the most abundant is from Pachycrocuta brevirostris, an extinct giant hyena. (PacDis., Spg. 96, p.47)
>1.5 Million A hand ax from Olduvai is part of an art exhibit: Africa: The Art of a Continent, that is in London and will travel to the Guggenheim. The catalog describes it as "a first thing made by man." (WSJ, 11/16/95, p.A-18)
1.5 Million Homo erectus. Skull of undetermined sex found by B. Ngeneo in 1975 at Koobi Fora, Kenya. First identified as Java man in 1893 and later as Peking man in the 1920s. Erectus fashioned more advanced tools and controlled fire. (NG, Nov. 1985, p. 571,576)
1.5 Million The human brain began to expand as the skull gained a forehead and then ballooned out like a melon. (NH, 6/97, p.16)
1.4 Million Stone tools indicative of human activity have been found at Ubedeiya in Israel. (PacDis., Spg. 96, p.46)
1.4 Mil-600,000 A human skull from this period found in Eritrea was the only one of this period from Africa and combined features of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Like sapiens the skull is widest at a higher point than the skulls of erectus. (SFC, 6/4/98, p.A2)
1.25 Mill-250,000BC Over this period there were 13 major periods of eruption by volcanoes in the Grand Canyon with more than 150 lava flows into the canyon. These are described in the 1997 book "Late Cenozoic Lava Dams in the Western Grand Canyon," by W.K. Hamblin. (NH, 9/97, p.37,39)
1.2 Million Homo erectus had already pioneered the global trek to Asia and Europe. (PacDis, Spg. 96, p.46)
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