Improbable Journey

Big History

Sometimes called “deep history”

Generally, “the available history before human written records or human-made artifacts”

Big History Description overheads

Bill Gates Big History course: Begin Here

Big History creator, David Christian, here

Deep Time; Geologic Clock

Human history in the final few seconds before midnight on a 24 hour clock. 2 Image &1 McPhee
Geologic clock3 here

More geologic clocks here and here

Geologic Ages*(p. 73) Geologic Ages-Listed Handout) and explained here and in a linear form

Electromagnetic spectrum here and

Paleozoic here and water here and here

p. 126 Cambrian Explosion

Cambrian and Darwin controversy

…………Topics raised in Improbable Journey………….

p. 12, Alvarez,Berkeley University Big History course

Origin Stories / Creation stories

PLATE TECHTONICS

p. 52, and 67 Plate Techtonics as explained by Bill Nye, the Science Guy Pangaea broke up about 125 Million years ago.

Iceland tectonic plates boundary

250 million years ago map

*(Pangeaea interactive map)

*Variscan mountains distributed around the world

Appalacian and Caledonian similar?

List of all the supercontinents here

64 and72 Spanish-Portuguese Line of Demarcation–Treaty of Tordesillas

Cortez and the conquest of the Aztecs here

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1.p. 82 Otzi, the Ice Man video

More on Otzi, his bow and arrows

Stone Age tools–flints, hand axes p. 49 Improbable

2.Snowball Earth(s)–a Hypothesis (short video). Also, new Snowball earth story;

p. 110 Lake Bonneville
Lake Bonneville and North American Ice Sheet map here.

Also Lake Missoula and scablands flood

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Abiogenesis or Origin of life, here

How did life begin? Thermal vents? Black smokers? Lightening? Panspermia?

origin video ( lightning) here

Deep thermal vents Black Smokers” (p.120-121)

(See also Panspermia theories)
Also see volcanic lightning
But there is a simpler chemical explanation–the necessary ingredients have already existed throughout the universe and on earth–Neil deGrasse Tyson video

RNA life source

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DINOSAURS & ASTEROIDS

Ted talk, Boulder; The Dinosaurs had a “really bad day“

Iridium layer Trinidad, Colorado

Dinosaurs & asteroid

Alvarez and Dinos/ asteroid here

Asteroid impact, DART, avoiding the dinosaurs fate

*Dinosaurs (Gorgonopsids and Synapsids), Paleozoic 250 million years ago –Permian, and Pangaea short video

Discovery of site in North Dakota @ dinosaurs and other species here a

Additional evidence about the effects of the Yucatan meteor and the CT (Cretacious Tertiary) boundary found by Robert de Palma here

For more on the dinosaurs (pp.128ff.) see Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs and Birds here

mammals before and after the dinosaurs

Zheng He (1371-1435) (p. 140) Expeditions

How mammals evolved bipedalism

Evolution of the horse here

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Archeology, Linguistics , and now Ancient DNA

DNA and Ancient DNA 1. p. 150, and 2, article in WSJ here.

David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here

Reviews of David Reich, here and *** here

HUMAN MIGRATION

***3. Human Migration. First, a map of Africa, showing its true size compared to U.S., Europe, etc.

***Migration out of Africa (p.150-152) –See Map and paragraphs 3 and 4.

Early Hominids from Africa + tools

***Recent evidence of Neandertals

Pontic Caspian Steppe

** March of progress image

Images for tree of life

(Tree of Life revised: News from 2019)

(Human Evolution 101: National Geographic)

***Big History [John Green] video pitched to middle schoolers taking Big History–story of hominid evolution here

**P. 152 Migration out of Africa (adult version) Ancestry.com & 23 and me DNA test kits: Spencer Wells on the Genographic Project—see above, David Reich, Who we are and How We got Here–Background readings.

Homo Erectus–distribution and longevity

How Humans came to America: Migration over the Bering (Beringia), dates of travel + recent evidence

Very recent evidence of early humans in North America here

Denisovans and Tibet:National Geographic