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Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Geological Time Periods (Special Mention)

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Geological time scale, proportionally represented as a log-spiral with some major events in Earth’s history by Jarred C Lloyd for Wikipedia “Geologic Time Scale” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

TOP 10 GEOLOGICAL TIME PERIODS (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

But wait – there’s more!

I’ve counted out my Top 10 Geological Time Period but there’s clearly more than enough for special mentions with 22 periods formally defined as such, not to mention the longer 4 eons and 10 eras as well as shorter 37 epochs and 96 ages.

Not that I’m going to go through each eon, era, period, epoch or age of geological time. Indeed, my first two special mentions aren’t even geological time periods as such but are intimately caught up with them.

Speaking of which…

 

 

(1) EXTINCTION EVENTS

 

Yes, extinction events aren’t geological time periods as such but are intimately caught up with them and are indeed named for them.

There’s the so-called “Big Five”, of which the most famous (but not the deadliest) is the extinction of the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous-Paleogene (or K-Pg) extinction event – and to which is proposed a sixth big extinction event for our own Holocene Epoch…by us. All the corresponding periods for the “Big Five” extinction events feature as entries in my top ten.

However, there are more theorized extinction events – “estimates of the number of major mass extinctions in the last 540 million years range from as few as five to more than twenty” – so more than enough for their own top ten.

 

(2) CONTINENTAL DRIFT – SUPER-CONTINENTS

 

Again, continental drift and super-continents are clearly not geological time periods as such but are intimately connected to them and indeed take geological time periods to manifest, given that continental drift averages to something similar to the growth of human hair or nails (1.5-10 cms or 0.6-4 inches per year).

The most well known is Pangaea. While there are only four supercontinents by strict definition of most or all continents as one landmass, by broader definitions there’s enough supercontinents for their own top ten.

 

(3) PRE-CAMBRIAN (4.567 BILLION – 538.8 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

Informally, the time before the Cambrian Period is known as the Pre-Cambrian (Supereon).

I for one endorse this informal usage because let’s face it, there’s nothing much of interest before the Cambrian.

 

(4) EON – HADEAN (4.567 – 4.031 BILLION YEARS AGO)

 

Eons are the longest period of geological time, ranging from 536.3 million years (the Hadean Eon) to 1.9612 billion years (the Protozeroic Eon).

The Hadean Eon is the shortest eon of geological time – and the oldest, commencing with the planet’s formation.

Not to mention hellish, consistent with its name. Essentially, the planet had to cool for the conditions for life to emerge. There was also the little matter of the interplanetary impact (with an object theorized as the size of Mars) that produced the Moon and resulted in a magma ocean. Magma ocean!

The average atmospheric temperature was 230 degrees Celsius or 446 degrees temperature – “thanks to asteroids bombarding the planet, a thick atmosphere trapping the heat, volcanic eruptions, constant radiation, and lava as a floor”. Also no oxygen in atmosphere – and atmospheric pressure was 27 atmospheres.

On the bright side, at that atmospheric pressure, water remains liquid even at that temperature, such that it is theorized that eventually a superocean was formed, covering nearly all the planet and turning Earth into an ocean planet.

It is theorized that primitive life emerged from the middle to the end of the Hadean Eon, although If if did, it copped constant extinction events from the bombardment of asteroids every thousand to million years in the Late Heavy Bombardment – with some of them theorized to be bigger than the one that killed the dinosaurs

 

(5) EON – PHANEROZOIC (538.8 MILLION YEARS – PRESENT)

 

The second shortest eon and our present one, starting with the Cambrian Period – so essentially the converse of the informal Precambrian. Let’s face it – life on Earth only really gets interesting from the Cambrian Period onwards. That’s reflected in the name of the eon itself – Phanerozoic from the Greek for abundant life.

And yes, I’ve skipped the two intervening eons between the Hadean and the Phanerozoic – the Archean and Proterozoic, even if they are just under 3.5 billion years between them, because they’re mostly boring.

 

(6) ERA – CENOZOIC (66 MILLION YEARS AGO – PRESENT)

 

Eras are the second longest geological time period. There’s ten of them – three in the Phanerozoic Eon, three in the Proterozoic Eon, and four in the Archean Eon (none in the Hadean Eon because what’s the point?) – so there’s enough for their own top ten, but only a few are distinctive enough to score special mention, foremost among them our own present era (and the shortest at 66 million years ago to the present), the Cenozoic Era.

The Age of Mammals, yeah! The era of rapid evolution and diversification of mammals and birds after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

This era includes our present Holocene Epoch and the preceding Pleistocene Epoch, as well as quite a few others, from most to least recent – Pliocene (more about that later), Miocene, Oligocene, Eocene, and Paleocene. While there are obviously distinctions between them – most notably the continents drifting towards their modern positions – it’s mammals all the way down, once that asteroid got rid of those pesky dinosaurs.

 

(7) ERA – MESOZOIC & PALEOZOIC

 

Eras are the second longest geological time period. There’s ten of them – three in the Phanerozoic Eon, three in the Proterozoic Eon, and four in the Archean Eon (none in the Hadean Eon because what’s the point?) – so there’s enough for their own top ten, but only our present era (and the shortest at 66 million years ago to the present), the Cenozoic Era, and two preceding eras, score special mention.

Otherwise, the Mesozoic Era earns special mention as effectively the era of dinosaurs (251.9 million to 66 million years ago) and the Paleozoic Era as everything before that from the Cambrian onwards (538.8 million to 251.9 million years ago). All the other eras – I mean, who cares, really?

 

(8) SIDERIAN PERIOD (2.5 BILLION – 2.3 BILLION YEARS AGO)

 

So now we come to the units of geologic time that are most interesting – the periods formally defined as such. There’s no periods for the Hadean and Archean Eons because who cares, really? They only commence from the Protorezoic Eon onwards.

And they commence with the Siderian Period, the first period in the geologic time scale and of the Proterzoic Period. I mean, still not too interesting but for the Great Oxygenation Event, which saw the irreversible rise of oxygen in the atmosphere, usually inferred to be caused by microbial photosynthesis.

 

(9) RHYACIAN & OROSIRIAN PERIODS (2.3 – 2.05 & 2.05-1.8 BILLION YEARS AGO)

 

The second and third periods after the Siderian as part of the Proterozoic Eon.

More of the same from the Siderian Period, really – although the Rhyacian Period may have seen the first macroscopic life while the Orosirian Period saw two of the largest asteroid impacts in Earth’s history.

 

(10) BORING BILLION (1.8 BILLION – 720 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

Yes, the “Boring Billion” (or Earth’s Middle Ages) is a nickname for the Mid-Proterozoic – the Stratherian Period (1.8 – 1.6 billion years ago), the Calymmian Period (1.6 – 1.4 billion years ago), the Ectasian Period (1.4 – 1.2 billion years ago), the Stenian Period (1.2 billion – 1 billion years ago), and the Tonian Period (1 billion – 720 billion years ago).

I’ll give a pass for the Ectasian Period, because the name is reminiscent of ecstasy and prompts images of microbial rave parties. I’ll also give a pass to the Stenian Period for the first fossilized evidence of sexual reproduction.

The Boring Billion is “known for geological and biological stability, characterized by low oxygen, slow evolution (mostly microbes), and calm climate, contrasting sharply with the dynamic events before (Great Oxidation Event) and after (Snowball Earth, Cambrian Explosion).”

However, “recent research challenges this “boring” label, suggesting dynamic tectonic shifts, like supercontinent breakup, actually created crucial conditions for complex life, making it a pivotal time for evolutionary pathways, not a stagnant era.”

 

(11) CRYOGENIAN PERIOD (720 – 635 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

Snowball Earth!

No, seriously – this period is identified as having two glaciations, that may well have extended to the entire planet, although a compromise Slushball Earth (with a band of open sea at the equator) is proposed.

 

(12) EDIACARAN PERIOD (635 – 541 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

Named for the Ediacara Hills in South Australia, where significant fossils were found – of Ediacaran Biota, the first large complex soft-bodied multicellular organisms like jellyfish or segmented sea worms, representing “a crucial transition from simple microbial life to the emergence of animal life (metazoans)”.

The period of life bouncing back from the Cryogenian (huddled around geothermic vents) but before the Cambrian Explosion.

 

(13) CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD (359 – 299 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

The Age of Coal!

Well, not quite – more the age of forests that became coal, hence the name for the period. It’s the intervening period between the Devonian and Permian Periods.

It wasn’t just forests, however – “The Carboniferous is the period during which both terrestrial animal and land plant life was well established. The period is sometimes called the Age of Amphibians”. It also saw the appearance of amniotes – the forerunners of reptiles, birds and mammals. Insects, particularly flying insects, “also underwent a major evolutionary radiation”.

Oh – and everyone’s favorite supercontinent, Pangaea, formed.

 

(14) PALEOGENE PERIOD (66 – 23 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

The period on the other side of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that killed the dinosaurs and hence characterized by the rise of mammals to top evolutionary spot. Informally known by its former title of the Tertiary Period (which also included my next special mention entry), hence the former abbreviation of K-T extinction event (K for Cretaceous and T for Tertiary), as opposed to the current usage of K-Pg.

 

(15) NEOGENE PERIOD (23 – 2.6 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

As its name indicates, the period after the Paleogene (and before our own period) and pretty much more of the same – “During this period, mammals and birds continued to evolve into modern forms, while other groups of life remained relatively unchanged. The first humans (Homo habilis) appeared in Africa near the end of the period”.

 

(16) QUARTERNARY PERIOD (2.6 MILLION YEARS AGO – PRESENT)

 

Our present period of geological time, as well as the shortest, consisting only of the Pleistocene Epoch and our present Holocene Epoch – those two epochs effectively took the place of this period in my top ten (in the two top spots). It largely coincides with the Paleolithic period of prehistory, although the latter is somewhat longer.

 

(17) EPOCH – PLIOCENE (5.33 – 2.38 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

Epochs are sub-divisions of geologic periods from the Cambrian Period onwards, because why bother before then? Apart from our present Holocene Epoch of only 11,700 years, they range from 2.5683 million years (the Pleistocene) to 42.6 million years (the Lower Cretaceous).

As I said in the introduction to my Top 10 Geological Periods of Time, epochs also tend not to be particularly distinctive – with the recurring convention of being the “upper”, “middle” and “lower” parts of their period, for example the Upper Jurassic, Middle Jurassic, and Lower Jurassic.

The distinctive epochs are those of our present Cenezoic Era – indeed, I gave the two top spots of my top ten to our present epoch, the Holocene Epoch, and the preceding Pleistocene Epoch or Ice Age.

However, the Cenezoic Era includes quite a few others prior to the Pleistocene, all distinctive for mammalian evolution, from most to least recent – Pliocene, Miocene, Oligocene, Eocene, and Paleocene.

So why does the Pliocene score special mention above these others?

Firstly, for human evolution – “The Pliocene is bookended by two significant events in the evolution of human ancestors. The first is the appearance of the hominin Australophithecus anamensis in the early Pliocene, around 4.2 million years ago. The second is the appearance of Homo, the genus that includes modern humans and their closest extinct relatives, near the end of the Pliocene at 2.6 million years ago. Key traits that evolved among hominins during the Pliocene include terrestrial bipedality and, by the end of the Pliocene…brains with a large neocortex relative to body mass and stone tool manufacture.”

Secondly, for the setting of the Pliocene Exile Saga SF book series by Julian May – it might not have the fame of Jurassic Park but I like it

 

(18) AGE – MEGHALAYAN (4,200 YEARS AGO – PRESENT)

 

Yes – there are ages as units of geological time. They are the shortest units of geological time, of which there are 96 formal ages, ranging from thousands of years to millions of years. Like the epochs of which they are sub-divisions, they are only used from the Cambrian Period onwards

But who cares, really? No one seems to refer to them, other than specialists.

However, because they are a unit of geological time, I have to give them special mention, represented here by our own present age.

 

(19) ANTHROPOCENE EPOCH

 

An informal term for our present epoch, whether coinciding with the Holocene Epoch or succeeding it at some point – usually that of the Industrial Revolution or 1780 onwards – to represent the period of time in which humanity has become a planetary force of change.

It’s been rejected as a formal unit of the Geologic Time Scale but has seen wide popular usage – and even when rejecting it as a formal unit, the International Union of Geological Sciences stated that “it will remain an invaluable descriptor of human impact on the Earth system”.

 

(20) EVOLUTION OF S€XUAL REPRODUCTION

 

Wait – what? That’s not a geological time period!

I like to reserve my twentieth special mention for a kinky (or kinkier) entry, where the subject permits, so I took that personally – as a challenge where the subject was geological time units.

 

After all, I had special mentions for the Anthropocene and Boring Billion, but also extinction events and continental drift or super-continents as caught up with geological time periods.

 

Which led to me to…the evolution of s€xual reproduction, which indeed took place over geological time periods, as far back in the fossil record as 2 billion years ago in the Proterozoic Eon, although the later date of 1.2 billion years ago has also been presented as its origin.

 

Don’t get too excited though – I think it was algae or something? Phwoah!

 

What amuses me is the thought of people looking for fossilized sexual reproduction (and what exactly would be fossilized sexual reproduction), which strikes me as being of the same nature as looking through the dictionary for dirty words.

 

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Geological Time Periods (Revised)

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Geological time scale, proportionally represented as a log-spiral with some major events in Earth’s history by Jarred C Lloyd for Wikipedia “Geologic Time Scale” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

TOP 10 GEOLOGICAL TIME PERIODS

 

 

We’re talking the big time – the geological time that was my first special mention for my Top 10 Ages. As I said there, geological time consists of time periods so vast that the ages of human history, indeed the entirety of human history or even human prehistory, are blinks of the eye in comparison – time measured in geological strata and based on events throughout the history of the planet itself, a time span of about 4.5 billion years or so.

But which of those geological time periods are the best or most interesting?

Technically speaking, not all of my geological time period entries are from the 22 periods formally defined as such. Most of them are but there’s one era and a couple of epochs. In order of length of time, there are eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages – 4 formally defined eons divided into 10 formal eras divided into those 22 formal periods divided into 37 formal epochs divided into 96 formal ages. (There are also some sub-periods and sub-epochs, as well as a few informal epochs and ages).

However, the eons are simply too long – ranging from about half a billion to almost two billion years – to be distinctive enough to rank in my top ten. The eras are also too long to be distinctive. Apart from our own era, the Cenozoic Era, as the shortest at 66 million years, eras range from 185.9 million to 900 millon years. Interestingly, the two longest eras – the Mesoproterozoic (600 million years) and Paleoproterozoic (900 millon years) – are longer than the two shortest eons. The names of those eras demonstrates the recurring convention of being the new (“neo”), middle (“meso”) and old (“paleo”) parts of their era, compounding their lack of distinctiveness.

Epochs similarly tend not to be particularly distinctive – with the recurring convention of being the “upper”, “middle” and “lower” parts of their period, for example the Upper Jurassic, Middle Jurassic, and Lower Jurassic.

Hence, my top ten entries are almost all periods – that is, the formally defined periods in geological time, with the exception of my two top spots as epochs.

Spoiler alert – since I have my human and mammalian bias, no prizes for guessing which two epochs take the top spots, albeit with dinosaurs as close runners-up.

And yes – despite the relatively long introduction, this is one of shallow dip top tens.

 

(1) HOLOCENE EPOCH (11,700 YEARS AGO – PRESENT)

 

The Age of Humans, yeah!

Yes, it’s our present epoch. It rules

It followed the Last Glacial Period, with the titular Holocene glacial retreat.

It also coincided with the Neolithic Age – as well as all human prehistory and history after that.

Unfortunately, it also has the ongoing Holocene extinction, the sixth big extinction event in Earth’s geological history, because of – ahem – us.

 

A mollweide map of Earth 21,000 years ago, overlayed by a black outline of present-day countries in their respective locations, by Christopher R. Scotese and Nicky M. Wright, feature image for Wikipedia “Pleistocene” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

(2) PLEISTOCENE EPOCH (2.6 MILLION – 11,700 YEARS AGO)

 

The Ice Age, yeah!

The preceding epoch to our own.

One of a number of Earth’s ice ages – but the most recent and popularized one, the one everyone thinks of when they say Ice Age, hence the capitalization (or being called the Great Ice Age).

Of course, its popularity is aided by its famed mammalian megafauna – mammoths and all – as well as our presence, the Pleistocene largely corresponding with the Paleolithic Age and evolution of modern humans, albeit our own species only evolved in the last 10% of it or so.

Also noted for the Late Pleistocene extinctions – not quite up there with the big extinction events but notable none the less for the extinction of megafauna, again probably due to, ahem, us. The Late Pleistocene also saw the extinction of all other human species but our own – as well as the spread of modern humans beyond Africa, including to the Americas and Australasia.

 

 

A mollweide map of Earth 105 million years ago, overlayed by a black outline of present-day countries in their respective locations, by Christopher R. Scotese and ors, as feature image for Wikipedia “Cretaceous” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(3) CRETACEOUS PERIOD (143 – 66 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

The Age of Dinosaurs, yeah!

Technically that’s non-avian dinosaurs since the avian dinosaurs continued as birds. That includes the most well-known and popular dinosaurs, ironically including most of those in Jurassic Park – which really should have been called Cretaceous Park but that doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way.

Ended with the most well-known of all extinction events, the one that killed the dinosaurs – the Cretaceous-Paleogene or K-Pg extinction event, although I prefer its former and catchier name of K-T or Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. Surprisingly not the biggest extinction event – even if it did kill 75% or more of all animal and marine species – but the most abrupt, brought about by the impact of a 10-15 km wide asteroid at Chicxulub in Mexico.

 

 

A mollweide map of Earth 170 million years ago, overlayed by a black outline of present-day countries in their respective locations, by Christopher R. Scotese and ors, as feature image for Wikipedia “Jurassic” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(4) JURASSIC PERIOD (201 – 143 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

Dinosaurs again, hell yeah!

Probably the most famous period of geological time, thanks to its titular use in the Jurassic film franchise.

It kind of just blurs into the following Cretaceous Period, aptly enough given the use of Cretaceous dinosaurs in the Jurassic film franchise.

It did, however, have a definitive start – with the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. Dinosaurs can’t complain too much about extinction events because that’s how they and the Jurassic Period got their start – albeit it was less of an asteroid bang and more of a whimper of ocean anoxia, ocean acidification, and elevated temperatures (probably volcanic in origin).

 

 

A mollweide map of Earth 225 million years ago, overlayed by a black outline of present-day countries in their respective locations, by Chrisopher R. Scotese and ors as feature image for Wikipedia “Triassic” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(5) TRIASSIC PERIOD (252 – 201 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

The Age of Reptiles, yeah!

Well, the start of it, and not dinosaurs – or rather, not just dinosaurs. Sure, they were around, originating in this period but were not dominant until after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. Mammals also originated in this period but they needed a second extinction event for their dominance.

The Triassic not only ended but began with an extinction event, preceded as it was by the Permian-Triassic extinction event.

 

 

A mollweide map of Earth 275 million years ago, overlayed by a black outline of present-day countries in their respective locations, by Christopher R. Scotese and ors as feature image for Wikipedia “Permian” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(6) PERMIAN PERIOD (299 – 252 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

Amniotes, yeah!

Wait, what are amniotes? Essentially the origin of all non-amphibian terrestrial vertebrate animals.

It ended with the biggest extinction event in Earth’s history, the Permian-Triassic extinction event – also known as the Great Dying – estimated to have wiped out 90-95% of all marine species and 70% of those on land. Volcanic eruptions are hypothesized as the primary cause, with widespread climate change.

Sadly, the trilobites died out too.

 

A mollweide map of Earth 390 million years ago, overlayed by a black outline of present-day countries in their respective locations, by Christopher R. Scotese and ors, as feature image for Wikipedia “Devonian”, under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(7) DEVONIAN PERIOD (419 – 359 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

The Age of Fishes, yeah!

Also – coelacanths!

Don’t worry – the land also saw life, indeed the rapid evolutionary “colonization” by and diversification of life on land that continued from the preceding Silurian Period and is known as the Silurian-Devonian Terrestrial Revolution.

Plants evolved leaves, true roots and seeds in what is called the greening of the land of Devonian explosion.

The earliest land animals, predominantly arthropods, became well-established, having colonised land at least two periods before, while fish began flexing towards becoming the ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates.

No, really – “their more robust and muscled pectoral and pelvic fins gradually evolved into forelimbs and hindlimbs, though they were not fully established for life on land until the Late Carboniferous”.

Sadly ended with – you guessed it – an extinction event (or two), in this case the Late Devonian extinction event, one of the big five in Earth’s history, with an estimated 40% of marine life going extinct. Happily, trilobites made it through to last until the Permian.

 

A mollweide map of Earth 430 million years ago, overlayed by a black outline of present-day countries in their respective locations, by Christopher R. Scotese and ors, as feature image for Wikipedia “Silurian” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(8) SILURIAN PERIOD (443 – 419 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

It would probably earn its place from being the other half of the Silurian-Devonian Terrestrial Revolution alone – also saw the first jawed and bony fish.

Loses points for spiders.

Also bounced back from the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event, another of the big five extinction events – which in the case of the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event caused up to 60% of all marine species wiped out.

Speaking of which…

 

 

 

A mollweide map of Earth 465 million years ago, overlayed by a black outline of present-day countries in their respective locations, by Christopher R. Scotese and ors, as feature image for Wikipedia “Silurian” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(9) ORDOVICIAN PERIOD (488 – 443 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

The Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event – the massive diversification of marine life, including jawless fish. While most life was marine, it also saw the emergence of land plants and possibly arthropods.

And then as usual, after life had crawled or swam its way up, the planet punched it in the guts – with one of the big five extinction events, the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event, which wiped out up to 60% of all marine species, as the great southern supercontinent Gondawana moved over the South Pole and the planet plunged into glaciation.

 

 

A mollweide map of Earth 510 million years ago, overlayed by a black outline of present-day countries in their respective locations by Christopher R. Scotese and ors, as feature image for Wikipedia “Cambrian” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(10) CAMBRIAN PERIOD (542 – 488 MILLION YEARS AGO)

 

Life on Earth, yeah!

Well, not really. Life originated long before, perhaps as early as 3.7 billion years ago or so, about 800 million years after the formation of the Earth itself, but it only got interesting in the Cambrian Period, with the so-called Cambrian Explosion.

Arthropods, molluscs and chordates, oh my!

Mostly in water but still.

Also – trilobites, yeah!

That’s right, it took until the last 10% or so of all of Earth’s timespan for life to get interesting. Before that, the majority of living organisms were unicellular, although there was some multicellular life for about a billion or so years before the Cambrian Period. Life on Earth as we know it resembles nothing more than a painstakingly slow crawl before a mad sprint to the finish line in the last tenth of the track.

Don’t get too excited though – life on Earth was still almost entirely in water. There’s evidence of some microbial life on land, with some speculation as to land plants or even arthropods or molluscs venturing onto land but nothing solid until the subsequent period.

As usual with life, it was two steps forward, one step back – or more usually, almost two steps back). The later half of the Cambrian “was surprisingly barren” with declining biodiversity (until the subsequent Ordovician Period) and of course the Cambrian ended with – you guessed it – another extinction event, the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction event, albeit not one of the big five extinction events.

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Dark Ages (Special Mention)

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After the destruction comes the desolation – The Course of Empire: Desolation (1836) – fifth of a series of five paintings by Thomas Cole (in public domain)

 

 

TOP 10 DARK AGES (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

Hello darkness my old friend – there’s even more Dark Age darkness, with the usual twenty special mentions for my Top 10 Dark Ages.

As usual, it’s more of a Dark Age iceberg as I look beyond the historiographical usage of the term to various aspects or connotations of the Dark Age or Dark Ages – getting weirder and wilder the deeper and darker I go…

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

(1) SOCIETAL COLLAPSE

 

The defining characteristic that most people would associate with the Dark Age, or indeed anything that might be described as a dark age – particularly in combination with the loss or scarcity of historical records that societal collapse typically involves. I suppose the only distinction people might draw between the term of dark age and the concept of societal collapse is that the former arguably involves a society of some historical prominence, geographic range, and chronological duration prior to its collapse.

‘Nuff said, really, except that the concept or phenomenon of societal collapse probably deserves its own top ten list (or lists) and not simply as an offshoot of my Top 10 Dark Ages.

 

(2) POST-APOCALYPTIC

 

Well now, most people would see post-apocalyptic as synonymous for the society or whatever’s left of it after the societal collapse. After all, apocalypse or apocalyptic have become synonymous with societal collapse – at best that is, since at worst they are synonymous with extinction events or destruction on a planetary scale. So post-apocalyptic is essentially synonymous with a dark age – and the Dark Age itself can readily be described as post-apocalyptic, I would presume by reference to the Apocalypse by some living in it.

Of course, probably thanks to both science and science fiction, we tend to use the term post-apocalyptic by reference to some contemporary or future apocalypse rather than a historical one. In which case, regression to a new dark age would seem the best case given the apocalyptic scenarios we face – certainly Einstein saw the outcome of World War Three as regression to a new stone age.

 

(3) FEUDAL

 

Usually seen as the defining characteristic of the European Dark Age – the feudal economy and society – and often by extension to dark ages projected into other parts of the past or the future.

 

(4) PRIMAL – STATE OF NATURE

 

Alternatively, the defining characteristic of the Dark Age or at least a dark age is often seen as a reversion to the primal state of (human) nature conjectured by Hobbes – the war of all against all, in which the life of man is nasty, poor, brutish, and short:

“In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

For that matter, the term dark age might well apply to the primal state of humanity in its prehistory. The Stone Age is the Dark Age – the Bronze Age too, for that matter. Of course, the Stone Age doesn’t so much reflect societal collapse as precede the formation of society itself to collapse, although the two resemble each other – and it doesn’t get much more lacking in historical record than prehistory, another point to invoke the Stone Age as Dark Age.

 

(5) PRE-INDUSTRIAL – MALTHUSIAN

 

Ultimately, I think that there is a strong argument to consider everything prior to industrialization and modern technology as a dark age, given the vast improvements in almost every metric for our standard of living and quality of life since – indeed, what might be called a Malthusian dark age, given the Malthusian trap humanity found itself in beforehand, such that most, if not all, improvements in material conditions or quality of life were swallowed up by the resulting population growth.

During this pre-industrial or Malthusian dark age, it seems at at best humanity mostly was treading water with its head barely above the surface, so to speak – and at worst, treading water below the surface.

 

(6) BARBARIANS AT THE GATES

 

Up there with societal collapse as the defining characteristic that most people would associate with dark ages, as most people associate barbarians at the gates – being overrun by barbarian, external or internal – as at least a symptom of societal collapse, when not actually the cause of it.

It certainly is associated by most people with the Dark Age, that is the European Dark Age and the fall of the Roman Empire. Interestingly, however, that is a matter of some debate between historians. Some historians argue that it was more peaceful transition rather than violent fall. Even when it is accepted to be a fall, there remains the perennial debate whether it was from external forces – the proverbial barbarians at the gates – or from its own internal decline.

It also tends to be associated with contemporary or future post-apocalyptic dark age scenarios, as in the Mad Max film franchise.

Interestingly, only some of my Top 10 Dark Ages involved barbarians at the gates – the European Dark Age (and sub-Roman Britain), the Bronze Age Collapse (and Greek Dark Ages), and the Byzantine Dark Age.

 

(7) VESTIGIAL EMPIRE

 

Up there with barbarians at the gates as the defining characteristic of the Dark Age or European Dark Age – the vestigial empire being the Roman Empire.

Imperial or political state collapse, whether that state is left shrunken or in remnants, tends to accompany societal collapse and hence tends to be a recurring characteristic of dark ages in general, when not actually definitive of them.

 

(8) CHURCH MILITANT

 

Something of a dead horse historical trope, there is or at least was a recurring association with the Dark Age or European Dark Age with an ascendant Church effectively exercising a monopoly over the human mind or imagination – and actively suppressing cultural or scientific learning or advancement. Sometimes that association is to the extent that the Church effectively caused or prolonged the Dark Age.

Fortunately, history has marched on but it remains something of an enduring force in popular culture or imagination, such that an ascendant Church or something like it often tends to feature in the post-apocalyptic dark ages of fantasy or SF.

 

(9) PLAGUE

 

Plague tends to recur as symptom or cause of the societal collapse that is a defining characteristic of dark ages – even the Dark Age, where the triple whammy of the Antonine Plague, the Cyprian Plague, and the Plague of Justinian played their part in the collapse of the Roman Empire, possibly even the decisive part.

If the plague is big and bad enough, it can readily overwhelm society to the point of societal collapse or close to it. While I would hesitate to call the period of the Black Plague in Europe as dark age, I would not hesitate to call it as coming close in the scale of collapse or destruction, particularly in the areas worst affected.

 

(10) VIKING ERA

 

Do you want Vikings? Because that’s how you get Vikings.

Now we come to a specific aspect of the Dark Age – in this case of the proverbial barbarians at the gates, albeit not involved in the fall of the western Roman Empire but after it.

However, more than any other group that might be labelled as barbarians after that fall, the Vikings and their era have effectively become synonymous with the European Dark Age – not least due to their pervasive geographical extent throughout Europe (and beyond) as well as their time span. I understand the very term Viking originated not from their ethnicity as such but their occupation as raiders – the same raiding that was symptomatic of the Dark Age’s societal collapse and lack of political states with the resources to effectively oppose them.

The Vikings had their parallel in at least one of my Top 10 Dark Ages other than the European Dark Age – the Sea Peoples of my second place entry, the Bronze Age Collapse. Beyond that, they often have their parallel in the mobile raiders, whether by land or sea, in the post-apocalyptic dark age scenarios of fantasy or SF. I tend to quip about Rohan as horse Vikings in The Lord of the Rings, although whether one would label Tolkien’s Third Age or some part of it as a fantasy dark age is another matter.

 

(11) MONGOL CONQUESTS

 

We come now to historical events or periods that are not labelled dark ages as such but might well be or at least be considered analogous to dark ages – perhaps foremost among them the Mongol Conquests, with their scale of destruction in some estimates rivalling the world wars in absolute numbers and substantially higher relative to the world population. When you’re dealing with destruction on a scale that it is estimated to have caused climate change, you know you’re in the big league.

That said, I don’t think it could be described as a European dark age for Europe, at least outside Russia. While the Mongol Conquests reached Europe, they remained on the fringes – it was more a matter of the long shadow they case into Europe, with, the Mongol bark being worse than their bite as it were.

However, for destruction elsewhere in Eurasia – China, central Asia, the Middle East, even Russia – it might well be considered a dark age, albeit obviously a golden age for the Mongols themselves (which begs the historical question of how many golden ages for some might be dark ages for others).

 

(12) COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE

 

Although arguably a golden age for Europe – for whom the so-called Columbian Exchange with the Americas was on the profit side of the balance sheet – that same Exchange as well as the Spanish Conquest might well be considered a dark age for the original inhabitants of the Americas, or indeed as extinction events, predominantly through disease.

Of course, the Columbian Exchange wasn’t entirely one-sided, but the more beneficial exchanges by Europe to the Americas tended to be reaped by the European colonialists rather than the Americans. One exception that might have seen native Americans, particularly in the north American plains or tribes like the Comanche, pull off something akin to their own Mongol Conquests – the horse – mostly came too little and too late to have that effect against the odds of increasingly industrial and technological opponents.

 

(13) MODERN DARK AGE

 

One would have thought the world, particularly Europe, to be immune from dark ages after the Industrial Revolution – but no, some have compared twentieth century totalitarianism, fascism and communism, or the world wars to a new dark age, with some justice to such claims.

Indeed, no less than Winston Churchill used that exact phrase of a new dark age for German victory in the Second World War – and in his most famous wartime speech at that, his “finest hour” speech (and just before the finest hour bit).

Almost if not as famously, British Foreign Secretary presciently spoke of Europe darkening at the advent of the First World War – “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time”.

 

X-TIER (WEIRD / WILD TIER)

 

(14) COSMOLOGICAL DARK AGE

 

Now we move from historical dark ages to broader use of the term – in this case theoretical scientific cosmology, which proposes a Cosmological Dark Age after the Big Bang until the formation of the first stars. As such, it is a literal dark age in terms of the absence of visible light from stars, albeit I understand there were two limited sources of photons or light from elsewhere even if those sources get a little too science-y for my brain to wrap its big bang around.

 

(15) CULTURAL – AUDIENCE ALIENATING ERA

 

It occasionally pops up for periods in or aspects of culture, popular or otherwise, to be labelled as dark ages because of their perceived lack of aesthetic value or because people just don’t like them – a la the trope of audience alienating era in TV Tropes.

Indeed, my very next special mention entry features two commonly used dark ages in popular culture, albeit not necessarily for their lack of quality but also as part of a more general usage labelling “ages” within popular culture.

 

(16) DARK AGE OF COMICS & DARK AGE OF ANIMATION

 

Yes, there’s a Dark Age of Comics, used as a label for the period for comics published from the 1980s to 1990s, albeit more for a shift to mature or “darker and grittier” content in comics than a judgement of lack of quality – although this period certainly saw its notorious excesses from the former that overlapped into the latter.

It follows on from the labels for ‘ages’ in the publication of comics following on from the Golden Age of comics or dawn of superhero comics with Superman and Batman, although I’ve always thought the Bronze Age of Comics to be somewhat nebulous in defining characteristics between the Golden or Silver Age of Comics and the Dark Age of Comics.

On the other hand, the Dark Age of Animation from the 1950s to the 1980s is proposed as a term for the decline of quality from the preceding Golden Age of Animation

 

(17) FANTASY & SF DARK AGES

 

No, I’m not referring to a Dark Age OF Fantasy or SF as a term for a period in the publishing or production of fantasy or SF in literary or other media, although it may well have popped up in such usage by someone at some time or another.

Rather, I’m referring to a Dark Age IN Fantasy or SF – that is, for the usage of a dark age or even the Dark Age (as in the European Dark Age) within a fantasy or SF setting. There are certainly fantasies set in the Dark Age – indeed any fantasy setting involving King Arthur, as I discussed the latter for my entry on the British Dark Age or sub-Roman Britain entry in my Top 10 Dark Ages.

I would argue that the Third Age as setting for The Lord of the Rings in Tolkien’s legendarium is a fantasy dark age – at least in large parts if not the whole. However, the archetypal example of a dark age setting is in SF, involving as it does a dark age directly adapted from the Dark Age with the decline of a Galactic Empire directly adapted from the Roman Empire – and that is Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series.

 

(18) DUNG AGES

 

The Dung Ages trope in TV Tropes, the Dark Age (and usually the Middle Ages as well) as a trope for the depiction of medieval Europe as a crapsack world, often characterized by the omnipresence of literal crap – or at least dirt, filth, or mud. The archetypal example of the trope (indeed the trope codifier acknowledged as such by TV Tropes) is the Monty Python and the Holy Grail film, in which one filthy peasant observes to another about King Arthur – “He must be a king. He hasn’t got sh!t all over him”.

 

(19) PERSONAL – DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

 

“Some are born to sweet delight

And some are born to endless night”

 

Yeah, I got the latter option, damn it.

That’s right – it’s everyone’s own personal dark age or decline and fall.

We all inevitably face one with either old age or mortality, although I think describing one’s old age as your dark age or decline and fall sounds much more glamorous.

Of course that doesn’t stop personal dark ages from occurring earlier in life – from archetypal mid-life crises (I like to quip that I’ve had a mid-life crisis all my life – or an all-life crisis) to other periods of pain and sorrow, breakdown, or depression. Although again I think that describing such periods as your own personal dark age or decline and fall sounds more glamorous, perhaps even transformative for coping or healing.

Strictly speaking, the dark night of the soul is a descriptive term for part of a mystical or religious experience, but “in modern times, the phrase dark night of the soul has become a popular phrase to describe a crisis of faith or a difficult, painful period in one’s life”.

And that seems a natural segue to my final special mention entry.

 

(20) S€XUAL DARK AGE

 

My usual rule is to reserve my final (twentieth) special mention for a kinky (or kinkier) entry, where the subject matter permits – and I wouldn’t have thought that the subject of dark ages would permit it but here we are. Once again, you’ll be surprised what kink I can squeeze out of a given subject.

A s€xual dark age could refer to one’s personal such age – the proverbial “dry patch” or “involuntary celibacy” in the parlance of our times.

The latter suggests a more contemporary and widespread sxual dark age, one of societal s€xual collapse – of widespread celibacy, involuntary or otherwise, among the population, decline in testosterone, ambiguity or ambivalence about conventional sexual identities, or decline in fertility or procreation

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Ape Theories & Theses of Human Evolution (Special Mention) 16-20

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Ape skeletons – public domain image in Wikipedia “Human Evolution”

 

 

(16) HOBBIT APES (HOMO FLORESIENSIS)

 

As usual, getting to the weirder and wilder entries (or deep below the iceberg) in my special mentions – and I just wanted to feature Homo floresiensis, nicknamed as hobbits, “an extinct species of small archaic humans that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago”.

 

(17) AVIAN APES

 

No, not the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz – just a playful reference to the observation of Steve Stewart-Williams in The Ape That Understood the Universe that we are primates with the mating habits of birds

 

(18) ANT APES

 

Another playful reference to the ability of humans for living in social groups – notably our cities – that far exceed the scale of non-human primates (or even our own ancestors) and arguably only find comparison in social insects

 

(19) APES OF GOD

 

Yet another playful reference to humans as the only primates or indeed animals that appear to have mythology or religion – or perhaps a play on evolution and creationism.

 

(20) S€XY APES (HOMO ERECTUS)

 

As usual, I like to reserve my twentieth special mention for a kinky or kinkier entry – which is surprisingly easy in this case given the prominence of s€xual selection or behavior in studies of human evolution, and I couldn’t resist the obvious gag of using Homo erectus to connote this.

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Ape Theories & Theses of Human Evolution (Special Mention) 11-15

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Ape skeletons – public domain image in Wikipedia “Human Evolution”

 

 

(11) NEOTENOUS APE (ETERNAL CHILD)

 

Neoteny “is the retention of juvenile traits into adulthood” – and it is argued to be a distinctive feature of humans compared to non-human primates, both for physical and behavioral traits, while the evolutionary origins and reasons for that distinctive feature are also the subject of argument

The neoteny thesis is argued by various proponents of it but none perhaps encapsulated it best as Clive Bromhall with the title of his book The Eternal Child. (Bromhall also points out the same neoteny applies to the animal longest domesticated by humans – dogs).

 

(12) APE OUT OF AFRICA

 

Yes – it’s my ape title for the Out of Africa or OOA theory, “the most widely accepted paleo-anthropological model of the geographic origin and early migration of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens)”.

 

(13) GRANDMOTHER APE

 

“The grandmother hypothesis is a hypothesis to explain the existence of menopause in human life history by identifying the adaptive value of extended kin networking”

In other words, leaving the kids with grandma is good evolutionary ‘strategy’.

 

(14) PATRIARCHAL APE

 

An alternative to the grandmother hypothesis, which adds in the “male benefits of continued spermatogenesis and their roles in assistance”

In other words, silverbacking it with a younger model while leaving the kids with grandma.

 

(15) BEHAVIOURALLY MODERN APE

 

Just my ape title for the “suite of behavioral and cognitive traits believed to distinguish current Homo sapiens from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates”.

Heh – suite. Good evening, will you be staying in our behaviorally modern suite?

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Ape Theories & Theses of Human Evolution (Special Mention) 6-10

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Ape skeletons – public domain image in Wikipedia “Human Evolution”

 

(6) HUNTING APE

 

Well, this one’s obvious, consistent with the hunting hypothesis – “that human evolution was primarily influenced by the activity of hunting for relatively large and fast animals, and that the activity of hunting distinguished human ancestors from other hominins”.

 

(7) GATHERING APE

 

The counterpoint to the hunting hypothesis – “that gathering rather than hunting was the main factor in the emergence of anatomically modern humans”.

 

(8) COOKING APE

 

As I opine elsewhere, much of the Stone Age might be better termed the Fire Age, for the control of fire by early humans. Among the uses of this was for cooking food, leading to the cooking hypothesis, which “proposes that the ability to cook allowed for the brain size of hominids to increase over time”.

 

(9) BRAINY APE (EXPENSIVE TISSUE)

 

Another one that’s obvious – most theories of human evolution focus on the brain and brain size, including the expensive tissue hypothesis or ETH that “relates brain and gut size in evolution (specifically in human evolution)”.

Essentially, to evolve its large brain, humans had to sacrifice “less energy on other expensive tissues” – which was “achieved by eating an easy-to-digest diet and evolving a smaller, less energy-intensive gut”.

Again in tabletop terms, humans were minmax players, minimizing their gut stats to max out their brain stats (minimizing their constitution to max out intelligence?)

 

(10)  ANDROGYNOUS APE (REDUCED S€XUAL DIMORPHISM)

 

Well, not really androgynous – humans still have pronounced sexual dimorphism but it is decreased and I wanted a catchy ape title for it.

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Ape Theories & Theses of Human Evolution (Special Mention) 1-5

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Ape skeletons – public domain image in Wikipedia “Human Evolution”

 

 

TOP 10 APE THEORIES & THESES OF HUMAN EVOLUTION (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

I’ve compiled my Top 10 Apes – not for my top ten species or types of apes, but for the use of the word ape as a trope, for which humans are the ape. That is, a trope used for naming theories or theses of human evolution – an idea for a top ten which struck me when I realized just how many had ape in their name or title.

 

And yes – I had to stretch my subject of ape theories and theses for human evolution to round out my top ten, but I’ll stretch it out even more for my usual twenty special mentions for various aspects of human evolution.

 

 

(1) WALKING APE (BIPEDALISM)

 

My ape title for human bipedalism, which has been the subject of several theories for its evolution – “There are at least twelve distinct hypotheses as to how and why bipedalism evolved in humans, and also some debate as to when”.

 

(2) RUNNING APE (ENDURANCE & PERSISTENCE)

 

As the saying goes, you have to walk before you can run – and the walking ape leads naturally to the running ape or the endurance running hypothesis – “a series of conjectures which presume humans evolved anatomical and physiological adaptations to run long distances…proponents of this hypothesis assert that endurance running served as a means for hominins to effectively engage in persistence hunting”

 

(3) GRASPING APE (POWER & PRECISION GRIP)

 

Alternatively, the gripping ape – the evolved power and precision grip of the human hand (including the ulnar opposition or contact between the thumb and little finger), “underlying all the skilled manipulations”, as well as the act of throwing.

In tabletop game terms, humans maxed their dexterity and intelligence stats.

 

(4) GAZING APE (COOPERATIVE EYE)

 

My ape title for the cooperative eye hypothesis – “a proposed explanation for the appearance of the human eye…that the eye’s distinctive visible characteristics evolved to make it easier for humans to follow another’s gaze while communicating or while working together on tasks.”

That is, humans have eyes with white or unpigmented sclera (for distinct color contrast between the sclera and the iris or pupil), as well as eyes that are larger in proportion to body size – “among primates, humans are the only species where the outline of the eye and the position of the iris can be clearly seen in each individual”.

 

(5) CHATTERING APE (COMPLEX LANGUAGE)

 

It’s not for nothing that the final episode (and chapter) of David Attenborough’s Life on Earth for humanity is called The Compulsive Communicators – with the evolution of complex language as the distinctive feature of humans.

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Stone Ages / Stone Age Iceberg (Special Mention: Complete 1-20)

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Kebaran culture (Levant and Sinai) microliths 22,000 – 18,000 years ago (public domain image)

 

 

TOP 10 STONE AGES / STONE AGE ICEBERG (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

But wait – there’s more!

There are my twenty special mentions I have for my Top 10 Stone Ages

You know the drill – just like the top ten itself, it’s one of my mostly tongue-in-cheek top ten lists where I look at a subject which has a fundamental continuity or unity, but which can also be broken up into distinct parts or perspectives. Alternatively, it’s just more and deeper layers in my Stone Age iceberg meme.

It’s also one of my shallow dip top ten lists– with a few lines or so for each entry – than my deep dive top ten lists on other subjects.

So here goes…

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(1) HOMININ STONE AGE

 

It’s striking to think that most of the period usually identified as the Stone Age – 3 million years or so – is not for our own hominin species of homo sapiens but for preceding or other hominin species. And by most, I mean 90% – anatomically modern homo sapiens only pops up in the last 10% or so and behaviourally modern homo sapiens even more recently.

You know, there’s enough hominins for their own top ten…

 

(2) NEANDERTHAL STONE AGE

 

Everyone’s favorite hominin other than homo sapiens – and viicon of the Stone Age, so they deserve their own Stone Age

 

(3) HOMO SAPIENS STONE AGE – BEHAVIOURAL MODERNITY

 

There we are.

Behavioural modernity has its own Wikipedia article, but no settled range of time for it – anywhere from 40-50,000 years ago to 150,000 years ago

 

(4) INDUSTRIAL STONE AGE – LITHIC TECHNOLOGY

 

No, we’re not talking Fred Flintstone’s job at Slate Rock and Gravel Company (as a bronto crane operator)…but surprisingly not far from it. Apparently, you didn’t just pick up any stone to make it the Stone Age – some stones are better than others and there were “industrial” sites for stone tools at locations of ideal stones, although quarry is probably a better term than factory.

Lithic technology has its own Wikipedia article

 

 

 

 

(5) SPEAR STONE AGE

 

Paleolithic salesman: (Slaps tip of spear) “This baby can fit so many megafauna extinctions into it”.

Although spears go way back, probably at least in the form of sharpened sticks – apparently chimpanzees have been observed to use sticks as spears – the development and use of spears with stone heads or points – always seemed something of a game changer to me, particularly when thrown (and when spear throwers like an atlatl were developed and used to add range and speed).

You know, like the Paleolithic equivalent of gunpowder empires, except against megafauna. Just think – we hunted the mammoth to extinction with spears.

I mean, I wouldn’t want to face off a sabertooth tiger or cave bear with a few chipped rocks, unless, you know, there was like a hundred of us pelting it with rocks or ideally dropping rocks on it from above. Add in a spear (and perhaps something like fire) and…oh, who am I kidding, I’d still want a hundred of us hurling spears from a safe distance. Or better yet, a spear gun.

 

(6) BOW STONE AGE

 

Like the spear but even more so as a Stone Age game-changing ranged projectile weapon. Apparently the first evidence of bows or arrows goes back to 60-70,000 years ago or so – and their use had spread everywhere but Australia and most of Oceania by the end of the Paleolithic.

 

(7) CLOTHED STONE AGE

 

I’d like to see a demarcation between the Naked Stone Age and the Clothed Stone Age.

Interestingly, such a demarcation is not too different from that between the Paleolithic and Neolithic, although the Naked Stone Age doesn’t quite go so long as the full Paleolithic, wrapping up (heh) towards the end of the Middle Paleolithic.

It always strikes me how recently humans developed and used clothing, with the weight of opinion seeming to be approximately 100,000 years ago, and before that the Stone Age was gloriously naked, albeit hairier.

This was the intuitive truth behind the Biblical Garden of Eden. How far we have fallen from our nude Eden!

 

(8) DOG STONE AGE

 

I like dogs so why not have a Dog Stone Age?

But seriously, the domestication of dogs is something of a key transition in the Stone Age, particularly towards the domestication of animals for agriculture. The dog was the first animal and only large carnivore to be domesticated, occurring at some time towards the end of the Paleolithic (usually opined at an upper limit of 20-40,000 years ago), reflecting its usefulness for human hunter-gatherers prior to agriculture.

 

(9) CERAMIC STONE AGE

 

The development and use of pottery was another key transition in the Stone Age, usually associated with the Neolithic but occurring as early as the Upper Paleolithic. Pottery is also iconic of archaeology – I tend to quip archaeology is mostly dusting off broken pieces of pottery as opposed to Indiana Jones.

Of course, from our modern perspective, we tend to see pottery as decorative or a novelty, because we have since moved on to other materials for storage and cookware (even where the importance of it persists in the surname Potter).

 

(10) WHEELED STONE AGE

 

The iconic invention of prehistoric humanity, so much so that the phrase reinventing the wheel has become proverbial – albeit the Wheeled Stone Age is pretty much a few seconds before midnight of the Stone Age and perhaps more accurately as part of the transition to the Bronze Age, if not indeed in the Bronze Age itself.

We tend to think of the wheel for wheeled vehicles, but it also overlaps with the previous entry in the development and use of the potter’s wheel.

 

(11) MEGAFAUNA EXTINCTION STONE AGE

 

The mammoth is dead – and we killed it!

Well, the jury’s still out on the cause of mass megafauna extinction – also termed the late Pleistocene extinctions – between human impact and climate change, although the consensus seems to support “at least a contributory role of humans in the extinctions”.

I mean, they do tend to coincide with the patterns of early human migration, particularly in the Americas and Australasia, but it was like that when we got here, honest!

 

(12) ROCK & CAVE ART STONE AGE

 

Yes, I’m an Altamira and Lascaux cave art fanboy – as I am of the Sorcerer in the Cave of the Trois-Freres, particularly as drawn by Henri Breuil. All hail the Horned God!

Cave and rock art comprise perhaps the most vivid visual icons of the Stone Age – and our best glimpses into the minds of our Stone Age forebears.

Speaking of the Sorcerer…

 

 

(13) SHAMANIC STONE AGE

 

There are different viewpoints of Stone Age religion or religious beliefs, but one of the two predominant viewpoints is that the Stone Age was fundamentally shamanic. That viewpoint underlies Weston La Barre’s The Ghost Dance, as well as Peter Watson’s The Great Divide: Nature and Human Nature in the Old World and the New. The latter essentially proposes that the native Americans remained locked into the shamanic beliefs and mindset they brought with them from Siberia – reinforced by the rigors of American geography and the larger number of psychedelic plants.

As for the other predominant viewpoint of Stone Age religion…

 

 

Photograph by Matthias Kabel for Wikipedia “Venus von Willendorf” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

 

 

(14) MATRIARCHAL STONE AGE

 

Stone Age Venus! She is the goddess and this is her body!

You don’t get much more of a visual icon of prehistoric matriarchy and mother goddess worship than the famed Venus of Willendorf. Paleolithic – more like Paleolithicc, amirite?

Ironically, despite the prolific nature of Paleolithic Venus figurines, it is the Neolithic that tends to be associated with mother goddess worship or goddess-centric religions, typically overlapping with agricultural fertility, at least in popular culture – albeit an association highly contested within archaeology and anthropology.

Which brings me to…

 

(15) LONGHOUSE STONE AGE

 

The idea of the communal dwelling or longhouse, originating in the Neolithic albeit with a long history after that – and coopted in contemporary online discourse to signify oppressive matriarchal or gynocentric social conformity.

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

(16) STONED AGE

 

And now, as usual towards the end of special mentions, we come to my weirder and wilder entries – well, weirder and wilder than the Matriarchal Stone Age and the longhouse.

I just couldn’t resist the obvious gag of the Stoned Age, but it’s more than just a gag – it’s a reference to the Stoned Ape theory of Terrence McKenna, which indeed involved human prehistory in the Stone Age. Hence – the Stoned Age.

 

(17) PALEO DIET

 

“Meat’s back on the menu, boys!”

Another obvious entry suggested by the contemporary paleo diet, which purports to be a diet based on the model of our Paleolithic ancestors as the ideal diet for health – so no Neolithic grains or milk but sadly seems to opt out of the cannibalism theorized to occur during the Paleolithic. Not to mention all the other crap that we turn up our noses at or throw out today…

 

(18) STONEPUNK

 

Yabba dabba doo!

Yes, it’s the Flintstones – meet the Flintstones, they’re your modern Stone Age family…

But seriously, the Flintstones is classic stonepunk – one of the many ‘punk’ variants of fantasy or SF named after cyberpunk, albeit the version most likely to be played for laughs. Not to mention comedic anachronism, not least humans living alongside dinosaurs. Which I suppose would make some versions of Young Earth Creationism….stonepunk?

Stonepunk focuses on pre-technological developments in prehistoric times, its juxtapositions of the modern world with the primitive, and the effects of an early form of “advanced” technology on society

More broadly, I would extend this entry to more serious (or seriously researched) works set in prehistory, such as the Clan of the Cave Bear books (and film).

 

(19) STONE AGE HERBALIST

 

Well, I can’t have Stone Age special mentions without a shout-out to the Stone Age Herbalist account on X – bringing the Stone Age to our own age.

 

(20) EROTIC STONE AGE

 

Bow-chicka-wow-wow – my usual preference is to reserve my final or twentieth special mention for a kinkier or kinkiest entry. Well, there wasn’t much else to do at night in the Stone Age…you and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals.

 

But seriously, the Stone Age s€x is pretty much the focus of study for evolutionary psychology.

 

 

 

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Stone Ages / Stone Age Iceberg (Special Mention 16-20)

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Kebaran culture (Levant and Sinai) microliths 22,000 – 18,000 years ago (public domain image)

 

 

(16) STONED AGE

 

And now, as usual towards the end of special mentions, we come to my weirder and wilder entries – well, weirder and wilder than the Matriarchal Stone Age and the longhouse.

I just couldn’t resist the obvious gag of the Stoned Age, but it’s more than just a gag – it’s a reference to the Stoned Ape theory of Terrence McKenna, which indeed involved human prehistory in the Stone Age. Hence – the Stoned Age.

 

(17) PALEO DIET

 

“Meat’s back on the menu, boys!”

Another obvious entry suggested by the contemporary paleo diet, which purports to be a diet based on the model of our Paleolithic ancestors as the ideal diet for health – so no Neolithic grains or milk but sadly seems to opt out of the cannibalism theorized to occur during the Paleolithic. Not to mention all the other crap that we turn up our noses at or throw out today…

 

(18) STONEPUNK

 

Yabba dabba doo!

Yes, it’s the Flintstones – meet the Flintstones, they’re your modern Stone Age family…

But seriously, the Flintstones is classic stonepunk – one of the many ‘punk’ variants of fantasy or SF named after cyberpunk, albeit the version most likely to be played for laughs. Not to mention comedic anachronism, not least humans living alongside dinosaurs. Which I suppose would make some versions of Young Earth Creationism….stonepunk?

Stonepunk focuses on pre-technological developments in prehistoric times, its juxtapositions of the modern world with the primitive, and the effects of an early form of “advanced” technology on society

More broadly, I would extend this entry to more serious (or seriously researched) works set in prehistory, such as the Clan of the Cave Bear books (and film).

 

(19) STONE AGE HERBALIST

 

Well, I can’t have Stone Age special mentions without a shout-out to the Stone Age Herbalist account on X – bringing the Stone Age to our own age.

 

(20) EROTIC STONE AGE

 

Bow-chicka-wow-wow – my usual preference is to reserve my final or twentieth special mention for a kinkier or kinkiest entry. Well, there wasn’t much else to do at night in the Stone Age…you and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals.

 

But seriously, the Stone Age s€x is pretty much the focus of study for evolutionary psychology.

Top Tens – Tropes & Other: Top 10 Stone Ages / Stone Age Iceberg (Special Mention: 11-15)

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Kebaran culture (Levant and Sinai) microliths 22,000 – 18,000 years ago (public domain image)

 

 

(11) MEGAFAUNA EXTINCTION STONE AGE

 

The mammoth is dead – and we killed it!

Well, the jury’s still out on the cause of mass megafauna extinction – also termed the late Pleistocene extinctions – between human impact and climate change, although the consensus seems to support “at least a contributory role of humans in the extinctions”.

I mean, they do tend to coincide with the patterns of early human migration, particularly in the Americas and Australasia, but it was like that when we got here, honest!

 

(12) ROCK & CAVE ART STONE AGE

 

Yes, I’m an Altamira and Lascaux cave art fanboy – as I am of the Sorcerer in the Cave of the Trois-Freres, particularly as drawn by Henri Breuil. All hail the Horned God!

Cave and rock art comprise perhaps the most vivid visual icons of the Stone Age – and our best glimpses into the minds of our Stone Age forebears.

Speaking of the Sorcerer…

 

 

(13) SHAMANIC STONE AGE

 

There are different viewpoints of Stone Age religion or religious beliefs, but one of the two predominant viewpoints is that the Stone Age was fundamentally shamanic. That viewpoint underlies Weston La Barre’s The Ghost Dance, as well as Peter Watson’s The Great Divide: Nature and Human Nature in the Old World and the New. The latter essentially proposes that the native Americans remained locked into the shamanic beliefs and mindset they brought with them from Siberia – reinforced by the rigors of American geography and the larger number of psychedelic plants.

As for the other predominant viewpoint of Stone Age religion…

 

 

(14) MATRIARCHAL STONE AGE

 

Stone Age Venus! She is the goddess and this is her body!

You don’t get much more of a visual icon of prehistoric matriarchy and mother goddess worship than the famed Venus of Willendorf. Paleolithic – more like Paleolithicc, amirite?

Ironically, despite the prolific nature of Paleolithic Venus figurines, it is the Neolithic that tends to be associated with mother goddess worship or goddess-centric religions, typically overlapping with agricultural fertility, at least in popular culture – albeit an association highly contested within archaeology and anthropology.

Which brings me to…

 

(15) LONGHOUSE STONE AGE

 

The idea of the communal dwelling or longhouse, originating in the Neolithic albeit with a long history after that – and coopted in contemporary online discourse to signify oppressive matriarchal or gynocentric social conformity.