The Scrivener: In 40,000 Years
…40,000 years ago, in Europe, we lived side by side with the Neanderthals. They became extinct around 30,000 years ago. We are still here, pretending that we are the pinnacle of either God's creation or of evolution even though we would not exist if each of us did not have hundreds of billions of bacteria keeping us alive and enabling us to function…
40,000 years from now two space probes launched by NASA should reach their targets. Brian Barratt wonders whether Homo Sapiens will still be around at that time.
Do visit Brian’s engaging Web site www.alphalink.com.au/~umbidas/
It seems likely that humans, Homo Sapiens, first appeared in eastern Africa between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago.
People were living in caves at the very southern tip of South Africa about 70,000 years ago.
Lake Mungo. in western New South Wales, Australia, is one of a group of dry lakes declared in 1981 as a World Heritage Area. There is evidence that people lived there about 40,000 to 45,000 years ago.
Two species of humans were living in Europe at that time. Homo Sapiens survived, but our extremely distant cousins Homo Neanderthaliensis were extinct by about 30,000 years ago. Genetic research has shown that humans and Neanderthals did interbreed. They also probably fought over food and territory and maybe for mates. Scholars and researchers have not yet worked out if it was physique, dexterity, intelligence, fighting, and the dominance of Homo Sapiens (that's us) which caused the decline of Neanderthals. Was it genocide?
Cave paintings which are probably about 30,000 years old have been found in Europe and Australia, and of a similar age in Namibia. Carvings which might be considerably older have been discovered in Germany. Humans were beginning to express their ideas in Art.
However, it wasn't until about 10,000 years ago that such things as permanent settlements, farming, the wheel, and writing began to appear. Only 10,000 years ago — it took an awful long time for us to reach that stage and for History to begin!
Let's jump forward to the 20th century. On 19 November 1935, my mother wrote one word in her detailed domestic diary: Electricity. Two days later she wrote two words: Marconi Wireless. Rather belatedly, we had entered the Modern Age. No more gas lighting, no more crystal sets.
In the 1950s, I stepped even further into the Modern Age. I bought one of those new inventions, a transistor radio.
In the 1980s, my boss at Head Office sent an IBM Personal Computer for me to use in my office. Neither he nor I understood how to use it or what it could do but I had a helpful friend who already knew about these things. She introduced me to the wonders of computing.
The PC had two 5.25 inch floppy disks, and in those days they really were floppy. Its speed was 4.77 megahertz. That's nearly five million cycles per second. Now, in the 11th year of the 21st century, I am typing this article on a computer that runs at 3,000 megahertz, 3,000,000,000 cycles per second, and it is several years out of date. I am behind the times. I might upgrade it by 2016, when I turn 80.
So why am I writing about all this stuff?
In 1977, NASA launched two space-craft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They are travelling at 17km per second. That's 38,000 miles per hour. After 33 years in flight, they are coming close to the edge of the Solar System. When they eventually move into extra-stellar space, outside our Solar System, they will each head for a different star. One will probably get to within a light year of its target, the other about two light years. Sorry, you'll have to work out what that means. I can't comprehend these vast figures.
And when are they expected to reach those targets? In about 40,000 years time, says Professor Stone of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Let me type that again: 40,000 years.
40,000 years ago, in Europe, we lived side by side with the Neanderthals. They became extinct around 30,000 years ago. We are still here, pretending that we are the pinnacle of either God's creation or of evolution even though we would not exist if each of us did not have hundreds of billions of bacteria keeping us alive and enabling us to function.
Our planet will still be here when Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 reach their destinations in 40,000 years time. Will we still be here? What form or condition will we be in? How many of us will there be? Will we be building settlements, learning how to farm, finding uses for the wheel, and discovering how to write?
© Copyright Brian Barratt 2011
Some sources of information:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13704153
National Satellite and Information Service: Paleoclimatology at
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/clihis100k.html
http://www.usefulcharts.com/history-and-politics/general-history/timeline-of-prehistory.html
