We can look at our present in crispy 4K, in color and sound. Three generations ago the world was just black and white. One more generation and we see the world through blurred photographs. Further back paintings and texts become our main way of experiencing the past. A mere 20 generations before us today, every written word had to be copied by hand and reports became more scarce and less reliable.
The first historian lived a mere 100 generations ago. Before him, there are only epics and legends and dead kings bragging on pieces of stone. 250 generations ago there are only fragments left in the ground and images stripped of their original meaning.
Eventually, humanity becomes basically invisible.
Still, we do know some things about our ancestors. Let’s try to tell their story and what it means for us today.
In When Time Became History: The Human Era, the team at Kurzgesagt explores the what remains of our past, “the greatest transition in human history,” and step-by-step, how we arrived where we are now. The video ends with a promotion for the team’s 2021 calendar of the same theme.
Related history, agriculture, archeology, and time videos in TKSST’s collections include:
• The Beginning of Everything – The Big Bang
• Everything You Need to Know About Planet Earth
• Who was the first human?
• Earth’s History Plays Out On A Football Field
• 40,000 years of London history created with papercraft
• Al Jarnow’s Cosmic Clock (1979)
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