This timeline lists events in the external environment that have influenced events in human history. This timeline is for use with the article on

environmental determinism Environmental determinism (also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism) is the study of how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular development trajectories. Jared Diamond, Jeffrey Herbst ...

. For the history of humanity's influence on the environment, and humanity's perspective on this influence, see timeline of history of environmentalism. See List of periods and events in climate history for a timeline list focused on climate.

Pre-Holocene (1.5 Mya)

The time from roughly 15,000 to 5,000 BC was a time of transition, and swift and extensive environmental change, as the planet was moving from an

Ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

, towards an

interstadial Stadials and interstadials are phases dividing the Quaternary period, or the last 2.6 million years. Stadials are periods of colder climate while interstadials are periods of warmer climate. Each Quaternary climate phase is associated with a Ma ...

(warm period).

Sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardis ...

s rose dramatically (and are continuing to do so), land that was depressed by glaciers began lifting up again, forests and deserts expanded, and the climate gradually became more modern. In the process of warming up, the planet saw several "cold snaps" and "warm snaps", such as the

Older Dryas The Older Dryas was a stadial (cold) period between the Bølling and Allerød interstadials (warmer phases), about 14,000 years Before Present, towards the end of the Pleistocene. Its date is not well defined, with estimates varying by 400 years ...

and the

Holocene climatic optimum The Holocene Climate Optimum (HCO) was a warm period that occurred in the interval roughly 9,000 to 5,000 years ago BP, with a thermal maximum around 8000 years BP. It has also been known by many other names, such as Altithermal, Climatic Optimu ...

, as well as heavier precipitation. In addition, the

Pleistocene megafauna Pleistocene megafauna is the set of large animals that lived on Earth during the Pleistocene epoch. Pleistocene megafauna became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event resulting in substantial changes to ecosystems globally. The role of ...

became extinct due to environmental and

evolutionary pressure Any cause that reduces or increases reproductive success in a portion of a population potentially exerts evolutionary pressure, selective pressure or selection pressure, driving natural selection. It is a quantitative description of the amount of ...

s from the changing climate. This marked the end of the

Quaternary extinction event The Quaternary period (from 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present) has seen the extinctions of numerous predominantly megafaunal species, which have resulted in a collapse in faunal density and diversity and the extinction of key ecolog ...

, which was continued into the modern era by humans. The time around 11,700 years ago (9700 BC) is widely considered to be the end of the old age (

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός '' palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with ...

, Wisconsin Ice Age), and the beginning of the modern world as we know it.

10th millennium BC

9th millennium BC

8th millennium BC

7th millennium BC

6th millennium BC

5th millennium BC

4th millennium BC

3rd millennium BC

2nd millennium BC

1st millennium BC

1st millennium AD

1st century

2nd century

3rd century

4th century

5th century

6th century

7th century

8th century

9th century

10th century

2nd millennium

11th century

12th century

13th century

14th century

15th century

16th century

17th century

18th century

19th century

20th century

3rd millennium

21st century

References

External links

Timeline of European Environmental HistoryEnvironmental History Timeline
{{DEFAULTSORT:Timeline of Environmental History History, Environmental

Environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...