A timeline of evolutionary events: big picture persepectives for health professionals who care for parents and infants
In the years to come, our education systems, including health professional training, will better focus on the great evolutionary and sociocultural powers that have brought us humans to this extraordinary moment in evolutionary time.
An understanding of evolution will help us create a better future and better health systems - in which we offer, for example, better, more holistic and effective care for families with breastfeeding and infant care challenges. A big picture perspective also helps us find the courage to think and practice differently to others, when necessary, to shift paradigms in alignment with our values, safety, and what we know from the science is in the best interests of families.
| Estimated number of years ago | Evolutionary leap |
|---|---|
| 13.8 billion | Primeval flaring forth of the Universe ('Big Bang') |
| 13.3 billion | Primordial plasma coalesces into stars and galaxies (two trillion galaxies, each one containing perhaps 200 billion stars) |
| 4.5 billion | Our Earth (molten rock) begins to rotate around the Sun |
| 4 billion | Minerals on our Earth converge into spherical membranes, inside which molecules interact to become the first single celled organisms - probably in freshwater pools on the Earth's surface. That is, bacteria (single cell organisms) literally emerged out of rocks and molecular chemical reactions, and were the first life on Earth |
| 250 million | Mammals (a kind of vertebrate) feed their young with immune secretions from a modified oil gland |
| 7 million | Our ancestral hominins separated as a distinct kind of primate from the chimpanzees and bonobos and stood on two legs. That is, they become bipedal |
| 2 million | Hominins use stone tools |
| 300,000 | Homo sapiens (our species) becomes the first species to transcend natural selection: instead of evolving through the slow anatomic variations of natural selection, which takes millions of years, we adapt and spread rapidly into different biomes because of three unique characteristics. (1) invention of tools and technologies (e.g. earlier hominins and then Homo sapiens capture fire as the tool which makes spread into cold biomes possible),(2) symbolic communication and the cultural heredity of knowledge (oral then written then digital stories), and (3) our ensuing genius for applying collective intelligence. |
| 160,000 - 70,000 BCE | Earlier hominims and then Homo sapiens begin migrations out of Africa in waves from around 160,000 BCE, with a particularly dramatic wave about 70,000 years ago carrying us into most parts of the planet. This latter wave of migration quickly populates Australia |
| 6000 | Biomes face population pressure from humans, so we form agricultural settlements and cities. Writing develops in Neolithic and classical civilisations to capture stories, so that sharing stories (passing on cumulative cultural inheritance of knowledge) is suddenly exponentially quicker and has greater reach, accelerating technological developments |
| 350 | Western Europeans drive the industrial and scientific revolutions; the printing press; modern scientific (Western industrial) consciousness is born. |
| 65 | Scientists detect cosmic background microwave radiation from the Primeval Flaring Forth (Big Bang) in 1964, which is how humans discover that we live in a time developmental universe. In following decades, stunning exponential acceleration of culturally acquired knowledge culminates in a 'planetary nervous sytem' of collective intelligence which wraps around the Earth (through trade and digital connectivity) and is currently undergoing breathtaking development into the genius (and threat) of artificial intelligence. In the same time span, our scientists tells us that we face climate crisis, catastrophic species extinction and biome destruction, due to our failure - so far - to understand that we are part of the Earth and the Earth's evolution. The breathtaking brilliance of human collective intelligence now controls the fate of all species and of life on Earth itself. Macroscale wisdom including a deep understanding of our relationship with the planet and how we as humans have exploded free of the constraints of natural selection to hold the future of the planet in our hands is urgently required. Those of us who are nurturing a child, and those of us who support families who are nurturing a child, are creating the future of the planet. |
Recommended resources
Evolutionary biology basics for health professionals who work with parents and infants
Busting myths about evolutionary biology and infant care generally
Breastfeeding durations in ancestral environments. A little extra something - part 3
Busting myths about evolutionary biology and breastfeeding
Breastfeeding medicine research in context: a relational evolutionary process
