Evolutionary Milestones
= also called: "phase transitions / “biospheric revolutions” / “canonical milestones” / “evolutionary turning points” / “complexity jumps”.
Typology
Andrey Korotayev:
Modis
"Modis “milestones” from his 2002 article in the Technological Forecasting & Social Change:
(1) Origin of Milky Way, rst stars – 10billion years ago
(2) Origin of life on Earth, formation of thesolar system and the Earth, oldest rocks – 4 billion years ago
(3) First eukaryotes, invention of sex (by microorganisms), atmospheric oxygen,oldest photosynthetic plants, plate tectonicsestablished –
2 billion years ago
(4) First multicelluar life (sponges, seaweeds, protozoans) –
1 billion years ago
(5) Cambrian explosion/invertebrates/vertebrates, plants colonize land, rst trees,
reptiles, insects, amphibians –
430 million years ago
(6) First mammals, rst birds, rst dinosaurs
– 210 million years ago
(7) First owering plants, oldest angiosperm
fossil – 139 million years ago
(8) First primates/asteroid collision/mass extinction (including dinosaurs) – 54.6million years ago
(9) First hominids, rst humanoids – 28.5million years ago
(10) First orangutan, origin of proconsul – 16.5 million years ago
(11) Chimpanzees and humans diverge, earliest hominid bipedalism –5.1 million years ago
(12) First stone tools, first humans, Homoerectus – 2.2 million years ago
(13) Emergence of Homo sapiens – 555,000 years ago
(14) Domestication of re/ Homo heidelbergensis – 325,000 years ago
(15) Dierentiation of human DNA types –
200,000 years ago
(16) Emergence of ‘‘modern humans’’/ earliest burial of the dead – 105,700 years ago
(17) Rock art/protowriting –
35,800 yearsago
(18) Techniques for starting re – 19,200 years ago
(19) Invention of agriculture – 11,000 yearsago
(20) Discovery of the wheel/writing/archaic empires/large civilizations/Egypt/ Mesopotamia – 4,907 years ago
(21) Democracy/city states/Greeks/Buddha[≈ Axial Age] – 2,437 years ago
(22) Zero and decimals invented, Rome falls, Moslem conquest – 1,440 years ago
(23) Renaissance (printing press)/discovery of New World/the scientic method – 539 years ago
(24) Industrial revolution (steam engine)/
political revolutions (French, USA) – 225 years ago
(25) Modern physics/radio/electricity/automobile/airplane – 100 years ago
(26) DNA structure described/transistor invented/nuclear energy/WWII/Cold War/ Sputnik – 50 years ago
(27) Internet/human genome sequenced – 5 years ago
Panov
Panov’s list of phase transitions:
“0. The origin of life – 4 · 10 9 years ago. The biosphereafter its appearance was represented by nucleusless procaryotes and existed the rst 2–2.5 billion years without any great shocks.
1. Neoproterozoic revolution (Oxygen crisis) – 1.5 10 9 years ago. Cyanobacteria had enriched theatmosphere by oxygen that was a strong poisonfor anaerobic procaryotes. Anaerobic procaryotesstarted to die out and anaerobic procaryotefauna was changed by an aerobic eucaryote andmulticellular one.
2. Cambrian explosion (The beginning of Paleozoic era) – 590–510 · 10 6 years ago 18. All the modern phyla of metazoa (including vertebrates) appeared during afew of tens of million years. During the Paleozoicera the terra rma was populated by life.
3. Reptiles revolution (The beginning of Mesozoic era) – 235 · 10 6 years ago. Almost all paleozoic Amphibia died out. Reptiles became the leader of the evolution on the terra rma.
4. Mammalia revolution (The beginning of the Cenozoic era) – 66· 10 6 years ago. Dinosaurs died out. Mammalia animals became the leader of the evolution on the terra firma.
5. Hominoid revolution (The beginning of the Neogene period) – 25–20 · 10 6 years ago 19 . A big evolution explosion of Hominoidae (apes). There were 14 genera of hominoidae between 22 and 17 millions years ago – much more than now. The ora and fauna became contemporary. 6. The beginning of Quaternary period (Anthropogene)
–
4.4 · 10 6
years ago
20 . The rst primitive Homo genus (hominidae) separated from hominoidae.7. Palaeolithic revolution – 2.0–1.6 · 10 6
years ago
21 .
Homohabilis
, the rst stone implements.8. The beginning of Chelles period – 0.7–0.6 · 10 6
yearsago
22 . Fire,
Homo erectus
. 9. The beginning of Acheulean period
–
0.4 · 10 6
yearsago
. Standardized symmetric stone implements. 10. The culture revolution of neanderthaler (Mustierculture) – 150–100 · 10 3
years ago
.
Homo sapiensneandertalensis
. Fine stone implements, burial ofdeadmen (a sign of primitive religions).11. The Upper Palaeolithic revolution – 40 · 10 3
yearsago
.
Homo sapiens sapiens became the leader
of cultural evolution. Development of advancedhunter instruments – spears, snares. Imitative art iswidespread.12. Neolithic revolution – 12–9 · 10 3
years ago
. Appropriative economy [foraging] had beenreplaced by productive economy [food production]. 13. Urban revolution (the beginning of the Ancient world) – 4000–3000 B.C.
Appearance of state formations,
written language and the rst legal documents.14. Imperial antiquity, Iron age, the revolution of the Axial time – 800–500 B.C. 23 . The appearance ofa new type of state formations – empires, and aculture revolution. New kinds of thinkers such asZaratushtra, Socrates, Budda, and others.15. The beginning of the Middle Ages – 400–630 CE. 24
Disintegration of Western Roman Empire,widespread Christianity and Islam, domination offeudal economy.
16. The beginning of the New Time [Modern Period],the rst industrial revolution – 1450–1550 CE 25
Appearing of manufacture, printing of books, the New time culture revolution etc.17. The second industrial revolution (steam and electricity) –
1830–1840 26 . Appearance of mechanized industry,the beginning of globalization in the informationeld (telegraph was invented in 1831), etc.18. Information revolution, the beginning of the
postindustrial epoch –
1950 . The main part of
population of industrial countries work in the eldof information production and utilization or in theservice eld, not in the material production”
Comparison
Panov’s list of “biospheric revolutions” diers from the Modis – Kurzweil seriesof “canonical milestones” in many rather signicantways:1) Modis – Kurzweil list contains 27 “canonical milestones”, whereas Panov’s series onlyincludes 20 “biospheric revolutions”. Thus, at least 7 Modis – Kurzweil milestones have no
parallels in the Panov series.2) There is just one “milestone” for which both Modisand Panov have more or less exactly the same
name and date (Modis – Kurzweil 2 = Panov 0). There is also one milestone (Modis – Kurzweil 26 = Panov 18), to which Modis and Panov give the same date, while giving to it totally dierent names. 3) There are a few milestones to which Modis andPanov give distantly similar names and roughly(but not exactly) similar dates (for example, Modis – Kurzweil 23 ≈ Panov 16; Modis –Kurzweil 19 ≈ Panov 12; Modis – Kurzweil 17≈ Panov 11; Modis – Kurzweil 9 ≈ Panov 5). In one case Modis and Panov give to the same milestone (Modis – Kurzweil 5 ~ Panov 2) thesame name, but rather dierent dates.4) However, for very substantial parts of those series the correlation beween them looks very distantindeed.
Source
* Article: Korotayev, Andrey (2018) The 21st Century Singularity and its Big History Implications: A re-analysis. Journal of Big History, II(3); 71 - 118 doi