Name __________________
Imaginary Clock
Thinking About Time in the Context of Human History
Directions – Read and highlight the following text below. Then follow directions on the backside.
The roots of our history lie so far back it is hard to grasp just how long ago it was. If we think of
a century as a minute on an imaginary clock, 2 ½ minutes ago we had the Industrial
Revolution, 5 minutes ago white Europeans began to settle in the Americas. 15 minutes before
that, Christianity appeared. Just under 1 hour ago the first civilizations emerged in the river
valleys of China, India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, that is, we learned how to produce enough
surplus food to feed more than just our own family, so some people could now do jobs other than
farming, we could live in larger groups, cities, we would develop writing to help us manage our
more complex lives. Two hours ago the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution occurred and we
learned how to farm and live in one place for the first time. About 6 or 7 hours before that,
recognizable human beings of a modern physiological type (standing upright with similar
physical features as modern humans) hunted and gathered in Western Europe. Human like
creatures have been hunting and gathering, lighting fires, speaking, painting caves, and making
simple tools and weapons for about 2 weeks.
So, using our imaginary clock, recognizable humans have been in existence for 2 or 3 weeks,
surviving by moving from place to place following the animals and berries. History is the study
of the records of the past, usually written, and of our 2 to 3 week human past, we learned to
write less than 1 hour ago.
Everything you have ever heard of or studied about our past happened in the last 2 hours. So
after 2-3 weeks of scavenging, what made our whole history as we think of it, possible in the last
2 hours? Our existence has changed so radically, so remarkable since cave dwelling, what made
that possible?
Answer: The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution - the change from the cave dwelling foragers to
the farmers who learned to settle down and produce their own food. The Neolithic Agricultural
Revolution is the biggest revolution in human history without which nothing else would have
happened. (The Industrial Revolution is the second massive change that has propelled humanity
in a new direction.) In your normal way of thinking about it, the Neolithic Agricultural
Revolution happened about 12,000 years ago, an eternity ago, a distant past with little to do with
you and your life today. On our imaginary clock it happened just 2 hours ago.
Thinking History. Research October 20, 2009.
http://www.thinkinghistory.co.uk/ActivityBase/WineGums.html
Directions: Use colored pencils or markers to mark the following events on the clock. This
will show some keys events in the history of humankind condensed in a 12 hour period.
Include the following:
●
●
●
●
●
Date
Time on Clock
The Industrial Revolution
___1750 AD_______ = ___ex. __11:57_____
Columbus travels to North America ___1492 AD ______ = __________________
First Civilizations Emerge
___3000 BC______ = __________________
Neolithic Agricultural Revolution _ 10,000-3000 BC_ = __________________
Old Stone Age or Paleolithic Period ___10,000 BC+_____ = __________________
*Remember each minute equals one century or 100 years. One hour equals 6,000 years.
Therefore, each minute mark on the clock represents 1200 years.