The Time Before History: 5 Million Years of Human Impact

by Colin Tudge

Chronicles the period in evolution during which human beings progressed from simians to hominids, citing the pivotal roles of climate, ecology, and geological movements while predicitng future changes

Genres: Science, History, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Evolution, Nature, Archaeology

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Colin Tudge was educated at Dulwich College, 1954-61; and read zoology at Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1962-65.

Since 1965 he has worked on journals such as World Medicine, New Scientist and Pan, the newspaper of the World Food Conference held in Rome, 1974.

Ever since then he has earned a living by spasmodic broadcasting and a lot of writing—mainly books these days, but with occasional articles. He has a special interest in natural history in general, evolution and genetics, food and agriculture, and spends a great deal of time on philosophy (especially moral philosophy, the philosophy of science, and the relationship between science and religion).

He has two daughters, one son, and four granddaughters, and lives in Oxford with his wife, Ruth (nee West).

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book so long ago but I think it's worth your attention nonetheless. It's one of those non-fiction reads that hasn't left me after all these years as it surfaces every now and then. It was an epic read as I recall. It covers many different fields and toward the end had some salient thoughts about future human history when looking at it from before human history. It asks the question: will there be humans millions of years in the future? It's sort of mind-boggling to think about what life on this planet will be like a million years from now and if humans will be part of the equation.

What, if anything, will survive from our time? What kind of artifacts will future discovers dig up about us and what will they make of it (or will anyone care to make anything of us at all)? Will we be thought of as some primitive species? Will we and all our history, for the most part, become extinct? Will we be forgotten or become some cautionary tale? Will we even be thought of at all? If we are thought of, will it be collectively or as individuals? I mean, when reading this book, these are the kinds of things I thought about. For all our glorification of man's achievements and objectification of other creatures, it would be somehow fitting if we were forgotten completely, as if we never existed. All our grand adventures and discoveries and chasing after this or that - in the end, lost to the trash heap of history. When you look out on the universe, our planet is so insignificant. It's so odd how our heads are so big when our place in the universe is so small.

There have been, what is it, five or six mass extinctions on our planet? The last one, as we all know, was around 65 million years ago where more than two-thirds of all species were wiped out. Where dinosaurs ruled the world before this mass extinction, humans now rule it. But we are only the new kids on the block. It's likely there will be another mass extinction that will wipe out 90-percent of all species. Humans could be one of them (will likely be one of them). But that could be millions of years from now, unless we have the same kind of mass extinction that happened about 200 million years ago that likely involved climate change. It's the meltdown we may be headed to sooner than later if we don't watch how much carbon dioxide we are releasing into the environment. Sea levels rising should concern all of us. It's not some hypothetical, it's real and we could make things worse sooner than later.

We probably weren't due for a mass extinction for tens of millions of years from now, yet we may have created our own wormhole on that count. And we've likely done it over the last 250 years since the advent of the industrial revolution. Think about that. America's history may run parallel to our doom. It's such a short amount of time in the scheme of things and yet, in that short amount of time one creature has done more harm to our planet than in any other time in history. It takes your breath away when you look at it like that.

If we don't kill them all first, I'll bet sharks rule the world next. I mean, some other creature will rule the world after humans, it might as well be sharks. They have survived all other mass extinctions. Well, look at them, they look positively prehistoric don't they? They've seen it all and then some. Humans are just the latest blip on their radar. Who knows, maybe some of our hazardous waste will be part of a cocktail that will evolve sharks out of the water, maybe into the air and onto land. If that happens, all bets are off. Even if they stay in the water, if all land masses are covered with water, they will be it. If we don't make them go extinct first. Humans are their own form of mass extinction when it comes to other creatures. We have no shame in our game on that count.

I've gotten completely off track here. Let me just conclude by saying that this book covers a lot of material in a fair way as I recall. In the end, the author leaves you with all the information and asks that the reader acknowledge what is at risk so that maybe humans play a positive role instead of a self-destructive one.

If you are in San Diego, I donated my two copies of this book to the public library.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't impressed with the writing in the first Tudge book I read, Trees. The subject matter turned out to be fascinating; I learned a great deal about trees, their impact on the environment, and their importance to the biosphere but the booked dragged on and on.

This was not the case with The Time Before History, a terribly interesting look at human evolution and how it's impacted our environment and how it might impact it in the future.

The first half of the book sets the stage, discussing how the environment works, how it changes over time, and the role of animals in regulating it. Tudge makes one of the best defenses of evolutionary biology that I've ever read, and there's a wealth of interesting information that I had not known before. Vid.: I never knew that the upthrust of the Himalayas leached carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, causing a cooling effect (an "icebox world") that forced the early hominids out of the deep jungle and into more open forest lands.

Tudge also makes the most understandable case for the transition from hunting/gathering to farming that I've ever seen. Essentially, it was a combination of three factors: (1) He argues that humans had been opportunistic cultivators for as much as 20 millennia before the Agricultural Revolution c. 10,000 BC; (2) the mass of land under cultivation reached a critical point where it was interfering with traditional hunting lands; and (3) there was a climate shift that further reduced the availability of prey and made humans more dependent on crops. These factors tipped the balance permanently toward agriculture and was the key to (as the Pentagon might say) Man's "full spectrum dominance" of his environment. From an individual point of view, farming 'sucks' -- it's hard physical labor and subject to the fickle whims of uncaring Nature and (if that weren't bad enough) it ushered in an era of physical disability (diseases, malnutrition, etc.) and social stratification (all the ills of urban civilization we've been trying to cope with since Sumer, at least). From an evolutionary point of view, however, it gave our species the definitive edge over all others and it gave farmers (as a group) the edge over hunters, pushing them to the periphery.

The last chapter of the book takes a look at where Man is headed in the next 500-1,000 years and a million. Here I think Tudge is a bit optimistic. He sees population topping out around 10-12 billion and then slowing falling back toward 5-6 billion over the next 5 centuries or so, and that in the long term, humanity and Earth will reach an equilibrium: We're going to lose a lot more biomass before things settle out but we'll survive it.

To get there, though, he argues that we need to cultivate an "economy of reverence" rather than an "economy of exploitation." Exploitative economies have succeeded in the past because there's been vast scope for waste -- before the modern era, localities often exhausted their resources but overall there was scope for expansion and experimentation. Today, the situation is far different and exploitation is a recipe for disaster -- there's no more room to waste. Of coures, we've seen a move toward economies of reverence in the last few years but I'm afraid it's the usual human reaction of "too little, too late" and our future is going to look a lot more like Soylent Green than Star Trek.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. One on hand, I very much enjoy Tudge's personality, sympathize with many of his opinions and his authorial predilections (he has no qualms about speculating in areas in which he lacks technical expertise), and find the material very interesting. On the other hand, I often felt like the book failed to live up to my expectations of it, that Tudge was simply doing a bland and mediocre job of telling the stories. I feel that his tendency to organize things in lists and transparent outlines is a poor model for maintaining interest, and I skimmed many of the middle chapters, in which Tudge waxes poetic about his favorite Pleistocene mammal taxa.

I came into the book looking for precisely what he claimed to be providing: a history of human social and biological evolution with a grander scope than is the norm, starting way back with the radiation of mammals in the Cenozoic, tracing our evolution through the emergence of primates and the convoluted, much-debated path from proto-primates to [i]homo sapiens[i/]. He examines the climatic and ecological conditions that shaped early hominids.

He goes on to discuss the potential ecological impacts of early humans (chiefly the Pleistocene Overkill hypothesis), agriculture, and the modern industrial extinction event. His speculations and observations are astute and interesting. However, his ideas about the modern event fall a bit flat for some reason. I guess I'm used to much more polemic writers. He's sort of "British" in that sense - he's rather melancholic, and pessimistic overall. There is no urge for the reader to go out and do something to stop the killing. I tend to think such a plea is in order, but I can see why he'd not think that worthwhile. I am pessimistic sometimes too!

Tudge includes a bevy of interesting scientific concepts and explains them all concisely and clearly. This is an admirable accomplishment, and it makes the book a pleasure to read, since it's full of these little nuggets of interest. These concepts range from the idea of an ecomorph to island dwarfism to climate change due to silicate weathering.

Tudge also does a very good job of presenting scientific conversations rather than scientific "dogma" - a seemingly easy mistake to make in popular science writing, since while scientists know EVERYTHING is provisional and we really know very little with certainty, lay readers have come to use scientific discoveries to inform much of their worldview, and thus place much faith in its dictates. Every hypothesis is presented as a product of named scientists, and the alternatives are always discussed in more or less equal length. Tudge makes clear which ideas he favors, but lays it all on the table for the reader to "decide" if he or she so chooses.

Yet overall there was something missing in this formula, though I can't quite place it. It may not have taken enough liberties, may not have left enough out, to make a cohesive narrative.

[David Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not so much a review as a note: among his other perspicacious observations, Tudge argues that it was not humans' competitiveness, but their ability to hunt in groups and communicate with one another that turned them into apex predators. A hunting band not only has strength in numbers, but can support itself while it follows wounded animals to the point where they finally drop dead. There's a good reason* why so many megafauna go extinct within a few centuries of humans' introduction to a new biosphere.


* Cooperation is very helpful, but we should not discount the importance of fire and projectile weapons, either; see Alfred Crosby's THROWING FIRE (2002).

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not what I expected; I thought it would be focused entirely on prehistoric humans, but humans didn't really make an appearance until halfway through the book. But it was so entertaining and informative, I didn't mind at all. Mr Tudge, I wish you lived nearby so I could take you out for drinks and a nice long chat. Instead, I will read all of your books.

[Brendan Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glad I read it.

Got 342 pages deep, covered all of pre-history, history, took a swing at solving the next million years, and then clearly mixed up Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner with Tom & Jerry.

I’m sorry, what?

He specifically mentions Death Valley.

[Jafar · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few weeks ago during a lunch conversation a colleague mentioned something about Neanderthals having lived in Africa. I was horrified by his getting such a simple fact wrong, but it then occurred to me that people have better things to do than reading about evolutionary anthropology. However, if you don’t want to make silly mistakes about the history of our species, this is the kind of book you should read.

Tudge starts and ends the book by emphasizing that a true unit of time for history should be at least a million years, if we want to get a meaningful picture of how things have been and how they will be. This book is more than just the history of H. sapiens. It also illustrates how geology, climate, and atmosphere have been changing, and how they affected our history and evolution, and how beholden life in general is to unpredictable and uncontrollable large-scale natural changes. You can find some good discussions about climate change from 15 years ago, before the issue became too heated and political.

[Rupert Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating.
This book has its great points, but also has a fewdrawbacks too. I've got the 1995 edition and its later pages are rater out of date. He goes off on one about climate change, species extinction and related subjects but both his data and thinking are now out of date .
Nevertheless, the first 80% of the book are dealing with the past and are great. A really good overview of how the evolution of humanity has impacted on other animal and plant species, as well as how other species and the environment have affected the evolution of mankind.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This looked like a good informative read on early human history. I ended up scanning large parts that got into details of various species and such that did not interest me. However, at the heart, it was interesting in respect to the evolution of man. I liked the writing style; the author is frank about what is fact and what is his opinion and preferences as to theories. I would give it a better rating except for the need to scan so much material that got tedious.

[Richard Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

A worthwhile read but with the advancement of DNA research, this book published in 1996 is getting rapidly outdated. It is not that the material presented is being proven wrong, rather the newly found data is allowing the scientist to make factual statements instead of just educated speculations. This seems to be a rapidly changing field of study of which this book is a part.

[Tony Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, a complete reunderstanding of the descent of man and life on earth around him.

[Clivemichael · Rating 4 out of 5]

large accumulation of likely conjectures, wordy but enlightening, dated and gently hopeful.

[Darth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tried this book after talking to my girlfriend's dad one day, about whether he thought people had much to do with global warming. I am interested in educated opinions about this, because I always thought it was weird how they teach us in school that there are ice age and warming / Milankovitch cycles, and that they are a natural part of the world - and one the other hand, we are always getting people screaming the ice is falling at the top of their lungs, and telling me it is my fault because I drive a pickup (dirty hippies). I was expecially interested in his opinion, because he is Dr Neil West, and spent 40 years as a Professor or Rangeland Studies at USU in Logan UT. Surprisingly he mostly agreed with me, and suggested I give this book a read.

It starts out interesting enough, with a very alternative view on the people we so often call ANCIENT. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the like. It points out that they were in fact very modern, and riding at the head of an advanced and sophisticated culture. It is easy for us to think of them as quaint because they didnt have ipads or wireless doo-dads of questionable usefulness like we do. But their technology and lifestyle were the culmination of all that came before and frankly MOST people alive today, would be hard pressed to imitate it if dropped off in the bush somewhere.

That said, after a gripping premise, and a great setup that left me ready to hear all about US people - the first half of the book jumps off the rails and goes on to talk about how people almost wiped out all life on earth with CFCs, and the varied and sundry forms of life that ran wild on the various continents before we arived on the scene. Not BORING topics per se, but not what I signed on to read about. Okay, and maybe just a little boring to endure for a full half of this book. Sure it is interesting that all those different things lived, but I picked up a book about 5 million years of human impact, and the first HALF is talking about exstinct forms? I really didnt follow the logic in this.

Once the action moves on to us or our forebears, it actually turns into a LESS interesting read, as most of what is there, you probly have read before, and / or is speculation with little or no science to back it. It has it's points, and I dont know if my own expectations coming in had more to do with my disappointment - but it seems reasonable to me that if your premise is about our impact on the world, you might bring more to bear than a speculative court case in which we are on trial for killing off extinct species. In fairness, the author is better than most about admitting when he is speculating. But it still felt a bit hollow to me. Ecologies are complex, by the authors own admission, and to guess that people directly caused so many species to end without more than the thin reasons presented is specious...

The final quarter is kinda of a pie in the sky pipe dream about how we can do all this stuff to keep more species from going under - including us. That might be too harsh, but then again, it might not be.
The things outlined will not happen, it is not in human nature to do such things as produce less, conserve more, and be interested in the fate of anyone or any thing not on TV or in the movies.
More people vote for American Idol than for president, and the trend isnt away from this type of vapidity...

All that said, I liked this book, I just didnt REALLY like it, or love it. Maybe if it was titled - A BRIEF HISTORY OF EARTH: AND WHAT I THINK PEOPLE NEED TO DO TO SAVE OURSELVES AND OTHERS, then at least going in I would have had a more realistic feeling for what was coming.

[JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is easily the best summary of evolution, ecology, and classification that I have encountered. Tudge presents a balanced view by presenting all of the competing theories regarding such matters as continental drift, the evolution of various species, and the history of man during the millions of years previous to "history." He then synthesizes the various elements and brings out the implications on our current course (as we will repeat ancient history too). The last part of his book comes as somewhat of a surprise as he then argues adamantly for tight controls on population, conservation, and the environment. The views are supported by the hypothesis that man has already destroyed much of Earth's fauna, but this still represents the arrogant perspective that we own evolution and nature. Regarding the ideas themselves, I found much of it intriguing (e.g. it sparked ideas about object-oriented simulation). His combining the various theories on human evolution into an expanded candelabra hypothesis makes sense. The modern refinements on classical evolution involve the addition of game theory (species prevail over another by being better able to make it through hard times and thus gaining in territory). There are also a good number of basic ecological principles expounded, regarding predators tending to hunt for their own size, carnivores having to take bigger risks, species numbering in proportion to their size. Humans are presented as having come about because the swinging arms of apes were needed to be used in other ways once we came back to the ground -- to make tools and throw missiles. According to Tudge, we are the ultimate generalists and that has meant worldwide success for us and the devastation of other species, including the giant sloths, mammoths, and baby elephants that were all allegedly still in North America at even the beginning of "ancient" history. I can't close without touching on the declared impact of contintental drift, creating mountains and islands, causing the necessary separation of clades and joining (around to the other side of the earth) and providing explanation for the Biblical phenomena of floods. The effect of the Himalaya's on the climate is not quite defended yet but is an interesting speculation. The "overkill hypothesis" -- that we became completely dominant with farming, communication, roads, and tools -- is credible and leaves me in thought about whether such superiority does call for a better approach to active management.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deals mostly with climate, climatic changes and human response to those changes over prehistory. The author’s goal is lofty, but he wishes to give the reader a deeper understanding through a widened perspective. He also makes the point repeatedly that humans have outcompeted many of the other species on the planet, concluding that wherever we humans have gone, animals species–especially large land animal–have disappeared.

According to the jacket blurb, author Colin Tudge has a degree in natural sciences from Cambridge University. He paints in words a picture of the earth's processes forever in motion. For example, the collision of the Indian subcontinent with mainland Asia raised the Himalayas and made the world an "icebox" roughly 40 million years ago. Overall, his outlook seems dark, however, and the author speaks very strongly–if less than optimistically–for conservation and respect of the earth's bountiful but limited resources.

One chapter on farming is titled "The End of Eden." Tudge maintains that what is often called the Agricultural Revolution was not quick, nor were people all that enthusiastic about becoming settled
agriculturists. It is hard work, with uncertain results. "...Farming, in its early days," he says, "seemed to offer very little advantage indeed. In fact, more and more evidence suggests that is was ghastly."

Please read the rest of the review here.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is interesting in both topic and scope. The main thrust is to examine the Earth, and our earliest ancestors, through their long, slow climb out of the mud. While we consider the Greeks, or the Assyrians to be "ancient" people, this book shows that even they rose on the backs of a much larger stage.

Overall, this is a good "all-inclusive" book meant to bring the scope of many scientific disciplines into a public eye. It is sweeping in its coverage of the development of the Earth; from continental drift, to environmental changes, to the forces of evolution...and then onto our early ancestors and what their life was like in these environments.

I read through this pretty quickly. Most of it was a refresher. I learned new things, to be sure...and I imagine most people would. If you are already familiar with our long history, evolution and its forces, different species of early human, etc...this is one you could skip. If not, this is a great introduction that mostly succeeds in it's lofty goals to cover 5 million years of our earliest history. Well written with a general audience in mind.

Oh...and if you happen to think the Earth is only 6,000 years old; expect a lot of cognitive hiccups.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book about humans in prehistoric times. Naturally, a lot of it was speculation, but educated speculation. The parts I found the most interesting were about agriculture and how it did not, in all likelihood, suddenly get "discovered" 10,000 years ago and then boom, nobody ever went back to hunting and gathering ever again. Instead, agriculture was probably practice small-scale and in concert with hunting/gathering for a long time before it made sense to actually settle down and stay in one place in large numbers, farm, and create cities and civilizations. I also appreciated the author's tendency to place prior incarnations of us in the context of "would you do a double-take if you saw them on the subway" - since I often wonder just how different Homo erectus or some other variant would have seemed in a crowd of Homo sapiens. I think this would be an interesting read to those besides me who have always wondered just what was going on prior to recorded history.

[Jessica Mccarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is amazing. Colin Tudge's ability to educate laypeople (laypersons?) about the elements that make up the universe, the processes that developed life on our planet, life science in general-- is so welcome in my world!

The most useful thing I learned from this book was how to concretely understand time in terms of millions and billions of years. It has given me a framework for many conversations with my son.

The Time Before History came to me from a random source. I was swimming with my dog (now so geriatric) at Barton Springs and this man struck up a conversation with me about the book he was reading. He was home from working on a project in Palenque and was prepping for a trip to see his son who was in Alaska for the summer before returning to MX. We talked at length about environmental concerns and then he let me check out this book. I ordered it the next day. He is someone I never encountered again, but he gave me a great gift in discovering Colin Tudge.

[John Tarttelin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very stimulating read which covers many aspects of evolution, ecology and nature in general, with the emphasis on human evolution and the impact humans have had on the planet and on other creatures. Climate change is mentioned in relation to species extinction as are the regular bombardment of the globe by asteroids and meteorites that occur every 26 million years. In particular, the author describes how the spread of humanity and the massive rise in human numbers had adversely affected other creatures and the viability of the ecosystem as a whole. When the book was written in 1995 world population was about 5 billion. It is now over 7.3 billion. The growth in human numbers and the destruction of forests and wilderness areas means that tens of thousands of other species are in real danger of extinction. The future lies in our hands - which is perhaps the most worrying thing of all...

[Elaine Pawlak · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book speaks of the most dramatic periods in the 4 billion-year-long history of
The author describes the period from 5 million years past to the birth of civilization
l0,000 years ago. He describes the many ice ages, the clash of continents and of the diversity of mammals, birds, and modern reptiles to which the turbulence gave rise. He also describes the period in which our human ancestors started as a group of undistinguished neo-apes occupying a small slice of Africa and ending up as people.
Tudge makes science very interesting and readable.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This non-fiction book is an easy read about the evolutions of humans and other life forms in the period of the Plio/Pleistocene (5 million years ago)to the birth of civilization around 10,000 years ago.

This book is not a yawn!!! If you travel, you will see geography, animals, and a country's history with new eyes after reading this book.

I found it fascinating and a quick read.

[Elaine Pawlak · Rating 5 out of 5]

The human race is merely l.5 to 2.0 millions years old. Considering the dinosaurs
became extinct 65 millions years ago, we are very new to our planet and I hope we
can survive as long as the dinosaurs.

[David Sneed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. It covers everything from Co2 and the Tibetan Plateau to the eventual extinction of man. I guess that's not a very descriptive range. It covers everything you never thought to ask about the existence of life on Earth.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very good. It suffers from being a bit out of date in some of the details, and I think a few pictures would be a big help as well. I spent a fair amount of time looking up various prehistoric creatures online as they came up in the book.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a neat book -- it gives you a good sense of the many amazing animals that came and went in the 5 million years before we showed up.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

intriguing, well considered look at another version of history. could have lived without the environmentalist sidesteps...

[Daniel Ragsdale]

Fascinating!

[Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is highly variable. It is an interesting perspective at a timescale that is extremely long by human standards and trivially short by geologic standards. My favorite parts are the discussions of the way the different mammal lineages have branched and spread over the last tens of millions of years. Other topics like the way early humans may or may not have been able to cause a "Pleistocene overkill" leading to many extinctions are also interesting.

The thing that makes this book a little more unusual is the extent to which the author inserts his personal "voice" to frame and editorialize the content. The author is an intelligent and thoughtful guy, so sometimes this is interesting. However, at other times it is less welcome. For example, some of his more ambitious thoughts on conservation seem more like a science-fiction vision of an imaginary future than actual public policy ideas (although to his credit, he does acknowledge that).