How these dates were made
Why this bar's edges are floors, not a founding and a fall.
The atlas draws the world at 2 moments in time, not continuously. This bar runs from the first snapshot in which Hunters-gatherers appears to the last, so both edges are floors — the earliest and latest years it is attested, not a founding and a dissolution.
Elsewhere in Africa at the time
Records whose own span overlaps this one, found by the same test the canvas draws with. The bar under each card is where it sits inside this one.
Landmark · Africa
Taï National Park
3000 BCE – still standingPolity · Africa
Saharan Pastoral Nomads
Attested 2000 BCE – 200 BCELandmark · Africa
Rwenzori Mountains
3000 BCE – still standingPolity · Africa
Khoisan
Attested 3000 BCE – 2000 BCELandmark · Africa
Serengeti National Park
3000 BCE – still standingPolity · Africa
Bantu
Attested 3000 BCE – 2000 BCELandmark · Africa
Victoria Falls
3000 BCE – still standingLandmark · Africa
Table Mountain
3000 BCE – still standingDated moments inside this span
Events the timeline places between 3000 BCE and 2000 BCE.
And in the rest of the world
Records running through the same years, on the other side of the map.
Image credits6 pictures from Wikimedia Commons
- Taï National Parkyakovlev.alexey from Moscow, Russia · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Rwenzori MountainsNick06 · CC BY-SA 3.0
- KhoisanIan Beatty from Amherst, MA, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Serengeti National ParkBjørn Christian Tørrissen · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Victoria FallsDiego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Table MountainDanie van der Merwe from Cape Town, South Africa · CC BY 2.0