Epochs

Deep time, walked backwards.

Interactive timelines that start at today and step into the past, one moment at a time. Pick one and begin.

The timelines

7,200,000 years

Humans

An interactive story of human origins

The fossils, remains and discoveries that mark the way back from today to the first hominins, gathered into moments you step through one at a time.

  • From the earliest hominins, 7.2 million years ago, to 2026
  • Readable on a geological or an archaeological framing
  • Epochs and ages set against tools, culture and industry

Walk it backwards

130,000 years · 49 structures

Structures

Structures of human antiquity

Every monument, settlement and earthwork worth arguing about, from Theopetra Cave to the Great Wall — each with its dates, its photographs, and the disputes over both.

  • Göbekli Tepe, Stonehenge, the Egyptian pyramids, Pumapunku, Nan Madol
  • Readable on the conventional chronology or a contested Younger Dryas one
  • Alternate dates shown with their claimant and the mainstream position

Walk it backwards

About

Every timeline here works the same way. You begin at today and press the left arrow to go deeper, one moment at a time, with an axis beneath you showing how far back you have got. None of them is a scrolling article — the point is the walking.

Each also refuses to settle on a single account. A timeline is an argument about what belongs where, and every one here can be read through more than one framing. Where a date is contested, both are shown, along with who advances the claim and what the consensus still holds.