At the end of the last Ice Age, Britain was joined to mainland Europe by Doggerland, a landscape of hills, lakes and marshes home to hunter-gatherers. Melting ice gradually drowned it, until about 8,000 years ago. Fishing trawlers still haul up animal bones and prehistoric tools in their nets.
Around 2300 BCE, Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, became high priestess of the Moon god at Ur. She composed hymns to the goddess Inanna and put her name to them. She is the oldest person identified as the author of a literary work, about 1,500 years before Homer.
Squeeze Earth's 4.5 billion years into a single 24-hour day. Homo sapiens shows up around 11:59:54 p.m., roughly six seconds before midnight. All of written history, from Sumerian tablets to today, fits into the final tenth of a second. A cosmic blink.