The Meaning Of Deep Time

One of the challenges of communicating Cheddar Man’s significance is the difficulty of making ten thousand years feel real.

Ten thousand years is one hundred centuries.

It is the entire span of recorded human history — from the first clay tablets of Mesopotamia to the present — multiplied by roughly five.

It is more time than has passed since the first cities were built, since the first writing was created, since the first governments were formed.

In ten thousand years, the coastline of Britain has changed substantially as sea levels have risen and as erosion has shaped the cliffs and beaches.