The pyramids of Giza were built roughly 4,500 years ago.

The Bronze Age in Europe began approximately 4,500 to 5,000 years ago.

The Roman Empire at its height existed roughly 2,000 years ago.

All of recorded human history — everything we know about human civilization from written records, from stone inscriptions, from administrative documents, from literature — fits within a window of approximately 5,500 years.

The Manis mastodon predates the beginning of that window by more than 8,000 years.

The people who were alive when this mastodon was killed, and who may have been responsible for the bone fragments embedded in its rib, lived in a world that was recognizably different from any world described in any written record.