Articles for author: Sameen David

Sameen David

Prehistoric EnvironmentPrehistoric Theories
Geology says Yellowstone sits above one of the largest active volcanic systems on the planet and its last full eruption 640000 years ago would have been heard on the other side of the world

Geology says Yellowstone sits above one of the largest active volcanic systems on the planet and its last full eruption 640000 years ago would have been heard on the other side of the world

Stand on the boardwalk at Yellowstone, watch a geyser explode into the sky, and it all feels playful and harmless, like the planet blowing off a little steam for the tourists. But just beneath your feet sits one of the largest active volcanic systems on Earth, a hidden giant that has shaped continents, changed climates, ...

Sameen David

Prehistoric EnvironmentPrehistoric Theories
What the first sunrise looked like on Earth - four and a half billion years ago the sky was the wrong colour the sun was dimmer and nothing alive yet existed to see it

What the first sunrise looked like on Earth – four and a half billion years ago the sky was the wrong colour the sun was dimmer and nothing alive yet existed to see it

Try to picture a sunrise no human, animal, tree, or even microbe ever saw. The ground is still cooling from a hellish infancy, the oceans are just beginning to collect, and overhead hangs a young, faint Sun in a sky that would look utterly wrong to us. There is no birdsong, no wind in leaves, ...

Sameen David

Prehistoric EnvironmentPrehistoric Theories
Science says the Amazon rainforest was partly planted by prehistoric humans over thousands of years - and that what looks like wilderness is in many places a cultivated ancient landscape

Science says the Amazon rainforest was partly planted by prehistoric humans over thousands of years – and that what looks like wilderness is in many places a cultivated ancient landscape

The next time you picture the Amazon, imagine not an untouched green ocean of trees, but something closer to an ancient, overgrown orchard. Beneath that thick canopy are hidden earthworks, engineered soils, and clusters of food trees that do not look random once you know what to look for. In many places, what appears to ...

Sameen David

Prehistoric Land MammalsPrehistoric Theories
9 Fascinating Theories About the Disappearance of North America's Megafauna

9 Fascinating Theories About the Disappearance of North America’s Megafauna

Picture this: you’re walking across what is now the American Southwest, and towering mammoths roam in herds, giant ground sloths tear at tree branches, saber-toothed cats stalk the grasslands, and armadillo-like glyptodons lumber across the plains. Before around 10,000 years ago, North America was home to many large and exotic creatures like mammoths, gigantic ground-dwelling ...

Sameen David

Prehistoric EnvironmentPrehistoric Theories
The prehistoric megadrought that lasted a million years and reshaped every continent it touched - and the evidence that it drove the evolution of the first upright-walking hominins

The prehistoric megadrought that lasted a million years and reshaped every continent it touched – and the evidence that it drove the evolution of the first upright-walking hominins

Imagine a world where rain simply… stops. Not for a season, not for a decade, but for hundreds of thousands of years at a time. Lakes shrink to salty scars, forests thin out into thorny scrub, and whole ecosystems are squeezed to their breaking point. For early humans and their ancestors, this wasn’t a movie ...