7th Millennium BC - Environmental Changes

Environmental Changes

Holocene Epoch

↑ Pleistocene
Holocene/Anthropocene
Preboreal (10.3 ka – 9 ka), Boreal (9 ka – 7.5 ka), Atlantic (7.5 ka – 5 ka), Subboreal (5 ka – 2.5 ka) Subatlantic (2.5 ka – present)

c. 7000 BC: Wild horse populations drop in Europe proper; horse disappears from the island of Great Britain, but was never found in Ireland. (Horse & Man, Clutton-Brock) Extinction probably caused by climatic shift, leading to excessively rich spring feed and mass lameness from founder, making them easy prey (Bolich & Ingraham)
c. 7000 BC: English Channel formed
c. 7000 BC: Neolithic Subpluvial begins in northern Africa
6440±25 BC: Kurile volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula has VEI 7 eruption. It is one of the largest of the Holocene epoch
6250 BC: Eruptions occur in the Indian Heaven Volcanic field located in central Washington State.
c. 6200 BC: The 8.2 kiloyear event was a sharp decrease in global temperatures that lasted for 2-4 hundred years, possibly caused by an influx of glacial meltwater into the North Atlantic ocean.
c. 6100 BC: The Storegga Slide, causing a megatsunami in the Norwegian Sea
c. 6000 BC: Rising sea levels form the Torres Strait, separating Australia from New Guinea
c. 6000 BC: Between 12,000 BC and 5000 BC it appears that massive inland flooding was taking place in several regions of the world, making for subsequent sea level rises which could be relatively abrupt for many worldwide.