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A continent is a large geographical region defined by the continental shelves and the cultures on the continent. [1] In the modern day, there are seven continents. However, there have been more continents throughout history. Vaalbara was the first supercontinent. [2] Europe is the newest continent. [3]
Within Africa, Homo sapiens dispersed around the time of its speciation, roughly 300,000 years ago. [ note 1 ] The recent African origin theory suggests that the anatomically modern humans outside of Africa descend from a population of Homo sapiens migrating from East Africa roughly 70–50,000 years ago and spreading along the southern coast ...
This theory suggests that the shapes of continents and matching coastline geology between some continents indicates they were joined together in the past and formed a single landmass known as Pangaea; thereafter they separated and drifted like rafts over the ocean floor, currently reaching their present position.
An 1849 atlas labelled Antarctica as a continent but few atlases did so until after World War II. [114] Over time, the western concept of dividing the world into continents spread globally, replacing conceptions in other areas of the world. The idea of continents continued to become imbued with cultural and political meaning.
That continent began to exert political and cultural dominance over human societies around the world, a time known as the Colonial era (also see Age of Discovery). [ 195 ] : 295–299 In the 18th century a cultural movement known as the Age of Enlightenment further shaped the mentality of Europe and contributed to its secularization .
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500–1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early European modern humans appear in the fossil record about 48,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic era.
Geologic time shown in a diagram called a geological clock, showing the relative lengths of the eons of Earth's history and noting major events The geological history of Earth follows the major geological events in Earth's past based on the geologic time scale , a system of chronological measurement based on the study of the planet's rock ...
Asia and Europe are considered separate continents for historical reasons; the division between the two goes back to the early Greek geographers. In the modern sense of the term "continent", Eurasia is more readily identifiable as a "continent", and Europe has occasionally been described as a subcontinent of Eurasia. [68]