prehistory: October 2007 Archives
London is a very ancient city - but just how ancient is it? If you
were to stand on the spot where Trafalgar Square is now, 4.5 billion
years ago, what would you see?
For a start, you had better be wearing asbestos shoes, because London then was simply a semi-solid lake of magma! Getting about would be a problem, because as well as there being no taxis, no Underground, and no buses, London didn't even have any streets. If you did try and build a street, any tarmac you laid would instantly melt - and besides, there would be nowhere for the street to go to or come from.
Even breathing would be difficult. You might think that today's pollution is bad for your asthma, but 4.5 billion years ago, the air in London was a dense fog of sulphur, volcanic ash and poison. It's difficult to say what the main cause of death for Londoners in those days would have been - asphyxiation and horribly burned legs would probably have set in at about the same time.
This never happened.
Jump forwards half a billion years and things are slightly more hospitable in the capital. The ground is now solid rock, although it's stormy and there are still enough volcanoes to give you a nasty cough. But there, in front of you - perhaps on the very spot where Nelson's Column now stands - is a small, warm, soupy pool. Dip your finger in and lick it - there's water, certainly, salt - rather too much - diluted ash, and, crucially, the long-chain molecules we call proteins, such as thiamine, niacin and riboflavin. Suddenly, there's a huge flash and crash of lightning - you're thrown backwards by the blast, knock your head on a rock and pass out! Coming to, you see that the pool is glowing - the lightning must have hit it directly! Peering in, you can just see tiny, translucent little blobs swimming around. Even though they're not wearing bowler hats, could they be the very first Londoners? Created in this pool of electric gravy?
Scientists aren't 100% sure if that is the way London life began, but hop forward to just 200 million years ago and the picture is much clearer. Now, appearing in Trafalgar Square, you might find yourself snug in the cosy warmth of a pterodactyl's nest, or balancing precariously astride a mighty stegosaurus - for this is the age of the dinosaurs! Of course, the capital was very different from nowadays in many important respects, but you couldn't fail to find the sheer bustle of Jurassic London familiar. The huge, long-necked herbivores such as brontosauruses and brachiosauruses were as big as London buses, and indeed fossil footprints show that they moved slowly up and down what is now The Strand with much the same regularity as actual buses do today. Icthyosauruses and plesiasaurs filled the Thames just as boatmen and barges would in later years. And who couldn't help but note the similarities between the ruthless tyrannosaurs and cunning velocoraptors of the Jurrasic and the city bankers and politicians we love to hate today?!?!?
So, London's roots stretch right back into the deep past, to when our Earth was formed in a furnace of fiery goo. But what with global warming and stuff, could we be seeing the return of such inhospitable conditions? And what about the dinosaurs? Will they once again roam up and down The Strand, breathing flames? Let's hope so!
For a start, you had better be wearing asbestos shoes, because London then was simply a semi-solid lake of magma! Getting about would be a problem, because as well as there being no taxis, no Underground, and no buses, London didn't even have any streets. If you did try and build a street, any tarmac you laid would instantly melt - and besides, there would be nowhere for the street to go to or come from.
Even breathing would be difficult. You might think that today's pollution is bad for your asthma, but 4.5 billion years ago, the air in London was a dense fog of sulphur, volcanic ash and poison. It's difficult to say what the main cause of death for Londoners in those days would have been - asphyxiation and horribly burned legs would probably have set in at about the same time.
This never happened.
Jump forwards half a billion years and things are slightly more hospitable in the capital. The ground is now solid rock, although it's stormy and there are still enough volcanoes to give you a nasty cough. But there, in front of you - perhaps on the very spot where Nelson's Column now stands - is a small, warm, soupy pool. Dip your finger in and lick it - there's water, certainly, salt - rather too much - diluted ash, and, crucially, the long-chain molecules we call proteins, such as thiamine, niacin and riboflavin. Suddenly, there's a huge flash and crash of lightning - you're thrown backwards by the blast, knock your head on a rock and pass out! Coming to, you see that the pool is glowing - the lightning must have hit it directly! Peering in, you can just see tiny, translucent little blobs swimming around. Even though they're not wearing bowler hats, could they be the very first Londoners? Created in this pool of electric gravy?
Scientists aren't 100% sure if that is the way London life began, but hop forward to just 200 million years ago and the picture is much clearer. Now, appearing in Trafalgar Square, you might find yourself snug in the cosy warmth of a pterodactyl's nest, or balancing precariously astride a mighty stegosaurus - for this is the age of the dinosaurs! Of course, the capital was very different from nowadays in many important respects, but you couldn't fail to find the sheer bustle of Jurassic London familiar. The huge, long-necked herbivores such as brontosauruses and brachiosauruses were as big as London buses, and indeed fossil footprints show that they moved slowly up and down what is now The Strand with much the same regularity as actual buses do today. Icthyosauruses and plesiasaurs filled the Thames just as boatmen and barges would in later years. And who couldn't help but note the similarities between the ruthless tyrannosaurs and cunning velocoraptors of the Jurrasic and the city bankers and politicians we love to hate today?!?!?
So, London's roots stretch right back into the deep past, to when our Earth was formed in a furnace of fiery goo. But what with global warming and stuff, could we be seeing the return of such inhospitable conditions? And what about the dinosaurs? Will they once again roam up and down The Strand, breathing flames? Let's hope so!
