720 Million Years of Arctic Globalization, from Snowball Earth to the Anthropocene: Insights from Paleohistory

This article extends our time horizon back 720 million years for a deep-historical examination of the interplay of geological, biological, and climatic dynamics to inform our understanding of Arctic globalization across the eons. Starting when Earth was entombed in ice during the Precambrian’s Cryogenian Period (“Snowball Earth”), and continuing through the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) of the Pleistocene (when waves of migrating humans found their way to/through the Arctic) to our own time of the Anthropocene and its polar thaw, we’ll gain new insights into the enduring centrality of Arctic globalization to the human story relevant to our own time.