Cthulhu Mythos prehistory

4.6 Billion Years Before Present:
The origin of the planet Earth to the Precambrian; for most of these aeons, the earth is covered by warm, shallow seas from which continents periodically emerge.

3.3 Billion BP:
Earliest known fossil. Discovered in Australia, it appears to be bacterial, possibly a native anaerobic lifeform. Its evolution is stunted by the oxygen-producing and oxygen-using lifeforms later created by the Elder Things.

2 Billion BP:
The Elder things arrive on Earth. Landing in what is now the Antarctic Ocean, they establish an undersea colony. Using organic material mined from the ocean floor, they invoke or generate the primal shoggoth mass called in the Book of Eibon Ubbo-Sathla, the father of all life. Using the shoggoth-spawn of Ubbo-Sathla, the elder things construct their first great undersea city.

1.8 Billion BP:
Earliest fossils of aquatic fungi and algae.

1.4 Billion BP:
Cthulhu and his spawn seep down from the distant star system of Xoth, claiming a huge continent and naming it R'lyeh. War begins with elder things for dominance of the planet.

1 Billion BP:
The elder things make truce with Cthulhu and shortly after begin construction of a surface city in equatorial Antarctica.

850 Million BP:
The Moon is ripped from our planet and in the ensuing catastrophe the black continent of R'lyeh is plunged beneath the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Over the next 300 million years, tidal strains generated by the Moon settling into orbit destroy the original elder thing cities.

750 Million BP:
The mysterious flying polyps arrive on Earth from outer space. Settling on land that far later becomes Australia, they erect great windowless cities of basalt and feed upon the cone-shaped beings they find living there.

570-500 Million BP (Cambrian Period):
From this time come many fossil sponges, trilobites, mollusks, and echinoderms.

500-435 Million BP (Ordovician):
Mountains build in what becomes eastern North America, but most of the continents are still flat. Shallow seas cover much of the globe. The first fossils of primitive vertebrates are laid down, alongside those of early cephalopods. By this time the elder things have spread their great land cities through much of what is to become Africa and South America, with outposts as far away as Great Britain.

485 Million BP:
The minds of the Great Race of Yith travel across time and space to inhabit the bodies of the cone-shaped beings of Australia. The Yithians begin a war of subjugation against the polyps, which are surprised, quickly defeated, and sealed away in subterranean vaults. The Yithians build guard cities atop them.

450 Million BP:
The planet's crust has formed a major continent each in the northern and southern hemispheres. Africa's Sahara is at the South Pole, ice-covered. The two continents slowly move toward each other.

435-395 Million BP (Silurian):
Fossils of the first land plants are deposited in Poland, Australia and the south-eastern United States. At this time central North America is still a vast sea. Volcanic activity increases as the two land masses move closer.

395-345 Million BP (Devonian):
The ancestral Atlantic closes as the two super-continents collide, giving rise to the mountains of Scotland and Scandinavia. Forests of scale-trees and seed-ferns slowly cover the land while the fossils of early spiders and primitive amphibeans are laid down in tropical Greenland. The first sharks swim in the seas.

345-280 Million BP (Carboniferous):
The single continent continues to reshape itself while periodically awash with shallow seas. Low-lying swamplands begin the formation of gigantic coal deposits. The first primitive reptiles emerge at the end of this period.

280-225 Million BP (Permian):
The Appalachian Mountains form, and primitive conifers forest the land. The reptile dominate the land and in the sea; fossils of primitive mammals from the this period can be found in South America and Russia.

275 Million BP:
The beginning of serpent-folk civilization, in Valusia, an area of land later split by the Mediterranean Sea into North Africa and Southern Europe. A parallel race of tail-less reptile men co-exists to the east. These latter, who may or may not be related to the serpent people, built the Nameless City.

250 Million BP:
The shoggoths revolt against their masters. In a war of survival, the elder things finally win victory. The near-exitinction of their slave-beasts signals the decline of the elder things.

225-190 Million BP (Triassic):
This begins the Age of Reptiles. The dinosaurs reign across a huge continent called Pangaea. At this time Japan lies near the North Pole while present-day India is located in the Antarctic. Much volcanic activity occurs as Pangaea buckles and prepares to break apart.

190-136 Million BP (Jurassic):
As the great sauropods and pterodactyls arise, a great east-west crack appears across the continent, seperating North America/Eurasia from South America/Africa. The seperate Antarctic/Australian land mass is at the South Pole. About this time, India breaks loose from it and heads north toward Asia.

160 Million BP:
The Mi-Go, the fungi from Yuggoth, arrive and establish their first colony in Appalachian Mountains. These beings soon war with the elder things in South American and Africa but, as the two land masses seperate, the wars decrease in intensity.

150 Million BP:
At this time the continents of Antarctica and Australia are still connected by a wide strip of land. On this strip the Yithians and elder things fight a great war.

136-65 Million BP (Cretaceous):
Fossils of the first flowering plants come from this period, along with remains of marsupials and the first true birds. By now the new Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea are clearly noticeable while much of central Europe is submerged. Geological forces thrust up the Andes and Rockies. In the Antarctic the largest elder thing city is destroyed by the same earthquake that gives rise to the Mountains of Madness. After the cataclysm the elder things lay the foundation of a new city, the last surface structures they build.

70 Million BP:
A comet or asteroid strikes the Yucatan. Severe climatic consequences accelerate the doom of the dinosaurs. By this time South America and Africa have seperated, as have the continents of Antarctica and Australia. North America has broken free of Europe and is heading westward; Greenland is also freed and sliding north. Africa rotates counterclockwise, seperating from Europe at Gibraltar and then later crashing into the Near East, creating the Alps, Carpathians, and Pyrenees. The tip of the South America touches the Antarctic land mass; decline of Serpent People begins.

65 Million BP:
Mammals become the dominant life-form.

50 Million BP:
The Yithian minds suddenly flee the cone-shaped bodies to inhabit another species existing far in the future of the planet. Deprived of Yithian intelligence, the cone beings are soon overwhelmed and exterminated by the polyps.

40 Million BP:
The Indian sub-continent crashes into the belly of Asia, raising the Himalayan Mountains.

26 Million BP:
The continents approach their present positions.

5 Million BP:
Two land cities of the elder things remain, in Antarctica and the tip of South America. As the climate chills, the elder things construct an undersea Antarctic city.

3 Million BP:
The civilization of the furry pre-humans of Hyperborea (Greenland) begins. They worship Tsathoggua and his spawn.

1.7 Million BP:
The age of the oldest ice yet discovered in Greenland, marking the decline of the furry pre-human civilization.

750,000 BP:
Numerous glaciations have occured in Greenland, but now the Riss episode destroys the human civilizations of Hyperborea and Mhu Thulan.

163,836 BP:
According to some, Mu (in the Pacific Ocean) is sunk by Elder Gods.

11,542 BP:
Some report that in this year Atlantis perished beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

ca 9,000 BP:
First hamlets known in the Middle East.

ca 7,000 BP:
First great cities of Africa and Asia.

ca 5,000 BP:
Height of Sumerian civilization; first dynasty of Egypt; first date in Mayan chronology.

ca 4,500 BP:
Legendary Sage-Kings of China; paper invented.

ca 3,500 BP:
Escape of the Israelites from Egypt; rise of the Phoenicians; fall of Troy.

ca 2,500 BP:
Republic of Rome; Thucylides the Father of History is born.

-Taken from Call of Cthulhu, 5th Edition, by Chaosium Inc. It has been brought to my attention this infringes on copyright laws, so I have alerted Chaosium, and I am awaiting permission (or not).

Incidentally, thats the longest consecutive typing session I've had in a long while-I hope my suffering is not for naught. Please send me any other dates you think important.