Origins (IBHA Bulletin)

by Lowell Gustafson

In August of 2010, Alessandro Montanari and Walter Alvarez hosted a workshop at the Osservatorio Geologico de Coldigioco, Italy with geological fieldtrips for a group of scholars from various disciplines and continents. Coldigioco was a fitting place to meet for people who all conduct inquiries in their own ways about development over time. The motto of the observatory there is “Ex Libro Lapidum Historia Mundi” (Out of the book of rocks comes the history of the world). Sandro and Walter brought the group to a number of nearby locations where they explained how the rocks we viewed told a history of the cosmos, Earth, and life. It was near the beautiful city of Gubbio, in the Apennine Mountains, where Walter first discovered the evidence of a catastrophic impact of an asteroid about 65 million years ago. Later work showed the collision caused the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and global effects that brought the age of dinosaurs to an end. This event opened up space for the evolution of mammals, eventually leading to humanity.

Back: Craig Benjamin; Left to Right: David Christian, Walter Alvarez, Barry Rodrigue, Cynthia Brown, Fred Spier, Louis Spier, Lowell Gustafson

A thin layer of iridium near Gubbio Italy told skillful geologists about how the stories of the cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity are intertwined. Artist Paula Metallo helped the group at Coldigioco visualize some of the meanings for us of a past that is layered in ancient sea beds that are now mountains. Geology and astronomy, painting and narrative, the sciences and the humanities, intertwined in a dynamic, expanding universe of knowledge. Together, they told a story that does run through Rome to be sure, but also much further back than its ancient empire, through the Apennine Mountains.

The experience at Coldigioco clarified for everyone there that the past is not restricted to the time since humans developed writing. That more recent past is best understood by its being placed within the entire known past as told to us by stones, as well as by fossilized bones, blood, and light. Big history carries us on a most improbable journey from the big bang through stars, Earth, life, and eventually humanity. The realities it presents are a marvel.

Everyone at Coldigioco knew that many others shared their passion for this large sense of how the past has brought us to the present, and catapults us towards the future. So the group sat around Sandro and Paula’s patio table on a number of warm Italian summer afternoons and hammered out the founding of an International Big History Association (IBHA). The vision was for an association in which people from all disciplinary backgrounds and life conditions could contribute to an evidence-based narrative of the natural record of the entire known past and reasoned projections of the future. And in the evenings, after wonderful meals of pasta and wine, Walter and other participants played music on the piano, gently strummed guitars, and sang under a hazy moon. Rigorous science, creative artistry, measurable evidence, beauty, and the delight of sharing interests all entwined.

Since then, the small group has grown to an association with hundreds of members who have held conferences in the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, and next summer in India. A Journal of Big History publishes peer reviewed scholarship and Origins, the group’s bulletin, shares IBHA members’ reflections and expressions. Each unique IBHA member has their own story of how they fit into – and contribute to – a cosmic story of 13.82 billion years, an Earth story of 4.567 billion years, and a human story of 300,000 years. And the IBHA has its own story whose origin took place at the Coldigioco Geological Observatory where we learned the history of the world from the library of the rocks.

Caminos de secularización: Reseña sobre MacroHistoria & Mundo Actual I

We have important news to share with you in light of the Covid-19 Pandemic. We have postponed the 2020 Big History Conference to next year, 2021, and will be adding an exciting worldwide digital component to it. We warmly invite you to the newly re-scheduled big history conference that will be held from 1–5 August 2021.

With Barry Rodrigue at the helm as organizer, the conference will convene at the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts in Pune, Maharashtra, India. The theme of the conference is even more important than ever– Changing the World: Community, Science, and Engagement with Big History.

How should we draw on the sciences in order to engage with the pressing dilemmas of our time, how can we place our own issues within the context of Big History, how do we consider the ways to change the world and build more nurturing, healthy communities? We need to recover a vision of our common humanity and fashion together a shared future. We will need your help with these urgent questions at our 2021 conference.

The conference will follow the format as planned. One of the exciting developments is the addition of an interactive digital component that will allow for electronic engagement around the planet. After the conference, there will be a choice of seminars for folks to attend around India, which highlight the theme of world change through our communities.

Please check in at https://bighistory.org/ to see the latest information on the 2021 big history conference. We ask that you continue to sign up for the conference online. All those who have signed up so far are continued to the 2021 event. Anyone with questions, please contact our organizer, Barry Rodrigue, at rodrigue@archinets.org. We look forward to seeing you in India just over a year from now!