Abstract

This chapter traces the development of the idea of deep time since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment all the way to the beginning of modern historicism and evolutionism. It describes the experiences and theoretical steps that enabled the conceptualisation of a long historical development in four areas: 1. Earth’s geological past and fossils (the archives of nature); 2. The ancient past against the backdrop of literary legacy and tradition (the archives of written history); 3. Cultural prehistory based on material artefacts (the archives of unwritten history); 4. Multilingualism and the history of human speech (the archives of language). It is shown how and why the notion of deep time based on revealed temporal layers and epochs has been of crucial importance to modern historical and biological thought.