A Brief History of Intelligence — five breakthroughs on the tree of life
Every station is a breakthrough in how brains work. Open one: its lineage lights up on the tree and the page unfolds.
About this map
Tree geometry generated from a hand-curated phylogeny with approximate divergence dates, drawn as a radial time tree — distance from the centre is age. Dates are editorial approximations for reading, not a published timetree. No assets from any third-party tree are used.
Drag to pan · scroll or pinch to zoom · “3D view”, then shift-drag or two fingers to tilt and turn. Click a numbered node or its card to open a breakthrough.
Hold a station’s card and drag it to move it off the branches underneath; it stays where you put it as the map pans, zooms, tilts and turns. “Reset layout” hands the cards back to the placement solver.
“3D view”, then shift-drag / two fingers to tilt & turn