Interesting approach. Doing this for events recent enough to be numbers to estimable is a well-chosen tactic - it gives a basis for estimating earlier millenia.

Interesting approach. Doing this for events recent enough to be numbers to estimable is a well-chosen tactic - it gives a basis for estimating earlier millenia. Leaving out wars, there's a lot of nasty that happened to humanity before 500BCE of course, including countless wars, but also including the Late Bronze Age collapse (around 2200BCE), which it looks like might have been worldwide. Dating tech has advanced greatly recently, so physical causes might eventually be known (quakes, volcanoes, climate change, floods...). But estimating deaths is hard. P.S. Those who've avoided book 'Earth in Upheaval' for some reason (FO Velikovsky?) might consider checking out the first few chapters full of voluminous evidence of past, non-human catastrophes. Regardless of 'explanations', it's an impressive laundry list. (Now available in AI-read audiobook form.)