About fifteen million years ago the area underwent a massive dislocation in a process that extended for ten million years.
First, the massive social dislocations produced by such changes have often led to economic collapse, epidemics, and, most important, widespread famines.
Slavery - "the most massive dislocation of humanity the world has ever seen" - alienated black Americans from their African roots, he asserted.
That is difficult for many people, but its the nature of tecnological revolution that it brings massive economic dislocation to established models.
East Germans fear that the conversion of their socialist economy to a competitive market economy will create massive dislocation and unemployment.
But repairing the Soviet economy will require massive dislocations.
For two and a half years the Empire was subjected to heavy casualties on the battlefield, acute economic austerity, and massive social dislocation.
(More important than averting a massive dislocation in the financial markets?)
This, he argues, results in massive social dislocation, and spontaneous moves by society to protect itself.
We are the living descendants of this massive dislocation of people.