Timeline of human prehistory
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Main article: Stone Age
For earlier events, see Timeline of natural history.
This timeline of human prehistory comprises the time from the first appearance of Homo sapiens in Africa 200,000 years ago to the invention of writing and the beginning of history. It covers the time from the Middle Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) to the very beginnings of the Bronze Age. The divisions used are those delineating the European Stone Age; however, many regions around the world underwent various stages of Stone Age development at different times. All dates are approximate and based on research in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, genetics, geology, and linguistics. They are all subject to revision based on new discoveries or analyses.
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[edit] Middle Paleolithic
Main article: Middle Paleolithic
- 200,000 years ago: appearance of Homo sapiens in Africa
- 150,000 years ago: time of mitochondrial Eve
- 125,000 years ago: peak of the Eemian Stage interglacial
- 100,000 years ago: earliest estimate for the domestication of dogs
- 90,000 years ago: time of Y-chromosomal Adam
- c. 75,000 years ago: Toba Volcano supereruption.[1]
- 60,000 years ago: out of Africa migration of modern humans; approximate age of Haplogroup N (mtDNA), Haplogroup C (mtDNA) and Haplogroup A (mtDNA)
- 50,000 years ago: Modern humans spread from Africa to the Near East; age of Haplogroup B (mtDNA)[2] In the next millennia, these human group's descendants move on to southern India, the Malay islands, Australia, Japan, China, Siberia, Alaska, and the northwestern coast of North America.[2] Later Stone Age begins in Africa.
[edit] Upper Paleolithic
Main article: Upper Paleolithic
- 40,000 years ago: Cro-Magnon colonisation of Europe. Megalania dies out.
- 35 000 years ago: oldest known figurative art (Venus of Hohle Fels), age of the Aurignacian culture
- c. 32,000 years ago: Aurignacian culture begins in Europe.
- 31,000 years ago: oldest known cave paintings
- 30,000 years ago: approximate age of Haplogroup X (mtDNA) and Haplogroup I (mtDNA). A herd of reindeer is slaughtered and butchered by humans in the Vezere Valley in what is today France.[3]
- 29,000 years ago: extinction of Homo neanderthalensis.
- c. 28,500 years ago: New Guinea is populated by colonists from Asia or Australia.[4]
- c. 28,000-20,000 years ago: Gravettian period in Europe. Harpoons, needles, and saws invented.
- c. 26,000 years ago: Women around the world use fibers to make baby-carriers, clothes, bags, baskets, and nets.
- 25,000 years ago: first colonisation of North America. A hamlet consisting of huts built of rocks and of mammoth bones is founded in what is now Dolni Vestonice in Moravia in the Czech Republic. This is the oldest human permanent settlement that has yet been found by archaeologists.[5]
- 22,000 years ago: the oldest known tally stick (the Ishango Bone)
[edit] Mesolithic
Main article: Mesolithic
- c. 20,000 years ago: Chatelperronian culture in France.[6] Kebaran culture in the Levant.
- c. 16,000 years ago: Wisent sculpted in clay deep inside the cave now known as Le Tuc d'Audoubert in the French Pyrenees near what is now the border of Spain.[7]
- 15,000 years ago: The woolly rhinoceros goes extinct.
- c. 14,800 years ago: The Humid Period begins in North Africa. The region that would later become the Sahara is wet and fertile, and the Aquifers are full.[8]
- 12,000 years ago (10,000 BC): Land ice leaves Denmark and southern Sweden; start of the current Holocene epoch.
- 11,000 years ago (9000 BC): Emergence of Jericho, which is now one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Giant short-faced bears and giant ground sloths go extinct. Equidae goes extinct in North America.
- 10,000 years ago (8000 BC): The Quaternary extinction event, which has been ongoing since the mid-Pliestocene, concludes. Many of the ice age megafauna go extinct, including the megatherium, woolly rhinoceros, Irish elk, cave bear, cave lion, and the last of the sabre-toothed cats. The mammoth goes extinct in Eurasia and North America, but is preserved in small island populations until ~1650 BC.
[edit] Neolithic
Main articles: Neolithic and Neolithic revolution
- 9,000-10,000 years ago (7-8000 BC): In northern Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, cultivation of barley and wheat begins. At first they are used for beer, gruel, and soup, eventually for bread.[9] In early agriculture at this time, the planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive plow in subsequent centuries.[10] Around this time, a round stone tower, now preserved to about 8.5 meters high and 8.5 meters in diameter is built in Jericho.[11]
- 9,500 years ago (7500 BC): Çatal Höyük urban settlement founded in Anatolia
- 9,000 years ago (7000 BC): Jiahu culture began in China
- 7,500 years ago (5500 BC): Copper smelting in evidence in Pločnik and other locations.
- 7,000 years ago (5000 BC): late Neolithic civilizations, invention of the wheel and spread of proto-writing.
- 6,000 years ago (4000 BC): Civilizations develop in the Mesopotamia/Fertile crescent region (around the location of modern day Iraq). The american mastodon goes extinct.
- 5,800 years ago: (3840-3800 BC): The Post Track and Sweet Track causeways are constructed in the Somerset Levels.
- 5,700 years ago (3800-3600 BC): mass graves at Tell Brak in Syria.
- 5,700 years ago: (3700-3600 BC): Minoan culture begins on Crete
- 5,500 years ago: (3600-3500 BC): Uruk period in Sumer. First evidence of mummification in Egypt.
- 5,500 years ago: (3500-3400 BC): Writing is invented in Sumer, triggering the beginning of history.
For later events, see Timeline of ancient history.
[edit] References
- ^ "Mount Toba Eruption - Ancient Humans Unscathed, Study Claims". http://anthropology.net/2007/07/06/mount-toba-eruption-ancient-humans-unscathed-study-claims/. Retrieved 2008-04-20.
- ^ a b This is indicated by the M130 marker in the Y chromosome. "Traces of a Distant Past," by Gary Stix, Scientific American, July 2008, pages 56-63.
- ^ Gene S. Stuart, "Ice Age Hunters: Artists in Hidden Cages." In Mysteries of the Ancient World, a publication of the National Geographic Society, 1979. Pages 11-18.
- ^ James Trager, The People's Chronology, 1994, ISBN 0-8050-3134-0
- ^ Stuart, Gene S. (1979). "Ice Age Hunters: Artists in Hidden Cages". Mysteries of the Ancient World. National Geographic Society. p. 19.
- ^ Encyclopedia Americana, 2003 edition, volume 6, page 334.
- ^ Stuart, Gene S. (1979). "Ice Age Hunters: Artists in Hidden Cages". Mysteries of the Ancient World. National Geographic Society. pp. 8-10.
- ^ "Shift from Savannah to Sahara was Gradual," by Kenneth Chang, New York Times, May 9, 2008.
- ^ Kiple, Kenneth F. and Ornelas, Kriemhild Coneè, eds., The Cambridge World History of Food, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 83
- ^ "No-Till: The Quiet Revolution," by David Huggins and John Reganold, Scientific American, July 2008, pp. 70-77.
- ^ Fagan, Brian M, ed. The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996 ISBN 978-0-521-40216-3 p 363
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