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Timeline of ancient history

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This timeline of ancient history lists historical events of the documented ancient past from the beginning of recorded history until the Early Middle Ages.

Brief ancient chronology
Coming of IslamEarly Middle AgesGupta EmpireLate antiquityRoman EmpireMaurya EmpireHellenismClassical GreeceAchaemenid EmpireRoman KingdomArchaic GreeceNeo-Assyrian EmpireAncient Pueblo PeoplesBronze Age collapseHittite EmpireSack of BabylonLate Bronze AgeHammurabiMiddle Bronze AgeXia DynastyAkkadian EmpireGreat Pyramid of GizaIndus CivilizationAegean civilizationThree Sovereigns and Five EmperorsFirst DynastyBronze Age writingEarly Dynastic Period (Egypt)Egyptian hieroglyphsEarly Bronze Age

Bronze Age and Early Iron Age

The Bronze Age was the period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper ores, and then combining those ores to cast bronze. These naturally-occurring ores typically included arsenic as a common impurity. Copper/tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact that there were no tin bronzes in western Asia before 3000 BC. In some parts of the world, a Copper Age follows the Neolithic and precedes the Bronze Age.

The Iron Age was the stage in the development of any people in which tools and weapons whose main ingredient was iron were prominent. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in some past societies often including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles, although this was not always the case.

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. It refers to the timeframe of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.[3][4] Ancient history includes the recorded Greek history beginning in about 776 BC (First Olympiad). This coincides roughly with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC and the beginning of the history of Rome.[5][6]

End of ancient history in Europe

The date used as the end of the ancient era is arbitrary. The transition period from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages is known as Late Antiquity. Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century (c. AD 284) to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius. The Early Middle Ages are a period in the history of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from AD 500 to 1000. Not all historians agree on the ending dates of ancient history, which frequently falls somewhere in the 5th, 6th, or 7th century. Western scholars usually date the end of ancient history with the fall of Rome in AD 476, the death of the emperor Justinian I in AD 565, or the coming of Islam in AD 632 as the end of ancient European history.

Maps

See also

References

  • Carr, E. H. (Edward Hallett). What is History?. Thorndike 1923, Becker 1931, MacMullen 1966, MacMullen 1990, Thomas & Wick 1993, Loftus 1996.
  • Collingwood, R. G. (1946). The Idea of History. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Diamond, Jared (1999). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: Norton.
  • Dodds, E. R. (1964). The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.
  • Kinzl, Konrad H. (1998). Directory of Ancient Historians in the USA, 2nd ed. Claremont, Calif.: Regina Books. ISBN 0-941690-87-3. Web edition is constantly updated.
  • Kristiansen, Kristian; Larsson, Thomas B. (2005). The Rise of Bronze Age Society. Cambridge University Press.
  • Libourel, Jan M. (1973). "A Battle of Uncertain Outcome in the Second Samnite War". The American Journal of Philology. 94 (1). Johns Hopkins University Press: 71–8. doi:10.2307/294039. ISSN 1086-3168. JSTOR 294039.
  • "Livius. Articles on Ancient History".
  • Lobell, Jarrett (July–August 2002). "Etruscan Pompeii". Archaeological Institute of America. 55 (4).
  • Loftus, Elizbeth (1996). Eyewitness Testimony. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-28777-0.
  • MacMullen, Ramsay (1966). Enemies of the Roman Order: Treason, Unrest and Alienation in the Empire. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
  • MacMullen, Ramsay (1993). Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03601-2.
  • Thomas, Carol G.; D.P. Wick (1994). Decoding Ancient History: A Toolkit for the Historian as Detective. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-200205-1.
  • Thorndike, Lynn (1923–58). History of Magic and Experimental Science. New York: Macmillan. Eight volumes.

Citations and notes

  1. ^ The invention of writing
  2. ^ Caroline Alexander, "Stonehenge," National Geographic, June 2008.
  3. ^ It is used to refer to various other periods of ancient history, like Ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia (such as, Assyria, Babylonia and Sumer) or other early civilizations of the Near East. It is less commonly used in reference to civilizations of the Far East.
  4. ^ William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. J. Murray, 1891
  5. ^ Chris Scarre, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome (London: Penguin Books, 1995).
  6. ^ Adkins, Lesley; Roy Adkins (1998). Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512332-8. page 3.