What is the earliest known civilization?
Pre-Columbian era
The earliest known civilization is the Olmec. This civilization established the cultural blueprint by which all succeeding indigenous civilizations would follow in Mexico. Pre-Olmec civilization began with the production of pottery in abundance, around 2300 BCE in the Grijalva River delta. Between 1600 and 1500 BCE, the Olmec civilization had begun, with the consolidation of power at their capital, a site today known as San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán near the coast in southeast Veracruz. The Olmec influence extended across Mexico, into Central America, and along the Gulf of Mexico. They transformed many peoples' thinking toward a new way of government, pyramid-temples, writing, astronomy, art, mathematics, economics, and religion. Their achievements paved the way for the Maya civilization and the civilizations in central Mexico.
Sarangani
The earliest civilization in the province can be found in Maitum, Sarangani, where the Maitum Anthropomorphic Pottery or Maitum Jars were found. The jars have been dated to approximately 5 BC to 370 AD, one of the oldest in the entire Southeast Asian region and the Philippines. The discovery testified to the long history of cultural exchanges in Sarangani and its people.
Cradle of civilization
A cradle of civilization is a location where civilization is understood to have emerged. Current thinking is that there was no single "cradle", but several civilizations that developed independently, with the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt) understood to be the earliest. Other civilizations arose in Asia among cultures situated along large river valleys, such as the Indo-Gangetic Plain in Ancient India and the Yellow River in Ancient China. The extent to which there was significant influence between the early civilizations of the Near East and those of East Asia is disputed. Scholars accept that the civilizations of Mesoamerica, mainly in modern Mexico, and Norte Chico, in the north-central coastal region of Peru, emerged independently from those in Eurasia.
Cradle of civilization
The earliest signs of a process leading to sedentary culture can be seen in the Levant to as early as 12,000 BC, when the Natufian culture became sedentary; it evolved into an agricultural society by 10,000 BC. The importance of water to safeguard an abundant and stable food supply, due to favourable conditions for hunting, fishing and gathering resources including cereals, provided an initial "wide spectrum economy" that triggered the creation of permanent villages.
Ancient history
Mesoamerican ancient civilizations included the Olmecs and Mayans. Between 2000 and 300 BC, complex cultures began to form and many matured into advanced Mesoamerican civilizations such as the: Olmec, Izapa, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Huastec, Which flourished for nearly 4,000 years before the first contact with Europeans. These civilizations' progress included pyramid-temples, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and theology.
History of India
Neolithic agricultural cultures sprang up in the Indus Valley region around 5000 BCE, in the lower Gangetic valley around 3000 BCE, represented by the Bhirrana findings (7570–6200 BCE) in Haryana, India, Lahuradewa findings (7000 BCE) in Uttar Pradesh, India, and Mehrgarh findings (7000–5000 BCE) in Balochistan, Pakistan; and later in Southern India, spreading southwards and also northwards into Malwa around 1800 BCE. The first urban civilisation of the region began with the Indus Valley Civilisation.
History of Western civilization before AD 500
The earliest urban civilizations of Europe belong to the Bronze Age Minoans of Crete and Mycenaean Greece, which ended around the 11th century BC as Greece entered the Greek Dark Ages. Ancient Greece was the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. Classical Greece flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Under Athenian leadership, Greece successfully repelled the military threat of Persian invasion at the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae. The Athenian Golden Age ended with the defeat of Athens at the hands of Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC.
South Asia
The history of core South Asia begins with evidence of human activity of "Homo sapiens," as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including "Homo erectus" from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of South Asia from c. 3300 to 1300 BCE in present-day Northern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, was the first major civilization in South Asia. A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture developed in the Mature Harappan period, from 2600 to 1900 BCE.
List of ancient great powers
Sumer (or "Šumer") was one of the early civilizations of the Ancient Near East, located in the southern part of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) from the time of the earliest records in the mid 4th millennium BC until the rise of Babylonia in the late 3rd millennium BC. The term "Sumerian" applies to all speakers of the Sumerian language. Sumer (together with Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley Civilization) is considered the first settled society in the world to have manifested all the features needed to qualify fully as a "civilization", eventually expanding into the first empire in history, the Akkadian Empire.
Valdivia culture
The Valdivia culture is one of the oldest settled cultures recorded in the Americas. It emerged from the earlier Las Vegas culture and thrived on the Santa Elena peninsula near the modern-day town of Valdivia, Ecuador between 3500 BC and 1500 BC.
History of Kaohsiung
The earliest evidence of human activity in the Kaohsiung area dates back to roughly 4700–5200 years ago. Most of the discovered remnants were located in the hills surrounding Kaohsiung Harbor, and include artifacts found at 壽山遺址, Longquan Temple ruins, 桃子園遺址、左營舊城遺址、左營遺址、後勁遺址、覆鼎金遺址、Fengbitou. The prehistoric Dapenkeng, 牛稠子, Dahu, and Niasong civilizations were known to inhabit the region. Studies of the prehistoric ruins at Longquan Temple have shown that that civilization occurred at roughly the same times as the beginnings of the aboriginal Makatau civilization, suggesting a possible origin for the latter. Unlike some other archeological sites in the area, the Longquan Temple ruins are relatively well preserved. Prehistoric artifacts discovered have suggested that the ancient Kaohsiung Harbor was originally a lagoon, with early civilizations functioning primarily as hunter-gatherer societies. Some agricultural tools have also been discovered, suggesting that some agricultural activity was also present.
Nuragic civilization
In the Stone Age the island was first inhabited by people who had arrived there in the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages from Europe and the Mediterranean area. The most ancient settlements have been discovered both in central and northern Sardinia (Anglona). Several later cultures developed on the island, such as the Ozieri culture (3200−2700 BC). The economy was based on agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, and trading with the mainland. With the diffusion of metallurgy, silver and copper objects and weapons also appeared on the island.
Ancient history
The Zapotec emerged around 1500 years BC. They left behind the great city Monte Alban. Their writing system had been thought to have influenced the Olmecs but, with recent evidence, the Olmec may have been the first civilization in the area to develop a true writing system independently. At the present time, there is some debate as to whether or not Olmec symbols, dated to 650 BC, are actually a form of writing preceding the oldest Zapotec writing dated to about 500 BC.
Ancient history
Mesopotamia is the site of some of the earliest known civilizations in the world. Early settlement of the alluvial plain lasted from the Ubaid period (late 6th millennium BC) through the Uruk period (4th millennium BC) and the Dynastic periods (3rd millennium BC) until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BC. The surplus of storable foodstuffs created by this economy allowed the population to settle in one place instead of migrating after crops and herds. It also allowed for a much greater population density, and in turn required an extensive labor force and division of labor. This organization led to the necessity of record keeping and the development of writing (c. 3500 BC).
Cultural transformation theory
The last known major civilization to have a partnership society, the Minoan civilization of Crete, flourished during the Bronze Age over 3500 years ago. Having existed even before Archaic Greece, it is one of the earliest known civilizations in Europe and is vital to recreating the timeline of Europe’s history. First discovered by Sir Arthur Evans, numerous artifacts have since been uncovered documenting the way of life of this ancient civilization. The Minoans had constructed enormous courts at four different palace sites which are believed to be centers for trade and other large social, political and religious activities. The Minoans also built religious tombs and cemeteries, staircases and extensive store areas showing a highly sophisticated standard of living most impressive for their time.
Most of what we know of their culture is from what was found in their myths, writings, pottery and frescoes. From these artifacts, historians have gathered that females played a large role in their society. A female figure known as “The Goddess” appears numerous times in both myths and pottery work, implying that they worshiped her in Minoan religion. The Goddess is a symbol also seen in artifacts of other prehistoric partnership societies (artifacts such as the Venus of Laussel). It is believed that the Goddess was a symbol of life and nature as every depiction of her involved explicit detail of her form and reproductive genitalia. In prehistoric times, many people relied upon farming for the majority of their food so having a good relationship with the earth was very important to the people of this time period. So not only were females, treated as equals in society but they were also worshiped in their religion along with their male deities. In short, females were treated with as much respect and acceptance as their male counterparts were.
Literacy
Literacy emerged with the development of numeracy and computational devices as early as 8000 BCE. Script developed independently at least five times in human history Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus civilization, lowland Mesoamerica, and China.
The earliest forms of written communication originated in Serbia (Vinča culture), followed by Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia about 3500-3000 BCE. During this era, literacy was "a largely functional matter, propelled by the need to manage the new quantities of information and the new type of governance created by trade and large scale production". Writing systems in Mesopotamia first emerged from a recording system in which people used impressed token markings to manage trade and agricultural production. The token system served as a precursor to early cuneiform writing once people began recording information on clay tablets. Proto-cuneiform texts exhibit not only numerical signs, but also ideograms depicting objects being counted.
History of Western civilization before AD 500
Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community, founded on the River Tiber, on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, and centered at the city of Rome, the Roman Empire became one of the largest empires in the ancient world. In its centuries of existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy to an oligarchic republic to an increasingly autocratic empire. It came to dominate South-Western Europe, South-Eastern Europe/the Balkans and the Mediterranean region through conquest and assimilation.
Originally ruled by Kings who ruled the settlement and a small area of land nearby, the Romans established a republic in 509BC that would last for five centuries. Initially a small number of families shared power, later representative assemblies and elected leaders ruled. Rome remained a minor power on the Italian peninsula, but found a talent for producing soldiers and sailors and, after subduing the Sabines, Etruscans and Piceni began to challenge the power Carthage. By 240BC, Rome controlled the formerly Greek controlled island of Sicily. Following the 207BC defeat of the bold Carthaginian general Hannibal, who had led an army spearheaded by war elephants over the Alps into Italy, the Romans were able to expand their overseas empire into North Africa. Roman engineers built arterial roads throughout their empire, beginning with the Appian Way through Italy in 312BC. Along such roads marched soldiers, merchants, slaves and citizens to all corners of a flourishing mercantile empire. Roman engineering was so formidable that roads, bridges and aqueducts survive in impressive scale and quantity to the present day. According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey, the population of the Imperial capital was probably the first in the world to approach one million people. It eventually consisted of monumental public buildings, such as the Colosseum (dedicated to sport), the bathhouses (dedicated to leisure) and the Roman Forum dedicated to civic affairs. Slavery helped power the economy, but also created occasional tension — as in the slave rebellion led by Spartacus which was put down in 71BC.
Julius Caesar (100BC-44BC) was a Roman general and statesman who played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Conspirators who feared he was seeking to re-establish a monarchy assassinated him on the floor of the Roman Senate in 44BC. His anointed successor Augustus Caesar outmaneuvered his opponents to reign as a de facto emperor from 27BC. His successors became all-powerful and demanded veneration as gods. Rome entered its period of Imperial rule and stability (albeit often marred by occasional bouts of apparent insanity by various god-emperors) returned to the Empire.
Iraqis
In ancient and medieval times Mesopotamia was the political and cultural centre of many great empires, such as the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, and Babylonia. The ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer is the oldest known civilization in the world, and thus Iraq is widely known as the cradle of civilization. Iraq remained an important centre of civilization for millennia, up until the Abbasid Caliphate (of which Baghdad was the capital), which was the most advanced empire of the medieval world (see Islamic Golden Age).
History of architecture
In Southwest Asia, Neolithic cultures appear soon after 10,000 BC, initially in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) and from there spread eastwards and westwards. There are early Neolithic cultures in Southeast Anatolia, Syria and Iraq by 8000 BC, and food-producing societies first appear in southeast Europe by 7000 BC, and Central Europe by c. 5500 BC (of which the earliest cultural complexes include the Starčevo-Koros (Cris), Linearbandkeramic, and Vinča). With the exception of the Andes, the Isthmo-Columbian area and Western Mesoamerica (and a few copper hatchets and spear heads in the Great Lakes region), the people of the Americas and the Pacific remained at the Neolithic level of technology up until the time of Western contact.
History of Bulgaria
The eneolithic Varna culture (5000 BC) represents the first civilization with a sophisticated social hierarchy in Europe. The centerpiece of this culture is the Varna Necropolis, discovered in the early 1970s. It serves as a tool in understanding how the earliest European societies functioned, principally through well-preserved ritual burials, pottery, and golden jewelry. The golden rings, bracelets and ceremonial weapons discovered in one of the graves were created between 4,600 and 4200 BC, which makes them the oldest gold artifacts yet discovered anywhere in the world. The Karanovo culture developed simultaneously with the one in Varna, and its earth layers serve as a stratigraphical gauge for the prehistory of the wider Balkans region.
History of writing
It is generally agreed that true writing of language (not only numbers, which goes back much further) was independently conceived and developed in at least two ancient civilizations and possibly more. The two places where it is most certain that the concept of writing was both conceived and developed independently are in ancient Sumer (in Mesopotamia), between 3400 and 3300 BC, and much later in Mesoamerica (by 300 BC) because no precursors have been found to either of these in their respective regions. Several Mesoamerican scripts are known, the oldest being from the Olmec or Zapotec of Mexico.
Andean civilizations
The Andean civilizations were a patchwork of different cultures and peoples that mainly developed in the coastal deserts of Peru. They strectched from the Andes of Colombia southward down the Andes to northern Argentina and Chile. Archaeologists believe that Andean civilizations first developed on the narrow coastal plain of the Pacific Ocean. The Norte Chico civilization of Peru is the oldest civilization in the Americas, dating back to 3200 BCE.
Etruscan civilization
Culture that is identifiably Etruscan developed in Italy after about 900 BC, approximately with the Iron Age Villanovan culture, regarded as the oldest phase of Etruscan civilization.
History of communication
The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age in the late Neolithic of the late 4000 BC. The first writing system is generally believed to have been invented in pre-historic Sumer and developed by the late 3000's BC into cuneiform. Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the undeciphered Proto-Elamite writing system and Indus Valley script also date to this era, though a few scholars have questioned the Indus Valley script's status as a writing system.
Harappa
The Harappan Civilization has its earliest roots in cultures such as that of Mehrgarh, approximately 6000 BC. The two greatest cities, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, emerged circa 2600 BC along the Indus River valley in Punjab and Sindh. The civilization, with a possible writing system, urban centers, and diversified social and economic system, was rediscovered in the 1920s also after excavations at Mohenjo-daro in Sindh near Larkana, and Harappa, in west Punjab south of Lahore. A number of other sites stretching from the Himalayan foothills in east Punjab, India in the north, to Gujarat in the south and east, and to Pakistani Balochistan in the west have also been discovered and studied. Although the archaeological site at Harappa was damaged in 1857 when engineers constructing the Lahore-Multan railroad (as part of the Sind and Punjab Railway), used brick from the Harappa ruins for track ballast, an abundance of artifacts have nevertheless been found. The bricks discovered were made of red sand, clay, stones and were baked at very high temperature. As early as 1826 Harappa, located in west Punjab, attracted the attention of a British officer in India, who gets credit for preliminary excavations in Harappa.
Punjab, Pakistan
The oldest evidence of life in Pakistan has been found in Soan River valley. It was here that some of the earliest signs of humans have been discovered during the excavations of prehistoric mounds. Tools up to two million years old have been recovered in potohar plateau. In the Soan River, many fossil bearing rocks are exposed on the surface. 14 million year old fossils of gazelle, rhinoceros, crocodile, giraffe and rodents have been found there.
Punjab during Mahabharata times was known as Panchanada. Punjab was part of the Indus Valley Civilization, more than 4000 years ago.
The main site in Punjab was the city of Harrapa. The Indus Valley Civilization spanned much of what is today Pakistan and eventually evolved into the Indo-Aryan civilization. The Vedic civilisation flourished along the length of the Indus River. This civilization shaped subsequent cultures in South Asia and Afghanistan. Although the archaeological site at Harappa was partially damaged in 1857 when engineers constructing the Lahore-Multan railroad used brick from the Harappa ruins for track ballast, an abundance of artefacts have nevertheless been found. Punjab was part of the great ancient empires including the Gandhara Mahajanapadas, Achaemenids, Macedonians, Mauryas, Kushans, Guptas and Hindu Shahi. It also comprised the Gujar empire for a period of time, otherwise known as the Gurjara-Pratihara empire. Agriculture flourished and trading cities (such as Multan and Lahore) grew in wealth.
The city of Taxila, founded around 1000 BCE, was reputed to house the oldest university in the world, Taxila University. One of the teachers was the great Vedic thinker and politician Chanakya. Taxila was a great centre of learning and intellectual discussion during the Maurya Empire. It is a UN World Heritage site, valued for its archaeological and religious history.
History of the Maya civilization
The Maya developed their first civilization in the Preclassic period. Scholars continue to discuss when this era of Maya civilization began. Discoveries of Maya occupation at Cuello, Belize have been carbon dated to around 2600 BC. Settlements were established around 1800 BC in the Soconusco region of the Pacific coast, and they were already cultivating the staple crops of the Maya diet, including maize, beans, squash, and chili pepper. This period, known as the Early Preclassic, was characterized by sedentary communities and the introduction of pottery and fired clay figurines.
Game
Attested as early as 2600 BC, games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the oldest known games.
Cradle of civilization
Around 10,200 BC the first fully developed Neolithic cultures belonging to the phases Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (7600 to 6000 BC) appeared in the Fertile Crescent and from there spread eastwards and westwards. One of the most notable PPNA settlements is Jericho in the Levant region, thought to be the world's first town (settled around 8500 BC and fortified around 6800 BC). In Mesopotamia, the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers produced rich fertile soil and a supply of water for irrigation. The civilizations that emerged around these rivers are among the earliest known non-nomadic agrarian societies. It is because of this that the Fertile Crescent region, and Mesopotamia in particular, are often referred to as the cradle of civilization. The period known as the Ubaid period (c. 6500 to 3800 BC) is the earliest known period on the alluvial plain, although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium. It was during the Ubaid period that the movement towards urbanization began. Agriculture and animal husbandry were widely practiced in sedentary communities, particularly in Northern Mesopotamia, and intensive irrigated hydraulic agriculture began to be practiced in the south.
History of the Americas
The Olmec civilization was the first Mesoamerican civilization, beginning around 1600-1400 BC and ending around 400 BC. Mesoamerica is considered one of the six sites around the globe in which civilization developed independently and indigenously. This civilization is considered the mother culture of the Mesoamerican civilizations. The Mesoamerican calendar, numeral system, writing, and much of the Mesoamerican pantheon seem to have begun with the Olmec.
Dilmun
The Dilmun civilization was the centre of commercial activities linking traditional agriculture of the land—then utterly fertile due to artesian wells that have dried since, and due to a much wetter climate—with maritime trade between diverse regions such as the Meluhha (Indus River Valley), Magan (Oman), and Mesopotamia. The Dilmun civilization is mentioned first in Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets dated to the late third millennium BC, found in the temple of goddess Inanna, in the city of Uruk. The adjective Dilmun is used to describe a type of axe and one specific official; in addition there are lists of rations of wool issued to people connected with Dilmun.
History of Europe
The Neolithic reached Central Europe in the 6th millennium BC and parts of Northern Europe in the 5th and 4th millenniums BC.
The first well-known literate civilization in Europe was that of the Minoans. The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans. Will Durant referred to it as "the first link in the European chain".
Ancient history
Prehistory is the period before written history. The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago. The controlled use of fire occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens (modern humans) emerged in Africa. 60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia. 50,000 years ago, modern humans spread from Asia to the Near East. Europe was first reached by modern humans 40,000 years ago. Humans migrated to the Americas about 15,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic.
History of Cluj-Napoca
The oldest human settlement near Cluj dates from the Neolithic Age. It was discovered at Gura Baciului, near Suceagu, in the valley of a tributary of the Nadăș river and nearby the Hoia Forest. The settlement dates back to 6000–5500 BCE, making it the oldest discovered settlement in Transylvania. The archaeological discovery connects it to the Starčevo–Kőrös–Criş culture, and more settlements like these have been discovered since: a tomb from this same culture was discovered in the Mănăștur district, and a similar settlement was discovered on the Strada Memorandumului.
Ancient maritime history
Minoan traders from Crete were active in the eastern Mediterranean by the 2nd millennium BC. The Phoenicians were an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coast of modern-day Lebanon, Syria and northern Israel. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean during the first millennium BC, between the period of 1200 BC to 900 BC. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of Tyre seems to have been the southernmost. Sarepta between Sidon and Tyre, is the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland. The Phoenicians often traded by means of a galley, a man-powered sailing vessel. They were the first civilization to create the bireme. There is still debate on the subject of whether the Canaanites and Phoenicians were different peoples or not.
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands which flourished from c. 2700 to c. 1450 BC, before a late period of decline, finally ending around 1100 BC. It preceded and was absorbed by the Mycenaean civilization of ancient Greece. The civilization was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of British archaeologist Arthur Evans. The name "Minoan" derives from the mythical King Minos and was coined by Evans, who identified the site at Knossos with the labyrinth and the Minotaur. The Minoan civilization has been described as the earliest of its kind in Europe, with historian Will Durant calling the Minoans "the first link in the European chain".
Cradle of civilization
The earliest evidence of agriculture in the Andean region dates to around 4700 BC at Huaca Prieta and Paredones. The oldest evidence of canal irrigation in South America dates to 4700 to 2500 BC in the Zaña Valley of northern Peru. The earliest urban settlements of the Andes, as well as North and South America, are dated to 3500 BC at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area, and Sechin Bajo near the Sechin River.
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identified as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops and the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy and agriculture".
Cradle of civilization
Drawing on archaeology, geology and anthropology, modern scholars do not see the origins of the Chinese civilization or history as a linear story but rather the history of the interactions of different and distinct cultures and ethnic groups that influenced each other's development. The two specific cultural regions that developed Chinese civilization was the Yellow River civilization and the Yangtze civilization. Early evidence for Chinese millet agriculture is dated to around 7000 BC, with the earliest evidence of cultivated rice found at Chengtoushan near the Yangtze River, dated to 6500 BC. Chengtoushan may also be the site of the first walled city in China. By the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a center of the Peiligang culture which flourished from 7000 to 5000 BC, with evidence of agriculture, constructed buildings, pottery, and burial of the dead. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and the potential to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. Its most prominent site is Jiahu. Some scholars have suggested that the Jiahu symbols (6600 BC) are the earliest form of proto-writing in China. However, it is likely that they should not be understood as writing itself, but as features of a lengthy period of sign-use which led eventually to a fully-fledged system of writing. Archaeologists believe that the Peiligang culture was egalitarian, with little political organization. It would eventually evolve into the Yangshao culture (5000 to 3000 BC), and their stone tools were polished and highly specialized. They may also have practiced an early form of silkworm cultivation. The main food of the Yangshao people was millet, with some sites using foxtail millet and others broom-corn millet, though some evidence of rice has been found. The exact nature of Yangshao agriculture, small-scale slash-and-burn cultivation versus intensive agriculture in permanent fields, is currently a matter of debate. Once the soil was exhausted, residents picked up their belongings, moved to new lands, and constructed new villages. However, Middle Yangshao settlements such as Jiangzhi contain raised-floor buildings that may have been used for the storage of surplus grains. Grinding stones for making flour were also found. Later, Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture, which was also centered on the Yellow River from about 3000 to 1900 BC, its most prominent site being Taosi. The population expanded dramatically during the 3rd millennium BC, with many settlements having rammed earth walls. It decreased in most areas around 2000 BC until the central area evolved into the Bronze Age Erlitou culture. The earliest bronze artifacts have been found in the Majiayao culture site (3100 to 2700 BC).
History of the world
Humanity's written history was preceded by its prehistory, beginning with the Palaeolithic Era ("Early Stone Age"), followed by the Neolithic Era ("New Stone Age"). The Neolithic saw the Agricultural Revolution begin, between 8000 and 5000 BCE, in the Near East's Fertile Crescent. During this period, humans began the systematic husbandry of plants and animals. As agriculture advanced, most humans transitioned from a nomadic to a settled lifestyle as farmers in permanent settlements. The relative security and increased productivity provided by farming allowed communities to expand into increasingly larger units, fostered by advances in transportation.
Ancient history
The first civilization emerged in Sumer in the southern region of Mesopotamia now part of modern-day Iraq. By 3,000 B.C, Sumerian city states had collectively formed civilization, with government, religion, diversity of labor and writing. Among the city states Ur was among the most significant.
In the 24th century BC, the Akkadian Empire was founded in Mesopotamia. From Sumer, civilization and Bronze smelting spread westward to Egypt, Minoa and the Hittites.
Ancient history
Chinese Civilization that emerged within the Yellow River Valley is one of five original civilizations in the world. Prior to the formation of civilization neolithic cultures such as the Longshan and Yangshao dating to 5,000 BC lived in wall cities and likely had social organizations of complex chiefdoms. The practice of rice cultivation was vital to settled life in China.
History of Amiens
It was at Amiens that, for the first time, was defined one of the most ancient civilisations of humanity: The Acheulean. In 1853, "haches taillées" [carved axes], according to the term of the time, were collected in the old alluvium of the Somme at the level of the suburb of Saint-Acheul, east of the city. This discovery fascinated the greatest international experts of the time, Joseph Prestwich, Hugh Falconer, Charles Lyell and John Evans, who flocked to the site. In August 1859, Albert Gaudry discovered nine "carved axes" attesting, according to him, of the great antiquity of mankind. These discoveries marked the beginning of the great period of Saint-Acheul which lasted more than three-quarters of a century.
Prehistoric technology
The Neolithic Revolution was the first agricultural revolution, representing a transition from hunting and gathering nomadic life to an agriculture existence. It evolved independently in six separate locations worldwide circa 10,000–7,000 years BP (8,000–5,000 BC). The earliest known evidence exists in the tropical and subtropical areas of southwestern/southern Asia, northern/central Africa and Central America.
South America
One of the earliest known South American civilizations was at Norte Chico, on the central Peruvian coast. Though a pre-ceramic culture, the monumental architecture of Norte Chico is contemporaneous with the pyramids of Ancient Egypt. Norte Chico governing class established a trade network and developed agriculture then followed by Chavín by 900 BC, according to some estimates and archaeological finds. Artifacts were found at a site called Chavín de Huantar in modern Peru at an elevation of 3,177 meters. Chavín civilization spanned 900 BC to 300 BC.
Natufian culture
The Epipaleolithic Natufian culture () existed from around 12,000 to 9,500 BC or 13,050 to 7,550 BC in the Levant, a region in the Eastern Mediterranean. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture. The Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Natufians founded Jericho which may be the oldest city in the world. Some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture, at Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world. The world's oldest evidence of bread-making has been found at Shubayqa 1, a 14,500 year old site in Jordan's northeastern desert. In addition, the oldest known evidence of beer, dating to approximately 13,000 BP, was found at the Raqefet Cave in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa in Israel, in which it was used by the semi-nomadic Natufians for ritual feasting.
History of Earth
By around 500 BC, there were advanced civilizations in the Middle East, Iran, India, China, and Greece, at times expanding, at times entering into decline. In 221 BC, China became a single polity that would grow to spread its culture throughout East Asia, and it has remained the most populous nation in the world. The fundamentals of Western civilization were largely shaped in Ancient Greece, with the world's first democratic government and major advances in philosophy, science, and mathematics, and in Ancient Rome in law, government, and engineering. The Roman Empire was Christianized by Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century and declined by the end of the 5th. Beginning with the 7th century, Christianization of Europe began. In 610, Islam was founded and quickly became the dominant religion in Western Asia. The House of Wisdom was established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq. It is considered to have been a major intellectual center during the Islamic Golden Age, where Muslim scholars in Baghdad and Cairo flourished from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries until the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 AD. In 1054 AD the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church led to the prominent cultural differences between Western and Eastern Europe.
History of Mesopotamia
The Fertile Crescent was inhabited by several distinct, flourishing cultures between the end of the last ice age (c. 10,000 BC) and the beginning of history. One of the oldest known Neolithic sites in Mesopotamia is Jarmo, settled around 7000 BC and broadly contemporary with Jericho (in the Levant) and Çatal Hüyük (in Anatolia). It as well as other early Neolithic sites, such as Samarra and Tell Halaf were in northern Mesopotamia; later settlements in southern Mesopotamia required complicated irrigation methods. The first of these was Eridu, settled during the Ubaid period culture by farmers who brought with them the Samarran culture from the north. This was followed by Uruk period and the emergence of the Sumerians.
Mica
Human use of mica dates back to prehistoric times. Mica was known to ancient Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman and Chinese civilizations, as well as the Aztec civilization of the New World.
Chimú culture
The oldest civilization present on the north coast of Peru is the Moche or Mochica civilization, which is identified as Early Chimú. The start of this period is not known for certain, but it ended around 700 AD. It was centered in the Chicama, Moche, and Viru Valleys. "Many large pyramids are attributed to the Early Chimú period." (37) These pyramids are built of adobe in rectangular shapes made from molds. "Early Chimú cemeteries are also found without pyramid associations. Burials are usually in extended positions, in prepared tombs. The rectangular, adobe-lined and covered tombs have niches in their walls in which bowls were placed." (39)
Norte Chico civilization
The Norte Chico civilization (also Caral or Caral-Supe civilization) was a complex pre-Columbian era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in what is now the Norte Chico region of north-central coastal Peru. The civilization flourished between the fourth and second millennia BC, with the formation of the first city generally dated to around 3500 BC, at Huaricanga, in the Fortaleza area. It is from 3100 BC onward that large-scale human settlement and communal construction become clearly apparent, which lasted until a period of decline around 1800 BC. Since the early 21st century, it has been established as the oldest known civilization in the Americas.
Prehistoric Europe
Prehistoric Europe is the designation for the period of human presence in Europe before the start of recorded history, beginning in the Lower Paleolithic. As history progresses, considerable regional irregularities of cultural development emerge and increase. The region of the eastern Mediterranean is, due to its geographic proximity, greatly influenced and inspired by the classical Middle Eastern civilizations, and adopts and develops the earliest systems of communal organisation and writing. The Histories of Herodotus (from around 440 BC) is the oldest known European text that seeks to systematically record traditions, public affairs and notable events. In contrast, the European regions furthest away from the ancient centers of civilisation tended to be the slowest, regarding acculturation. In Northern and Eastern Europe in particular, writing and systematic recording was only introduced in the context of Christianization, after 1000 CE.
Widely dispersed, isolated finds of individual fossils of bone fragments (Atapuerca, Mauer mandible), stone artifacts or assemblages that suggest Lower Paleolithic palaeo-human presence are rare and typically separated by thousands of years. The karstic region of the Atapuerca Mountains in Spain represents the currently earliest known and reliably dated location of residence for more than a single generation and a group of individuals. Prolonged presence has been attested for "Homo antecessor" (or "Homo erectus antecessor", "Homo heidelbergensis" and Neanderthals.
Byblos
The site first appears to have been settled during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, approximately 8800 to 7000 BC. Neolithic remains of some buildings can be observed at the site. According to the writer Philo of Byblos (quoting Sanchuniathon, and quoted in Eusebius), Byblos had the reputation of being the oldest city in the world, founded by Cronus. During the 3rd millennium BC, the first signs of a town can be observed, with the remains of well-built houses of uniform size. This was the period when the Canaanite civilization began to develop.
History of Egypt
By about 6000 BC, a Neolithic culture rooted in the Nile Valley. During the Neolithic era, several predynastic cultures developed independently in Upper and Lower Egypt. The Badari culture and the successor Naqada series are generally regarded as precursors to dynastic Egypt. The earliest known Lower Egyptian site, Merimda, predates the Badarian by about seven hundred years. Contemporaneous Lower Egyptian communities coexisted with their southern counterparts for more than two thousand years, remaining culturally distinct, but maintaining frequent contact through trade. The earliest known evidence of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions appeared during the predynastic period on Naqada III pottery vessels, dated to about 3200 BC.
History of the Maya civilization
The history of Maya civilization is divided into three principal periods: the Preclassic, Classic and Postclassic periods; these were preceded by the Archaic Period, which saw the first settled villages and early developments in agriculture. Modern scholars regard these periods as arbitrary divisions of chronology of the Maya civilization, rather than indicative of cultural evolution or decadence. Definitions of the start and end dates of period spans can vary by as much as a century, depending on the author. The Preclassic lasted from approximately 2000 BC to approximately 250 AD; this was followed by the Classic, from 250 AD to roughly 950 AD, then by the Postclassic, from 950 AD to the middle of the 16th century. Each period is further subdivided:
Stilbaai
Another archaeological site is situated in a group of caves at Blombos cave, about 12 kilometres from Stilbaai. Artifacts found at Blombos have been carbon dated to around 77,000 BP, making it the oldest known human settlement today.
History of Western civilization before AD 500
The civilizations of Classical Greece (Hellenic) and Roman Empire (Latin) as well as Ancient Israel (Hebraism) and early Christendom are considered seminal periods in Western history;. From Ancient Greece sprang belief in democracy, and the pursuit of intellectual inquiry into such subjects as truth and beauty; from Rome came lessons in government administration, martial organization, engineering and law; and from Ancient Israel sprang Christianity with its ideals of the brotherhood of humanity. Strong cultural contributions also emerged from the pagan Germanic, Celtic, Wendic, Finnic, Baltic and Nordic peoples of pre-Christian Europe. Following the 5th century Fall of Rome, Europe entered the Middle Ages, during which period the Catholic Church filled the power vacuum left in the West by the fallen Roman Empire, while the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) endured for centuries.
History of Western civilization before AD 500
The earliest civilizations which influenced the development of the West were those of Mesopotamia, the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran: the cradle of civilization. An agricultural revolution began here around 10,000 years ago with the domestication of animals like sheep and goats and the appearance of new wheat hybrids, notably bread wheat, at the completion of the last Ice Age, which allowed for a transition from nomadism to village settlements and then cities like Jericho.
Herrera Period
Agriculture started around 5000 years before present which led to the development of more complex societies, of which the Herrera Period is one of many in the Andean civilizations. Early evidence of inhabitation has been found in Zipacón and is dated at 3270 BCE. From the Herrera Period ceramic has been found. The oldest ceramic evidence found dates to 2500 BP (500 BCE), except for one piece found near Tocarema and dated at 2750 BP.
Neolithic
Around 10,000 BC the first fully developed Neolithic cultures belonging to the phase Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) appeared in the Fertile Crescent. Around 10,700–9400 BC a settlement was established in Tell Qaramel, north of Aleppo. The settlement included two temples dating to 9650 BC. Around 9000 BC during the PPNA, one of the world's first towns, Jericho, appeared in the Levant. It was surrounded by a stone wall and contained a population of 2,000–3,000 people and a massive stone tower. Around 6400 BC the Halaf culture appeared in Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, and Northern Mesopotamia and subsisted on dryland agriculture.
Cradle of civilization
The Norte Chico civilization proper is understood to have emerged around 3200 BC, as it is at that point that large-scale human settlement and communal construction across multiple sites becomes clearly apparent. Since the early 21st century, it has been established as the oldest known civilization in the Americas. The civilization flourished at the confluence of three rivers, the Fortaleza, the Pativilca, and the Supe. These river valleys each have large clusters of sites. Further south, there are several associated sites along the Huaura River. Notable settlements include the cities of Caral, the largest and most complex Preceramic site, and Aspero. Norte Chico sites are known for their density of large sites with immense architecture. Haas argues that the density of sites in such a small area is globally unique for a nascent civilization. During the third millennium BC, Norte Chico may have been the most densely populated area of the world (excepting, possibly, northern China). The Supe, Pativilca, Fortaleza, and Huaura River valleys each have several related sites.
Olmecs
The Olmec may have been the first civilization in the Western Hemisphere to develop a writing system. Symbols found in 2002 and 2006 date from 650 BCE and 900 BCE respectively, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing found so far, which dates from about 500 BCE.
Uruk
The Eanna district is historically significant as both writing and monumental public architecture emerge here during Uruk periods VI-IV. The combination of these two developments places Eanna as arguably the first true city and civilization in human history. Eanna during period IVa contains the earliest examples of cuneiform writing and possibly the earliest writing in history. Although some of these cuneiform tablets have been deciphered, difficulty with site excavations has obscured the purpose and sometimes even the structure of many buildings.
Mardin Province
The first known civilization were the Subarian-Hurrians who were then succeeded in 3000 BCE by the Hurrians. The Elamites gained control around 2230 BCE. and were followed by the Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Romans and Byzantines.
Architecture of Taiwan
Prehistoric man made use of caves for their dwellings and Taiwan's oldest known civilization is the Changbin culture (長濱文化) dating back to over 50,000 years. An example of an archaeological site of a cave dwelling is the Bashian Caves in Changbin Township, Taitung County which is dated from between 5,500 and 30,000 years. The actual cave itself has a height of around ten meters and can accommodate some ten persons.
Indigenous peoples in Peru
The Norte Chico civilization of Peru is the oldest known civilization in the Americas and one of the six sites where civilization, including the development of agriculture and government, separately originated in the ancient world. The sites, located north of Lima, developed a trade between coastal fisherman and cotton growers and built monumental pyramids around the 30th century BCE.
Cradle of civilization
The earliest traditional Chinese dynasty for which there is both archeological and written evidence is the Shang dynasty (1600 to 1046 BC). Shang sites have yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, the oracle bone script, mostly divinations inscribed on bones. These inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, and religious practices to the art and medicine of this early stage of Chinese civilization. Some historians argue that Erlitou should be considered an early phase of the Shang dynasty. The U.S. National Gallery of Art defines the Chinese Bronze Age as the period between about 2000 and 771 BC; a period that begins with the Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule. The Sanxingdui culture is another Chinese Bronze Age society, contemporaneous to the Shang dynasty, however they developed a different method of bronze-making from the Shang.
Ancient Near East
Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia, is the earliest known civilization in the world. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period (late 6th millennium BC) through the Uruk period (4th millennium BC) and the Dynastic periods (3rd millennium BC) until the rise of Assyria and Babylon in the late 3rd millennium BC and early 2nd millennium BC respectively. The Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon the Great, lasted from the 24th to the 21st century BC, and was regarded by many as the world's first empire. The Akkadians eventually fragmented into Assyria and Babylonia.
History of education
Starting in about 3500 B.C., various writing systems developed in ancient civilizations around the world. In Egypt fully developed hieroglyphs were in use at Abydos as early as 3400 B.C. The oldest known alphabet was developed in central Egypt around 2000 B.C. from a hieroglyphic prototype. One hieroglyphic script was used on stone monuments, other cursive scripts were used for writing in ink on papyrus, a flexible, paper-like material, made from the stems of reeds that grow in marshes and beside rivers such as the River Nile.
Prehistory
Human prehistory is the period between the use of the first stone tools 3.3 million years ago by hominins and the invention of writing systems. The earliest writing systems appeared 5,300 years ago, but it took thousands of years for writing to be widely adopted and it was not used in some human cultures until the 19th century or even until the present. The end of prehistory therefore came at very different dates in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently.
Lašva Valley
The favorable geographical position of the Lašva Valley enabled the beginning of civilization along the Lašva River. However, due to the unprotected and open area numerous occupiers chose the mountainous regions to protect themselves. The earliest known remnants of civilized people were the Romans. Romans were adapt to the terrain and surrounding because of military might, which was of the utmost importance for survival.
Wheel
The first evidence of wheeled vehicles appears in the second half of the 4th millennium BCE, near-simultaneously in Mesopotamia (Sumerian civilization), the Northern (Maykop culture) and South Caucasus (Early Kurgan culture), and Eastern Europe (Cucuteni-Trypillian culture), so the question of which culture originally invented the wheeled vehicle is still unresolved.
Borino
The Rhodopes are considered one of the cradles of European civilization. It is estimated that primitive people settled the region around 65,000 to 60,000 BC. The oldest evidence of human presence in the Rhodopes, flint instruments, was discovered in Borino by an archeological excavation near the current Orpheus Chalet. During fall and winter, eneolithic people lived in the caves of the region. Experts have discovered hearths from this time period dating from 4000 to 3000 BC in Yagodina Cave and idyllic figures connected with the cult to the Woman-Mother and the Sun Cult in Haramiska Cave near the Devil's Throat Cave.
History of slavery
Slavery was known in civilizations as old as Sumer, as well as in almost every other ancient civilization, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Babylonia, Ancient Iran, Ancient Greece, India, the Roman Empire, the Arab Islamic Caliphate and Sultanate, Nubia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas. Such institutions were a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.
Ancient history
The 10th millennium BC is the earliest given date for the invention of agriculture and the beginning of the ancient era. Göbekli Tepe was erected by hunter-gatherers in the 10th millennium BC (c. 11,500 years ago), before the advent of sedentism. Together with Nevalı Çori, it has revolutionized understanding of the Eurasian Neolithic. In the 7th millennium BC, Jiahu culture began in China. By the 5th millennium BC, the late Neolithic civilizations saw the invention of the wheel and the spread of proto-writing. In the 4th millennium BC, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the Ukraine-Moldova-Romania region develops. By 3400 BC, "proto-literate" cuneiform is spread in the Middle East. The 30th century BC, referred to as the Early Bronze Age II, saw the beginning of the literate period in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Around the 27th century BC, the Old Kingdom of Egypt and the First Dynasty of Uruk are founded, according to the earliest reliable regnal eras.
Peru
The earliest evidences of human presence in Peruvian territory have been dated to approximately 9,000 BC. Andean societies were based on agriculture, using techniques such as irrigation and terracing; camelid husbandry and fishing were also important. Organization relied on reciprocity and redistribution because these societies had no notion of market or money. The oldest known complex society in Peru, the Norte Chico civilization, flourished along the coast of the Pacific Ocean between 3,000 and 1,800 BC. These early developments were followed by archaeological cultures that developed mostly around the coastal and Andean regions throughout Peru. The Cupisnique culture which flourished from around 1000 to 200 BC along what is now Peru's Pacific Coast was an example of early pre-Incan culture.
Writing
The earliest known hieroglyphic date back to the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called "Scorpion I" (Naqada IIIA period, c. 32nd century BC) recovered at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) in 1998 or the Narmer Palette, dating to c. 3100 BC, and several recent discoveries that may be slightly older, though these glyphs were based on a much older artistic rather than written tradition. The hieroglyphic script was logographic with phonetic adjuncts that included an effective alphabet. The world's oldest deciphered sentence was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qa'ab, which dates from the Second Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Eras. By the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000.
Balkans
The Balkan region was the first area in Europe to experience the arrival of farming cultures in the Neolithic era. The Balkans have been inhabited since the Paleolithic and are the route by which farming from the Middle East spread to Europe during the Neolithic (7th millennium BC). The practices of growing grain and raising livestock arrived in the Balkans from the Fertile Crescent by way of Anatolia and spread west and north into Central Europe, particularly through Pannonia. Two early culture-complexes have developed in the region, Starčevo culture and Vinča culture. The Balkans are also the location of the first advanced civilizations. Vinča culture developed a form of proto-writing before the Sumerians and Minoans, known as the Old European script, while the bulk of the symbols had been created in the period between 4500 and 4000 BC, with the ones on the Tărtăria clay tablets even dating back to around 5300 BC.
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia lies at the crossroads of human development between the Aegean and the Balkans. The earliest signs of human habitation date back to the palaeolithic period, notably with the Petralona cave in which was found the oldest yet known European humanoid, "Archanthropus europaeus petraloniensis". In the Late Neolithic period (c. 4500 to 3500 BC), trade took place with quite distant regions, indicating rapid socio-economic changes. One of the most important innovations was the start of copper working.
History of Crete
The history of Crete goes back to the 7th millennium BC, preceding the ancient Minoan civilization by more than four millennia. The Minoan civilization was the first civilization in Europe and the first, in Europe, to build a palace.
Sur, Diyarbakır
The background of Sur goes back to 7500 BC. Archaeological excavations showed that world's oldest settlement was located in the region. Civilizations ruled here are Hurrians (Bronze Age), Mitanni (c. 1500 BC–c. 1300 BC), Hittites (c. 1600 BC–c. 1178 BC), Assur (early Bronze Age), Persians (early 10th century BC), Alexander the Great (356 BC – 323 BC), Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Kurdish Marwanids, Kurdish Ayyubid Empire and Ottoman Empire.
Casma–Sechin culture
A frieze located at Sechin Bajo dated at 3600 BCE is the oldest example of monumental architecture discovered thus far in the Americas. This date, if confirmed by additional discoveries, means that the Casma/Sechin culture may have originated as early or earlier than Norte Chico, currently considered the oldest civilization of the Americas.
History of clothing and textiles
We do not know what the people who constituted the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the earliest civilizations of the world, actually wore. Any cloth that might have been worn has long since disintegrated and we have not yet been able to decipher the Indus script. However, historians and archaeologists have managed to piece together some bits of information from clues found in sculptures and figurines.
History of Syria
Archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth. Syria is part of the Fertile Crescent, and since approximately 10,000 BCE it was one of the centers of Neolithic culture (PPNA) where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The Neolithic period (PPNB) is represented by rectangular houses of the Mureybet culture. In the early Neolithic period, people used vessels made of stone, gyps and burnt lime. Finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidence of early trade relations. The cities of Hamoukar and Emar flourished during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age.The ruins of Ebla, near Idlib in northern Syria, were discovered and excavated in 1975. Ebla appears to have been an East Semitic speaking city-state founded around 3000 BCE. At its zenith, from about 2500 to 2400 BCE, it may have controlled an empire reaching north to Anatolia, east to Mesopotamia and south to Damascus. Ebla traded with the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, as well as with peoples to the northwest. Gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Ebla's contact with Egypt. Scholars believe the language of Ebla was closely related to the fellow East Semitic Akkadian language of Mesopotamia and to be among the oldest known written languages.
Minoan civilization
The most well-known script is Linear A, dated to between 2500 BC and 1450 BC. Linear A is the parent of the related Linear B script, which encodes the earliest known form of Greek. Several attempts to translate Linear A have been made, but consensus is lacking and Linear A is currently considered undeciphered. The language encoded by Linear A is tentatively dubbed "Minoan". When the values of the symbols in Linear B are used in Linear A, they produce unintelligible words, and would make Minoan unrelated to any other known language. There is a belief that the Minoans used their written language primarily as an accounting tool and that even if deciphered, may offer little insight other than detailed descriptions of quantities.
Andalusia
Several theories postulate that the first hominids in Europe were in Andalusia, having passed across the Strait of Gibraltar; the earliest known paintings of humanity have been found in the Caves of Nerja, Málaga. The first settlers, based on artifacts from the archaeological sites at Los Millares, El Argar, and Tartessos, were clearly influenced by cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean who arrived on the Andalusian coast. Andalusia then went through a period of protohistory, when the region did not have a written language of its own, but its existence was known to and documented by literate cultures, principally the Phoenicians and Ancient Greeks, wide historical moment in which Cádiz was founded, regarded by many as the oldest city still standing in Western Europe; another city among the oldest is the andalusian Málaga. During the second millennium BCE, the kingdom of Tartessos developed in Andalusia.
Ancient history
The Ancient Near East is considered the cradle of civilization. It was the first to practice intensive year-round agriculture; created the first coherent writing system, invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular- and mill wheel, created the first centralized governments, law codes and empires, as well as introducing social stratification, slavery and organized warfare, and it laid the foundation for the fields of astronomy and mathematics.
Pakistan
Some of the earliest ancient human civilisations in South Asia originated from areas encompassing present-day Pakistan. The earliest known inhabitants in the region were Soanian during the Lower Paleolithic, of whom stone tools have been found in the Soan Valley of Punjab. The Indus region, which covers most of present day Pakistan, was the site of several successive ancient cultures including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation (2,800–1,800 BCE) at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.
The Vedic period (1500–500 BCE) was characterised by an Indo-Aryan culture; during this period the Vedas, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism, were composed, and this culture later became well established in the region. Multan was an important Hindu pilgrimage centre. The Vedic civilisation flourished in the ancient Gandhāran city of Takṣaśilā, now Taxila in the Punjab, which was founded around 1000 BCE. Successive ancient empires and kingdoms ruled the region: the Persian Achaemenid Empire (around 519 BCE), Alexander the Great's empire in 326 BCE and the Maurya Empire, founded by Chandragupta Maurya and extended by Ashoka the Great, until 185 BCE. The Indo-Greek Kingdom founded by Demetrius of Bactria (180–165 BCE) included Gandhara and Punjab and reached its greatest extent under Menander (165–150 BCE), prospering the Greco-Buddhist culture in the region. Taxila had one of the earliest universities and centres of higher education in the world, which was established during the late Vedic period in 6th century BCE. The school consisted of several monasteries without large dormitories or lecture halls where the religious instruction was provided on an individualistic basis. The ancient university was documented by the invading forces of Alexander the Great, "the like of which had not been seen in Greece," and was also recorded by Chinese pilgrims in the 4th or 5th century CE.
Maya civilization
The Maya writing system is one of the outstanding achievements of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas. It was the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system of more than a dozen systems that developed in Mesoamerica. The earliest inscriptions in an identifiably Maya script date back to 300–200 BC, in the Petén Basin. However, this is preceded by several other Mesoamerican writing systems, such as the Epi-Olmec and Zapotec scripts. Early Maya script had appeared on the Pacific coast of Guatemala by the late 1st century AD, or early 2nd century. Similarities between the Isthmian script and Early Maya script of the Pacific coast suggest that the two systems developed in tandem. By about AD 250, the Maya script had become a more formalized and consistent writing system.
Persian Gulf
Earliest evidence of human presence on Persian Gulf islands dates back to Middle Paleolithic and consist of stone tools discovered at Qeshm Island.The world's oldest known civilization (Sumer) developed along the Persian Gulf and southern Mesopotamia. The shallow basin that now underlies the Gulf was an extensive region of river valley and wetlands during the transition between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the start of the Holocene, which, according to University of Birmingham archaeologist Jeffrey Rose, served as an environmental refuge for early humans during periodic hyperarid climate oscillations, laying the foundations for the legend of Dilmun.
Zapotec civilization
The Zapotec civilization ( "The People" 700 BC–1521 AD) was an indigenous pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca in Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence shows that their culture goes back at least 2,500 years. The Zapotec left archaeological evidence at the ancient city of Monte Albán in the form of buildings, ball courts, magnificent tombs and grave goods including finely worked gold jewelry. Monte Albán was one of the first major cities in Mesoamerica and the center of a Zapotec state that dominated much of the territory that today belongs to the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Maya civilization
The Maya developed their first civilization in the Preclassic period. Scholars continue to discuss when this era of Maya civilization began. Maya occupation at Cuello (modern-day Belize) has been carbon dated to around 2600 BC. Settlements were established around 1800 BC in the Soconusco region of the Pacific coast, and the Maya were already cultivating the staple crops of maize, beans, squash, and chili pepper. This period was characterized by sedentary communities and the introduction of pottery and fired clay figurines.
Akbash
Archeological evidence suggests that the earliest civilizations arose in this region of the world where plants were first cultivated and the first livestock were domesticated. In short order there would have been a need for livestock protection dogs to care for the livestock.
Mu (lost continent)
There is evidence that the civilizations of the Americas and the Old World developed independently of each other and, in fact, agriculture and urban societies probably first developed after the end of the Ice Age, somewhere in the Levant some 10,000 years ago and gradually spread outwards from there to the rest of the Old World. The development of the oldest known cities, such as Çatalhöyük, can more easily be attributed to local and gradual evolution than to the coming of refugees from a "superior civilization".
History of China
The earliest evidence of cultivated rice, found by the Yangtze River, is carbon-dated to 8,000 years ago. Early evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is radiocarbon-dated to about 7000 BC. Farming gave rise to the Jiahu culture (7000 to 5800 BC). At Damaidi in Ningxia, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000–5000 BC have been discovered, "featuring 8,453 individual characters such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing". These pictographs are reputed to be similar to the earliest characters confirmed to be written Chinese. Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 7000 BC, Dadiwan from 5800 BC to 5400 BC, Damaidi around 6000 BC and Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BC. Some scholars have suggested that Jiahu symbols (7th millennium BC) were the earliest Chinese writing system. Excavation of a Peiligang culture site in Xinzheng county, Henan, found a community that flourished in 5,500 to 4,900 BC, with evidence of agriculture, constructed buildings, pottery, and burial of the dead. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and the potential to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a center of Yangshao culture (5000 BC to 3000 BC), and the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of these was found at Banpo, Xi'an. Later, Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture, which was also centered on the Yellow River from about 3000 BC to 2000 BC.
Art of Europe
The Minoan culture is regarded as the oldest civilization in Europe. The Minoan culture existed in Crete and consisted of four periods: Prepalatial, Protopalatial, Neopalatial, and the Postpalatial period between 3650 BC and 1100 BC. Not much of the art remained from the Prepalatial times, and most of artefacts still existing today are Cycladic statuettes and pottery fragments. The most prosperous period of the Cretan civilization was Neopalatial period and most of the artefacts are from this era. A large number of artefacts from the Protopalatial can be seen today in Cretan museums.
Pottery – most popular in the Protopalatial period (1900-1700 BC) – was characterized by thin walled vessels, subtle, symmetrical shapes, elegant spouts, and decorations, and dynamic lines. Dark and light values were often contrasted in Minoan pottery. The spontaneity and fluidity of the Protopalatial period later were transformed to a more stylized form of art with dissociation of naturalism in the Neopalatial period.The palaces served as organizational, commercial, artistic, worshipping, and agricultural centres in the Cretan civilization. Cretan palaces were built without defensive walls and exhibited a central courtyard which was embraced by a number of buildings. The central courtyard served as the main meeting place of the people. The palaces had throne rooms, cult chambers, and theatres where people could gather at special events. Columns and staircases were part of the artistic expression and it is believed that they served as metaphorical elements.The Minoan palaces are richly painted with paintings. Minoan painting was unique in that it used wet fresco techniques; it was characterized by small waists, fluidity, and vitality of the figures and was seasoned with elasticity, spontaneity, vitality, and high-contrasting colours.Not much of the sculpture survived from the Minoan civilization. The best known example of sculptures is the Snake Goddess figurine. The sculpture depicts a goddess or a high priestess holding a snake in both hands, dressed in traditional Minoan attire, cloth covering the whole body and leaving the breasts exposed. Exquisite metal work was also a characteristic of the Minoan art. Minoan metal masters worked with imported gold and copper and mastered techniques of wax casting, embossing, gilding, nielo, and granulation.
Prehistory
The Bronze Age is the earliest period in which some civilizations have reached the end of prehistory, by introducing written records. The Bronze Age or parts thereof are thus considered to be part of prehistory only for the regions and civilizations who adopted or developed a system of keeping written records during later periods. The invention of writing coincides in some areas with the early beginnings of the Bronze Age. Soon after the appearance of writing, people started creating texts including written accounts of events and records of administrative matters.
History of Kutch
The earliest human settlements can be traced back to the Early Harappan Period of Indus valley civilization, c. 3300–2600 BCE. Several sites belonging to this civilization are discovered in Kutch. Dholavira, locally known as Kotada Timba, is one of the largest and most prominent archaeological sites in India belonging to the civilization. It is located on the Khadir island in the northern part of the Kutch. The island is surrounded by water in the monsoon season. The Dholavira site is believed to have been inhabited between 2900 BCE and 1900 BCE, declining slowly after about 2100 BCE, briefly abandoned and then reoccupied, finally by villagers among its ruins, until about 1450. Other sites include Surkotada, Desalpar Gunthli, Pabumath, Kanmer and Shikarpur. More than 60 major Harappan sites are discovered around the Rann of Kutch.
Chiapas
Recent excavations in the Soconusco region of the state indicate that the oldest civilization to appear in what is now modern Chiapas is that of the Mokaya, which were cultivating corn and living in houses as early as 1500 BCE, making them one of the oldest in Mesoamerica. There is speculation that these were the forefathers of the Olmec, migrating across the Grijalva Valley and onto the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico to the north, which was Olmec territory. One of these people's ancient cities is now the archeological site of Chiapa de Corzo, in which was found the oldest calendar known on a piece of ceramic with a date of 36 BCE. This is three hundred years before the Mayans developed their calendar. The descendants of Mokaya are the Mixe-Zoque.
History of ancient Lebanon
The earliest known settlements in Lebanon date back to earlier than 5000 BC. In Byblos, which is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, archaeologists have discovered remnants of prehistoric huts with crushed limestone floors, primitive weapons, and burial jars which are evidence of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic fishing communities who lived on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea over 8,000 years ago.
State (polity)
Mesopotamia is generally considered to be the location of the earliest civilization or complex society, meaning that it contained cities, full-time division of labor, social concentration of wealth into capital, unequal distribution of wealth, ruling classes, community ties based on residency rather than kinship, long distance trade, monumental architecture, standardized forms of art and culture, writing, and mathematics and science. It was the world's first literate civilization, and formed the first sets of written laws.