1.
10th millennium BC
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The 10th millennium BC marks the beginning of the Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic periods, which is the first part of the Holocene epoch. Agriculture, based on the cultivation of primitive forms of millet and rice, although agriculture was being developed in the Fertile Crescent, it would not be widely practiced for another 2,000 years. The world population was one and ten million people, most of whom were hunter-gatherer communities scattered over all continents except Antarctica. The Würm glaciation ended, and the beginning interglacial, which endures to this day, C.10,000 BC, First cave drawings of the Mesolithic period are made, with war scenes and religious scenes. C.10,000 BC, Bottle Gourd is domesticated and used as a carrying vessel, C.10,000 BC, The end of the most recent glaciation. C.9700 BC, Younger Dryas cold period and the Pleistocene epoch ends, C.9500 BC, There is evidence of harvesting, though not necessarily cultivation, of wild grasses in Asia Minor about this time. C.9500 BC, First building phase of the complex at Göbekli Tepe. c.9300 BC. C.9100 BC, Oldest known megaliths are created at the Göbekli Tepe temple complexes, some up to 20 tons c.9000 BC, C.9000 BC, Near East, First stone structures at Jericho are built. Asia, Cave sites near the Caspian Sea are inhabited by humans, africa, Wall paintings found in Ethiopia and Eritrea depict human activity, some of the older paintings are thought to date back to around 10,000 BC. Europe, Azilian people occupy northern Spain and Southern France, europe, Magdalenian culture flourishes and creates cave paintings in France. Europe, Solutrean culture begins horse hunting, egypt, Early sickle blades and grain grinding stones appear Jordan, Wadi Faynan, large, oval-shaped building. Early farmers lived here between 9,600 and 8,200 BC, cultivating wild plants such as barley, pistachio, and fig trees, and hunting or herding wild goats, cattle. Kurdistan region in Iran, Zagros mountains near Kermanshah, very early agriculture, syria, Jerf el-Ahmar, occupied between 9200 and 8700 BC. Japan, The Jōmon people use pottery, fish, hunt and gather acorns, nuts, mesopotamia, People begin to collect wild wheat and barley probably to make malt then beer. Norway, First traces of population in Randaberg,9564 BC, Destruction of Atlantis, according to theosophic tradition. C.9500 BC –9000 BC, In Bryan Sykes The Seven Daughters of Eve, the Holocene calendar, devised by Cesare Emiliani in 1993, places its epoch at 10,000 BC. Kislev, Mordechai E. Hartmann, Anat & Bar-Yosef, Ofer, doi,10. 1126/science.1125910 PMID16741119 Supporting Online Material Kislev, Mordechai E. Hartmann, Anat & Bar-Yosef, Ofer, Response to Comment on Early Domesticated Fig in the Jordan Valley. Doi,10. 1126/science.1133748 PDF fulltext Lev-Yadun, Simcha, Neeman, Gidi, Abbo, Shahal & Flaishman, Comment on Early Domesticated Fig in the Jordan Valley
2.
8th millennium BC
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In the 8th millennium BC, agriculture became widely practised in the Fertile Crescent and Anatolia. Pottery became widespread and animal husbandry spread to Africa and Eurasia, world population was approximately 5 million. C.8083 BC—Comet Hale–Bopp appears in the sky and it comes back in the 6th millennium BC. c.8000 BC—Upper Paleolithic period ends. C.8000 BC—Settlement in Franchthi Cave in Peloponnese, continues, first evidence of seed and animal stocking and obsidian trade with Melos. The settlement was occupied since 20,000 BC and abandoned in 3000 BC. c.8000 BC—Settlements at Nevali Cori in present-day Turkey are established. C.8000 BC—Asikli Hoyuk, Cappadocia, established, C.8000 BC—Settlements at Sagalassos in present-day southwest Turkey are established. C.8000 BC—Settlements at Akure in present-day southwest Nigeria are established, C.8000 BC—Settlements at Øvre Eiker and Nedre Eiker in present-day Buskerud, Norway are established. C.8000 BC—Settlements at Ærø, Denmark are established, C.8000 BC—Settlements at Deepcar near present-day Sheffield, England are established. C.8000 BC—North American Arctic is inhabited by hunter-gatherers of the Paleo-Arctic Tradition, C.8000 BC—Pre-Anasazi Paleo-Indians move into present-day Southwest United States. C.8000 BC—Plano cultures inhabit the Great Plains area of North America, C.7500 BC—Settlements at Sand, Applecross on the coast of Wester Ross, Scotland are constructed. C.7500 BC—Çatalhöyük, a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, is founded, C.7500 BC—Cattle Period begins in the Sahara. C.7500 BC—Mesolithic hunter-gatherers are the first humans to reach Ireland, C.7570 BC—Bhirrana, the earliest Indus Valley site, is settled. C.7370 BC—End of the settlement at Jericho. C.7200 BC—Cayonu in southeast Turkey, the likely site of emmer wheat. C.7200 BC–5000 BC—Ain Ghazal, Jordan is inhabited, C.8000 BC—Glaciers form the rock formation in present-day New Hampshire, formerly known as the Old Man of the Mountain. C.7911 BC—Series of seven massive volcanic eruptions give volcanic skies, locations not known, but show in polar ice. One possibility is the Phlegraean Fields caldera near Naples, Italy, C.7640 BC—Date theorized for impact of Tollmanns hypothetical bolide with Earth and associated global cataclysm. C.7220 BC—Eruption of Mount Edgecumbe, Alaska, large outflow of fresh water from Black Sea into Aegean Sea
3.
Upper Palaeolithic
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The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity, modern humans are believed to have emerged about 195,000 years ago in Africa. Although these humans were modern in anatomy, their lifestyle changed very little from their contemporaries, such as Homo erectus, about 50,000 years ago, there was a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts. In Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archeological record, between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago, this new tool technology spread with human migration to Europe. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals. The Upper Paleolithic has the earliest known evidence of organized settlements, in the form of campsites, artistic work blossomed, with cave painting, petroglyphs, carvings and engravings on bone or ivory. The first evidence of fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. More complex social groupings emerged, supported by more varied and reliable food sources and this probably contributed to increasing group identification or ethnicity. By 50, 000–40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia, by 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61° north latitude in Europe. By 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia above the Arctic Circle, at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed the Bering land bridge and quickly expanded throughout North and South America. Both Homo erectus and Neanderthals used the same crude stone tools, archaeologist Richard G. Klein, who has worked extensively on ancient stone tools, describes the stone tool kit of archaic hominids as impossible to categorize. It was as if the Neanderthals made stone tools, and were not much concerned about their final forms and he argues that almost everywhere, whether Asia, Africa or Europe, before 50,000 years ago all the stone tools are much alike and unsophisticated. These new stone-tool types have been described as being distinctly differentiated from each other, the invaders, commonly referred to as the Cro-Magnons, left many sophisticated stone tools, carved and engraved pieces on bone, ivory and antler, cave paintings and Venus figurines. The Neanderthals continued to use Mousterian stone tool technology and possibly Chatelperronian technology and these tools disappeared from the archeological record at around the same time the Neanderthals themselves disappeared from the fossil record, about 40,000 years ago. Settlements were often located in valley bottoms, possibly associated with hunting of passing herds of animals. Hunting was important, and caribou/wild reindeer may well be the species of single greatest importance in the anthropological literature on hunting. Technological advances included significant developments in flint tool manufacturing, with industries based on fine blades rather than simpler and shorter flakes, burins and racloirs were used to work bone, antler and hides. Advanced darts and harpoons also appear in period, along with the fish hook, the oil lamp, rope
4.
Mesolithic
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In archaeology, the Mesolithic is the culture between Paleolithic and Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used for areas outside northern Europe, Mesolithic has different time spans in different parts of Eurasia. It was originally post-Pleistocene, pre-agricultural material in northwest Europe about 10,000 to 5000 BC, in the archaeology of Northern Europe, for example for archaeological sites in Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Ukraine, and Russia, the term Mesolithic is almost always used. In the archaeology of other areas, the term Epipaleolithic may be preferred by most authors, in the New World, neither term is used. Other authors use the term Mesolithic for a variety of Late Paleolithic cultures subsequent to the end of the last glacial period whether they are transitional towards agriculture or not, conversely, those that are in course of transition toward artificial food production are assigned to the Mesolithic. Therefore, care must be taken in translating Mesolithic as Middle Stone Age, subdivisions of earlier and later were added to the Stone Age by Thomsen and especially his junior colleague and employee Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae. John Lubbock kept these divisions in his work Pre-historic Times in 1865 and he saw no need for an intermediate category. When Hodder Westropp introduced the Mesolithic in 1866, as an intermediate between Paleolithic and Neolithic, a storm of controversy immediately arose around it. A British school led by John Evans denied any need for an intermediate, the ages blended together like the colors of a rainbow, he said. A European school led by Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet asserted that there was a gap between the earlier and later, edouard Piette claimed to have filled the gap with his discovery of the Azilian Culture. Knut Stjerna offered an alternative in the Epipaleolithic, a continuation of the use of Paleolithic technology, the start and end dates of the Mesolithic vary by geographical region. Childes view prevails that the term covers the period between the end of the Pleistocene and the start of the Neolithic. If the Mesolithic is more similar to the Paleolithic it is called the Epipaleolithic, the Paleolithic was an age of purely hunting and gathering while in the Neolithic domestication of plants and animals had occurred. Some Mesolithic peoples continued with intensive hunting, others were practising the initial stages of domestication. The type of remains the diagnostic factor, The Mesolithic featured composite devices manufactured with Mode V chipped stone tools. The Paleolithic had utilized Modes I–IV and the Neolithic mainly abandoned the chipped microliths in favor of polished, not chipped, the first period, known as Mesolithic 1, followed the Aurignacian or Levantine Upper Paleolithic periods throughout the Levant. By the end of the Aurignacian, gradual changes took place in stone industries, small stone tools called microliths and retouched bladelets can be found for the first time. The microliths of this period differ greatly from the Aurignacian artifacts
5.
Swiderian culture
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Swiderian culture, also published in English literature as Sviderian and Swederian, is the name of Final Palaeolithic cultural complexes in Poland and the surrounding areas. The type-site is Świdry Wielkie, in Otwock near the Swider River, the Swiderian is recognized as a distinctive culture that developed on the sand dunes left behind by the retreating glaciers. The crude flint blades of Early Swiderian are found in the area of Nowy Mlyn in the Holy Cross Mountains region, late Swiderian is characterized by blades with a blunted back. The Swiderian culture plays a role in the Palaeolithic-Mesolithic transition. It has been accepted that most of the Swiderian population emigrated at the very end of the Pleistocene to the northeast following the retreating tundra. Recent radiocarbon dates prove that some groups of the Svidero-Ahrensburgian Complex persisted into the Preboreal, unlike western Europe, the Mesolithic groups now inhabiting the Polish Plain were newcomers. This has been attested by a 300-year-long gap between the youngest Palaeolithic and the oldest Mesolithic occupation, the oldest Mesolithic site is Chwalim, located in western Silesia, Poland, it outdates the Mesolithic sites situated to the east in central and northeastern Poland by about 150 years. Thus, the Mesolithic population progressed from the west after a 300-year-long settlement break, the Ukrainian archaeologist L. Zalizniak believes Kunda culture of Central Russia and the Baltic zone, and other so-called post-Swiderian cultures, derive from the Swiderian culture. The raw materials of the assemblage at Sujala originate in the Varanger Peninsula in northern Norway. Proposed parallels with the blade technology among the earliest Mesolithic finds in southern Norway would have placed the find closer or even before 10000 BP. However, a connection to early North Norwegian settlements is contradicted by the shape of the tanged points. There, counterparts of the Sujala cores can also be found, the Sujala assemblage is currently considered unquestionably post-Swiderian and is dated by radiocarbon to 9265-8930 BP, the true age being approximately 8300-8200 CalBC. Such an Early Mesolithic influence from Russia or the Baltic might imply an adjustment to previous thoughts on the colonization of the Barents Sea coast
6.
Black Sea
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The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, the longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. The Black Sea has a water balance, that is, a net outflow of water 300 km3 per year through the Bosphorus. Mediterranean water flows into the Black Sea as part of a two-way hydrological exchange, the Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea and then the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and these waters separate Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch, the water level has varied significantly. Due to these variations in the level in the basin. At certain critical water levels it is possible for connections with surrounding water bodies to become established and it is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean. When this hydrological link is not present, the Black Sea is a basin, operating independently of the global ocean system. Currently the Black Sea water level is high, thus water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Turkish Straits connect the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, and comprise the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara, a line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia. Strabos Geographica reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called the Sea, for the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the Hospitable sea, Εὔξεινος Πόντος Eúxeinos Póntos. This is a euphemism replacing an earlier Inhospitable Sea, Πόντος Ἄξεινος Póntos Áxeinos, strabo thinks that the Black Sea was called inhospitable before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. The name was changed to hospitable after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline and it is also possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, dark, the designation Black Sea may thus date from antiquity. A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled Asiae Nova Descriptio, from Abraham Orteliuss Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, english-language writers of the 18th century often used the name Euxine Sea to refer to the Black Sea
7.
Iberians
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The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula, at least from the 6th century BC. The Roman sources also use the term Hispani to refer to the Iberians, the term Iberian, as used by the ancient authors, had two distinct meanings. One, more general, referred to all the populations of the Iberian peninsula without regard to ethnic differences and this non-Indo-European cultural group spoke the Iberian language from the 7th to the 1st century BC. Other peoples possibly related to the Iberians are the Vascones, though related to the Aquitani than to the Iberians. The Iberian culture developed from the 6th century BC, and perhaps as early as the fifth to the third millennium BC in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula, the Iberians lived in villages and oppida and their communities were based on a tribal organization. The Iberians in the Spanish Levant, were more urbanized than their neighbors in the central, the peoples in the central and northwest regions were mostly Celtic, semi-pastoral and lived in scattered villages, though they also had a few fortified towns like Numantia. They had a knowledge of writing, metalworking, including bronze, in the centuries preceding Carthaginian and Roman conquest, Iberian settlements grew in social complexity, exhibiting evidence of social stratification and urbanization. This process was aided by trading contacts with the Phoenicians, Greeks. The settlement of Castellet de Banyoles in Tivissa was one of the most important ancient Iberian settlements in Catalonia that was discovered in 1912, also, the Treasure of Tivissa, a unique collection of silver Iberian votive offerings was found here in 1927. Lucentum was another ancient Iberian settlement, as well as Castelldefels Castle, mausoleum of Pozo Moro near the town of Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón in Castile-La Mancha seems to mark the location of another big settlement. Sagunto is the location of an ancient Iberian and later Roman city of Saguntum, Greek colonists made the first historical reference to the Iberians in the 6th century BC. They defined Iberians as non-Celtic peoples south of the Ebro river, the Greeks also dubbed as Iberians another people in the Caucasus region, currently known as Caucasian Iberians. It is not known if there had any type of connection between the two peoples. The Iberians traded extensively with other Mediterranean cultures, Iberian pottery and metalwork has been found in France, Italy, and North Africa. The Iberians had extensive contact with Greek colonists in the Spanish colonies of Emporion, Rhode, Zakynthos, the Iberians may have adopted some of the Greeks artistic techniques. Statues such as the Lady of Baza and the Lady of Elx are thought to have made by Iberians relatively well acquainted with Greek art. Thucydides stated that one of the three tribes of Sicily, the Sicani, were of Iberian origin, though Iberian at the time could have included what we think of as Gaul. The Iberians also had contacts with the Phoenicians, who had established colonies in southern Andalucia
