This timeline of prehistory covers the time from the appearance of Homo sapiens approximately 315,000 years ago in Africa to the
invention of writing, over 5,000 years ago, with the earliest records going back to 3,200 BC.
Prehistory covers the time from the
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) to the beginning of
ancient history.
All dates are approximate and subject to revision based on new discoveries or analyses.
320
kya - 305 kya: Populations at
Olorgesailie in Southern
Kenya undergo technological improvements in tool making and engage in long-distance
trade.[2]
230 kya: Latest proposed date for the
Terra Amata site, home of the first confirmed purpose-built structure and probably made by
Homo heidelbergensis.[6]
210 kya: Modern human presence in southeast Europe (Apidima, Greece).[7]
200 kya: Oldest known grass
bedding, including
insect-repellent plants and ash layers beneath (possibly for a dirt-free, insulated base and to keep away arthropods).[8][9][10]
130 kya: Oldest evidence of ancient seafaring, from
Crete (an island isolated from land for millions of years prior to human arrival).[17]
125 kya: The peak of the
Eemian interglacial period.
120 kya: Possibly the earliest evidence of
use of
symbols etched onto bone.[18][19]
120 kya: Use of marine shells for personal decoration by humans, including
Neandertals.[20][21][22]
120 kya - 90 kya:Abbassia Pluvial in North Africa—the Sahara desert region is wet and fertile.
120 kya - 75 kya:Khoisanid back-migration from Southern Africa to East Africa.[23]
100 kya: Earliest structures in the world (sandstone blocks set in a semi-circle with an oval foundation) built in Egypt close to
Wadi Halfa near the modern
border with Sudan.[24]
75 kya:Eruption of the Toba supervolcano. It was originally thought that this event led to a genetic bottleneck in humans and perhaps other species, but more recent evidence makes this doubtful.[25]
70 kya: Earliest example of abstract art or symbolic art from
Blombos Cave, South Africa—stones engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns.[26]
"Epipaleolithic" or "Mesolithic" are terms for a transitional period between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Neolithic Revolution in Old World (Eurasian) cultures.
80 kya - 40 kya: Evidence of Australian Aboriginal Culture.[27][28]
42 kya: Time frame of the
Laschamps event, the first
geomagnetic excursion studied and one of the few full
global magnetic field reversals known. Although many effects upon life on Earth and human evolution from the increase in
cosmic rays have been tentatively proposed, the effects are not considered to have been strong enough (further refuted by
paleoecological evidence) to have significantly affected natural or human history.[34]
42 kya: Earliest evidence of advanced deep sea fishing technology at the
Jerimalai cave site in
East Timor—demonstrates high-level maritime skills and by implication the technology needed to make ocean crossings to reach Australia and other islands, as they were catching and consuming large numbers of big deep sea fish such as tuna.[36][37]
37 kya: A population of
Basal Eurasians migrate to Europe. Unlike the
Early European modern humans that inhabited Europe earlier, these populations form part of the ancestry of modern Europe.[32]
30 kya: Rock paintings tradition begins in
Bhimbetka rock shelters in
India, which presently as a collection is the densest known concentration of rock art. In an area about 10 km2, there are about 800 rock shelters of which 500 contain paintings.[55]
28.5 kya:New Guinea is populated by colonists from Asia or Australia.[56]
24 kya - 15 kya: General time frame for the
Mal'ta–Buret' culture near
Lake Baikal,[61] the archaeological culture whose human remains serve as the type for the
Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) population which appeared some time prior. Mal'ta-Buret' sites consisted of temporary mammoth-bone huts for reindeer hunters, yet their art is among the most sophisticated of their time, having many parallels with carvings elsewhere in Eurasia (for example,
their Venus figurines), indicative of long-distance exchange of ideas. Both
Europeans and
American Indians share significant ANE ancestry.
24 kya: The
cave bear is thought to have become extinct.[62]
24 kya: Evidence suggests humans living in Alaska and Yukon North America.[63]
23 kya: A population of
wolves are hypothesized to have begun cohabiting with
Ancient North Eurasians for shared food, protection, and (possibly later) hunting success. This commensal relationship is thought to have led to the
domestication of the dog, which genetic studies show their ancestry diverging from wolves at this time along with an increase in population.[64][65] At the
Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site, smaller wolf-like canids with
neotenous features and signs of being cared for have been observed.[66]
20 kya - 10 kya:Khoisanid expansion to Central Africa.[23]
18 kya - 12 kya: Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars that
Afro-Asiatic was spoken as a
single language around this time period.[74]
18 kya: The
Magdalenian culture appears in Europe. They are responsible for some of the most complex and famous artistic traditions of Ice Age Europe, creating the cave paintings of
Lascaux and
Altamira, as well as numerous carvings in ivory and stone.[75]
13 kya - 10 kya: End of the
Last Glacial Period, climate warms, glaciers recede.
13 kya: A major water outbreak occurs on
Lake Agassiz in central North America, which at the time could have been the size of the current
Black Sea and the largest lake on Earth. Much of the lake is drained in the Arctic Ocean through the
Mackenzie River.[82][83][84]
12.9 kya - 11.7 kya: The
Younger Dryas, a period of sudden cooling and return to glacial conditions.
12 kya: Volcanic eruptions in the
Virunga Mountains blocked
Lake Kivu outflow into
Lake Edward and the
Nile system, diverting the water to
Lake Tanganyika. Nile's total length is shortened and Lake Tanganyika's surface is increased.
The terms "Neolithic" and "Bronze Age" are culture-specific and are mostly limited to cultures of select parts of the
Old World, namely
Europe,
Western and
South Asia. Chronological
periodizations typically base their periods on one or more identifiable and unique markers associated with a culturally distinct era (within a given interaction sphere), but these markers are not necessarily intrinsic to the cultural evolution of the era's people.
As such, the terms become less applicable when their markers correlate less with cultural evolution. Therefore, the Neolithic and the
Neolithic Revolution have little to do with the
Americas, where several different chronologies are used instead depending on the area (e.g. the Andean
Preceramic, the North American
Archaic and
Formative periods). Similarly, since there is no appreciable cultural shift between the use of stone, bronze, and iron in
East and
Southeast Asia, the term "Bronze Age" is not considered to apply to this region the same as western Eurasia, and "Iron Age" is essentially never used.[86][87] In sub-Saharan Africa,
iron metallurgy was developed prior to any knowledge of bronze and possibly before iron's adoption in Eurasia[88] and despite
Postclassic Mesoamerica developing and using bronze,[89][90][91] it did not have a significant bearing on its continued cultural evolution in the same way as western Eurasia.
9600 BC:Jericho has evidence of settlement dating back to 9,600 BC. Jericho was a popular camping ground for
Natufian hunter-gatherer groups, who left a scattering of crescent
microlith tools behind them.[93]
9000 BC: Earliest date recorded for construction of temenoi ceremonial structures at
Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, as possibly the oldest surviving
proto-religious site on Earth.[95]
8900 BC - 8300 BC: The Indigenous peoples of the southwestern
Amazon basin domesticate
cassava, the first domestic crop in the New World, followed by squash and dozens of tree species. They also begin intensively modifying the Amazonian landscape, foresting open savannahs and permanently increasing the biomass and biodiversity of the modern Amazon rainforest.[96][97][98]
8800 BC - 7000 BC:Byblos appears to have been settled during the
PPNB period.
Neolithic remains of some buildings can be observed at the site.[99][100]
8000 BC - 7000 BC: In northern
Mesopotamia, now northern
Iraq, cultivation of
barley and
wheat begins. At first they are used for
beer,
gruel, and
soup, eventually for
bread.[103] In early agriculture at this time, the
planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive
plow in subsequent centuries.[104] Around this time, a round stone tower, now preserved to about 8.5 metres (28 ft) high and 8.5 metres (28 ft) in diameter is built in
Jericho.[105]
8000 BC - 6000 BC: The
post-glacial sea level rise decelerates, slowing the submersion of landmasses that had taken place over the previous 10,000 years.
8000 BC - 3000 BC:Identical ancestors point: sometime in this period lived the latest subgroup of human population consisting of those that were all common ancestors of all present day humans, the rest having no present day descendants.[106]
7000 BC:Maize is domesticated in southern
Mexico from the wild (and significantly different)
teosinte and quickly becomes the dominant staple of Mesoamerica, heralding the beginning of agriculture and further domestications in the region.[113]
7000 BC: First large-scale fish fermentation in southern Sweden.[116]
7000 BC: Human settlement of
Mehrgarh, one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia. In April 2006, Nature note that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e. in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh.[117]
6200 BC - 6000 BC: The
8.2-kiloyear event, a sudden decrease of global temperatures, probably caused by the final collapse of the
Laurentide Ice Sheet, which leads to drier conditions in East Africa and
Mesopotamia.
6200 BC - 5600 BC: Sudden rise in sea level (
Meltwater pulse 1C) by 6.5 m (21 ft) in less than 140 years; this concludes the
early Holocene sea level rise and sea level remains largely stable throughout the Neolithic.[118]
6000 BC: Evidence of habitation at the current site of
Aleppo dates to about c. 8,000 years ago, although excavations at
Tell Qaramel, 25 kilometres (16 mi) north of the city show the area was inhabited about 13,000 years ago,[121]Carbon-14 dating at
Tell Ramad, on the outskirts of
Damascus, suggests that the site may have been occupied since the second half of the seventh millennium BC, possibly around 6300 BC.[122] However, evidence of settlement in the wider Barada basin dating back to 9000 BC exists.[123]
6000 BC - 5000 BC: The earliest New World ceramics are created in the
Amazon basin.[124]
4130 BC:Toggling harpoons are invented somewhere in eastern Siberia, spreading south into Japan and east into North America, where they are ancestral to the sophisticated designs of the
Inuit and later European
whalers.[130]
4000 BC - 2000 BC: The
Dene-Yeniseian languages split into
Na-Dene in North America and
Yeniseian languages in Siberia. The connection is commonly thought to have been the result of a back-migration of early
American Indians in
Beringia back into Siberia, forming the
Yeniseian peoples that were once widespread throughout Eurasia.[131] However, recent studies indicating the existence of a linguistic and technological continuum extending into the
Common Era make the directionality of migration and the homeland of Dene-Yeniseian more difficult to determine.[132]
3600 BC: The first monumental buildings are constructed in
Sechin Bajo, an urban center in what is now coastal
Peru. It belonged to the
Casma–Sechin culture, possibly the oldest civilization in the Americas.[136]
3500 BC: Earliest conjectured date for the still-undeciphered
Indus script.
3500 BC: End of the
African humid period possibly linked to the
Piora Oscillation: a rapid and intense
aridification event, which probably started the current Sahara Desert dry phase and a population increase in the
Nile Valley due to migrations from nearby regions. It is also believed this event contributed to the end of the
Ubaid period in Mesopotamia.
3200 BC - 2500 BC: The Norte Chico or
Caral–Supe civilization begins on the coast of Peru with a wave of monumental construction and founding of the first cities in the Americas. It is generally considered the oldest civilization in the Americas.[146]
Researchers deduced in a
scientific review that "no specific point in time can currently be identified at which modern human ancestry was confined to a limited birthplace" and that current knowledge about long, continuous and complex – e.g. often non-singular, parallel, nonsimultaneous and/or gradual – emergences of characteristics is consistent with a range of
evolutionary histories.[151][152] A timeline dating first occurrences and earliest evidence may therefore be an often inadequate approach for describing humanity's (pre-)history.
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This timeline of prehistory covers the time from the appearance of Homo sapiens approximately 315,000 years ago in Africa to the
invention of writing, over 5,000 years ago, with the earliest records going back to 3,200 BC.
Prehistory covers the time from the
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) to the beginning of
ancient history.
All dates are approximate and subject to revision based on new discoveries or analyses.
320
kya - 305 kya: Populations at
Olorgesailie in Southern
Kenya undergo technological improvements in tool making and engage in long-distance
trade.[2]
230 kya: Latest proposed date for the
Terra Amata site, home of the first confirmed purpose-built structure and probably made by
Homo heidelbergensis.[6]
210 kya: Modern human presence in southeast Europe (Apidima, Greece).[7]
200 kya: Oldest known grass
bedding, including
insect-repellent plants and ash layers beneath (possibly for a dirt-free, insulated base and to keep away arthropods).[8][9][10]
130 kya: Oldest evidence of ancient seafaring, from
Crete (an island isolated from land for millions of years prior to human arrival).[17]
125 kya: The peak of the
Eemian interglacial period.
120 kya: Possibly the earliest evidence of
use of
symbols etched onto bone.[18][19]
120 kya: Use of marine shells for personal decoration by humans, including
Neandertals.[20][21][22]
120 kya - 90 kya:Abbassia Pluvial in North Africa—the Sahara desert region is wet and fertile.
120 kya - 75 kya:Khoisanid back-migration from Southern Africa to East Africa.[23]
100 kya: Earliest structures in the world (sandstone blocks set in a semi-circle with an oval foundation) built in Egypt close to
Wadi Halfa near the modern
border with Sudan.[24]
75 kya:Eruption of the Toba supervolcano. It was originally thought that this event led to a genetic bottleneck in humans and perhaps other species, but more recent evidence makes this doubtful.[25]
70 kya: Earliest example of abstract art or symbolic art from
Blombos Cave, South Africa—stones engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns.[26]
"Epipaleolithic" or "Mesolithic" are terms for a transitional period between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Neolithic Revolution in Old World (Eurasian) cultures.
80 kya - 40 kya: Evidence of Australian Aboriginal Culture.[27][28]
42 kya: Time frame of the
Laschamps event, the first
geomagnetic excursion studied and one of the few full
global magnetic field reversals known. Although many effects upon life on Earth and human evolution from the increase in
cosmic rays have been tentatively proposed, the effects are not considered to have been strong enough (further refuted by
paleoecological evidence) to have significantly affected natural or human history.[34]
42 kya: Earliest evidence of advanced deep sea fishing technology at the
Jerimalai cave site in
East Timor—demonstrates high-level maritime skills and by implication the technology needed to make ocean crossings to reach Australia and other islands, as they were catching and consuming large numbers of big deep sea fish such as tuna.[36][37]
37 kya: A population of
Basal Eurasians migrate to Europe. Unlike the
Early European modern humans that inhabited Europe earlier, these populations form part of the ancestry of modern Europe.[32]
30 kya: Rock paintings tradition begins in
Bhimbetka rock shelters in
India, which presently as a collection is the densest known concentration of rock art. In an area about 10 km2, there are about 800 rock shelters of which 500 contain paintings.[55]
28.5 kya:New Guinea is populated by colonists from Asia or Australia.[56]
24 kya - 15 kya: General time frame for the
Mal'ta–Buret' culture near
Lake Baikal,[61] the archaeological culture whose human remains serve as the type for the
Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) population which appeared some time prior. Mal'ta-Buret' sites consisted of temporary mammoth-bone huts for reindeer hunters, yet their art is among the most sophisticated of their time, having many parallels with carvings elsewhere in Eurasia (for example,
their Venus figurines), indicative of long-distance exchange of ideas. Both
Europeans and
American Indians share significant ANE ancestry.
24 kya: The
cave bear is thought to have become extinct.[62]
24 kya: Evidence suggests humans living in Alaska and Yukon North America.[63]
23 kya: A population of
wolves are hypothesized to have begun cohabiting with
Ancient North Eurasians for shared food, protection, and (possibly later) hunting success. This commensal relationship is thought to have led to the
domestication of the dog, which genetic studies show their ancestry diverging from wolves at this time along with an increase in population.[64][65] At the
Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site, smaller wolf-like canids with
neotenous features and signs of being cared for have been observed.[66]
20 kya - 10 kya:Khoisanid expansion to Central Africa.[23]
18 kya - 12 kya: Though estimations vary widely, it is believed by scholars that
Afro-Asiatic was spoken as a
single language around this time period.[74]
18 kya: The
Magdalenian culture appears in Europe. They are responsible for some of the most complex and famous artistic traditions of Ice Age Europe, creating the cave paintings of
Lascaux and
Altamira, as well as numerous carvings in ivory and stone.[75]
13 kya - 10 kya: End of the
Last Glacial Period, climate warms, glaciers recede.
13 kya: A major water outbreak occurs on
Lake Agassiz in central North America, which at the time could have been the size of the current
Black Sea and the largest lake on Earth. Much of the lake is drained in the Arctic Ocean through the
Mackenzie River.[82][83][84]
12.9 kya - 11.7 kya: The
Younger Dryas, a period of sudden cooling and return to glacial conditions.
12 kya: Volcanic eruptions in the
Virunga Mountains blocked
Lake Kivu outflow into
Lake Edward and the
Nile system, diverting the water to
Lake Tanganyika. Nile's total length is shortened and Lake Tanganyika's surface is increased.
The terms "Neolithic" and "Bronze Age" are culture-specific and are mostly limited to cultures of select parts of the
Old World, namely
Europe,
Western and
South Asia. Chronological
periodizations typically base their periods on one or more identifiable and unique markers associated with a culturally distinct era (within a given interaction sphere), but these markers are not necessarily intrinsic to the cultural evolution of the era's people.
As such, the terms become less applicable when their markers correlate less with cultural evolution. Therefore, the Neolithic and the
Neolithic Revolution have little to do with the
Americas, where several different chronologies are used instead depending on the area (e.g. the Andean
Preceramic, the North American
Archaic and
Formative periods). Similarly, since there is no appreciable cultural shift between the use of stone, bronze, and iron in
East and
Southeast Asia, the term "Bronze Age" is not considered to apply to this region the same as western Eurasia, and "Iron Age" is essentially never used.[86][87] In sub-Saharan Africa,
iron metallurgy was developed prior to any knowledge of bronze and possibly before iron's adoption in Eurasia[88] and despite
Postclassic Mesoamerica developing and using bronze,[89][90][91] it did not have a significant bearing on its continued cultural evolution in the same way as western Eurasia.
9600 BC:Jericho has evidence of settlement dating back to 9,600 BC. Jericho was a popular camping ground for
Natufian hunter-gatherer groups, who left a scattering of crescent
microlith tools behind them.[93]
9000 BC: Earliest date recorded for construction of temenoi ceremonial structures at
Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, as possibly the oldest surviving
proto-religious site on Earth.[95]
8900 BC - 8300 BC: The Indigenous peoples of the southwestern
Amazon basin domesticate
cassava, the first domestic crop in the New World, followed by squash and dozens of tree species. They also begin intensively modifying the Amazonian landscape, foresting open savannahs and permanently increasing the biomass and biodiversity of the modern Amazon rainforest.[96][97][98]
8800 BC - 7000 BC:Byblos appears to have been settled during the
PPNB period.
Neolithic remains of some buildings can be observed at the site.[99][100]
8000 BC - 7000 BC: In northern
Mesopotamia, now northern
Iraq, cultivation of
barley and
wheat begins. At first they are used for
beer,
gruel, and
soup, eventually for
bread.[103] In early agriculture at this time, the
planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive
plow in subsequent centuries.[104] Around this time, a round stone tower, now preserved to about 8.5 metres (28 ft) high and 8.5 metres (28 ft) in diameter is built in
Jericho.[105]
8000 BC - 6000 BC: The
post-glacial sea level rise decelerates, slowing the submersion of landmasses that had taken place over the previous 10,000 years.
8000 BC - 3000 BC:Identical ancestors point: sometime in this period lived the latest subgroup of human population consisting of those that were all common ancestors of all present day humans, the rest having no present day descendants.[106]
7000 BC:Maize is domesticated in southern
Mexico from the wild (and significantly different)
teosinte and quickly becomes the dominant staple of Mesoamerica, heralding the beginning of agriculture and further domestications in the region.[113]
7000 BC: First large-scale fish fermentation in southern Sweden.[116]
7000 BC: Human settlement of
Mehrgarh, one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia. In April 2006, Nature note that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e. in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh.[117]
6200 BC - 6000 BC: The
8.2-kiloyear event, a sudden decrease of global temperatures, probably caused by the final collapse of the
Laurentide Ice Sheet, which leads to drier conditions in East Africa and
Mesopotamia.
6200 BC - 5600 BC: Sudden rise in sea level (
Meltwater pulse 1C) by 6.5 m (21 ft) in less than 140 years; this concludes the
early Holocene sea level rise and sea level remains largely stable throughout the Neolithic.[118]
6000 BC: Evidence of habitation at the current site of
Aleppo dates to about c. 8,000 years ago, although excavations at
Tell Qaramel, 25 kilometres (16 mi) north of the city show the area was inhabited about 13,000 years ago,[121]Carbon-14 dating at
Tell Ramad, on the outskirts of
Damascus, suggests that the site may have been occupied since the second half of the seventh millennium BC, possibly around 6300 BC.[122] However, evidence of settlement in the wider Barada basin dating back to 9000 BC exists.[123]
6000 BC - 5000 BC: The earliest New World ceramics are created in the
Amazon basin.[124]
4130 BC:Toggling harpoons are invented somewhere in eastern Siberia, spreading south into Japan and east into North America, where they are ancestral to the sophisticated designs of the
Inuit and later European
whalers.[130]
4000 BC - 2000 BC: The
Dene-Yeniseian languages split into
Na-Dene in North America and
Yeniseian languages in Siberia. The connection is commonly thought to have been the result of a back-migration of early
American Indians in
Beringia back into Siberia, forming the
Yeniseian peoples that were once widespread throughout Eurasia.[131] However, recent studies indicating the existence of a linguistic and technological continuum extending into the
Common Era make the directionality of migration and the homeland of Dene-Yeniseian more difficult to determine.[132]
3600 BC: The first monumental buildings are constructed in
Sechin Bajo, an urban center in what is now coastal
Peru. It belonged to the
Casma–Sechin culture, possibly the oldest civilization in the Americas.[136]
3500 BC: Earliest conjectured date for the still-undeciphered
Indus script.
3500 BC: End of the
African humid period possibly linked to the
Piora Oscillation: a rapid and intense
aridification event, which probably started the current Sahara Desert dry phase and a population increase in the
Nile Valley due to migrations from nearby regions. It is also believed this event contributed to the end of the
Ubaid period in Mesopotamia.
3200 BC - 2500 BC: The Norte Chico or
Caral–Supe civilization begins on the coast of Peru with a wave of monumental construction and founding of the first cities in the Americas. It is generally considered the oldest civilization in the Americas.[146]
Researchers deduced in a
scientific review that "no specific point in time can currently be identified at which modern human ancestry was confined to a limited birthplace" and that current knowledge about long, continuous and complex – e.g. often non-singular, parallel, nonsimultaneous and/or gradual – emergences of characteristics is consistent with a range of
evolutionary histories.[151][152] A timeline dating first occurrences and earliest evidence may therefore be an often inadequate approach for describing humanity's (pre-)history.
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