Timeline of prehistory

Middle Paleolithic

Upper Paleolithic

Holocene

• 9700 BC: An abrupt period of global warming begins. This is taken as the beginning of the Holocene geological epoch.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.9400 BC: Earliest supposed date for the domestication of the pig.9200 BC – 9000 BC: Meltwater pulse 1B, a sudden rise of sea level by within about 160 years.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.9000 BC: Giant short-faced bears and giant ground sloths go extinct. Equidae goes extinct in North America.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.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.8500 BC: Earliest supposed date for the domestication of cattle.8000 BC: Earliest dates suggested for the domestication of the goat.8000 BC: The Quaternary extinction event, which has been ongoing since the mid-Pleistocene, concludes. Many of the ice age megafauna go extinct, including the megatherium, woolly rhinoceros, Irish elk, cave bear, cave lion, and the last of the sabre-toothed cats. The mammoth goes extinct in Eurasia and North America, but is preserved in small island populations until ~1650 BC.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. In early agriculture at this time, the planting stick is used, but it is replaced by a primitive plow in subsequent centuries. Around this time, a round stone tower, now preserved to about high and in diameter is built in Jericho.8000 BC – 6000 BC: The sea level rise">past sea level">sea level rise decelerates, slowing the submersion of landmasses that had taken place over the previous 10,000 years.8000 BC – 5000 BC: Large animals such as deer and elk are drawn on Rock Drawings in Valcamonica.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.7500 BC – 3500 BC: Neolithic Subpluvial in North Africa. The Sahara desert region supports a savanna-like environment. Lake Chad is larger than the current Caspian Sea. An African culture develops across the current Sahel region.7500 BC: Çatalhöyük urban settlement founded in Anatolia.7500 BC: Earliest supposed date for the domestication of the cat.7200 BC: First human settlement in Amman, Jordan; ʿAin Ghazal Neolithic settlement was built spanning over an area of.7176 BC: Earliest confirmed Miyake event, an extreme peak of solar activity which showers the Solar System with cosmic rays and radiation.7000 BC – 6000 BC: Early European Farmers arrive in Europe through Anatolia. They replace Western Hunter Gatherer populations in many areas, intermix in others, and introduce agriculture into Europe.7000 BC: Maize is domesticated in southern Mexico from the wild teosinte and quickly becomes the dominant staple of Mesoamerica, heralding the beginning of agriculture and further domestications in the region.7000 BC: The Kuk Swamp in the highlands of Papua New Guinea becomes a cradle of agriculture. Early farmers dig canals that transform the swamp into arable land. They domesticate bananas, sugarcane, taro, lesser yam, and raise cassowaries from captured eggs.7000 BC: Jiahu culture begins in China.7000 BC: First large-scale fish fermentation in southern Sweden.7000 BC: Human settlement of Mehrgarh, Pakistan is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia. In April 2006, Nature note that the oldest evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo was found in Mehrgarh.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 by in less than 140 years; this concludes the early Holocene sea level rise and sea level remains largely stable throughout the Neolithic.6000 BC – 3000 BC: Development of proto-writing in China, Southeast Europe, and West Asia.6000 BC: Evidence of habitation at the current site of Aleppo dates to about c. 8,000 years ago, although excavations at Tell Qaramel, north of the city show the area was inhabited about 13,000 years ago, 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. However, evidence of settlement in the wider Barada basin dating back to 9000 BC exists.6000 BC – 5000 BC: The earliest New World ceramics are created in the Amazon basin.5700 BC – 4500 BC: Vinča culture.5500 BC: Copper smelting in evidence in Pločnik and Belovode.5259 BC: Confirmed Miyake event, with high amount of cosmic radiation from the Sun hitting the Earth.4500 BC: The oldest known gold hoard deposited at Varna Necropolis, Bulgaria.4300 BC: Akahoya eruption creates the Kikai Caldera and ends the earliest homogeneous Jomon culture in Japan. When the Jomon culture recovers, it shows regional differences.4050 BC – 4000 BC: Trypillian build in Nebelivka settlement which reached 15,000–18,000 inhabitants.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.

4th millennium BC

Research

Post-historical prehistories

• 3,800 years ago : Currently undeciphered Minoan script and Cypro-Minoan script developed on Crete and Cyprus.
• 3,450 years ago : Mycenaean Greece, first deciphered writing in Europe
• 3,200 years ago : Oracle bone script, first written records in Old Chinese
• 3,050–2,800 years ago : Alphabetic writing; the Phoenician alphabet spreads around the Mediterranean
• 2,300 years ago : Maya script, the only known full writing system developed in the Americas, emerges.
• 2,260 years ago : Earliest deciphered written records in South Asia
• 1800s AD: Undeciphered Rongorongo script on Easter Island may mark the latest independent development of writing.