The history of the world is the recorded memory of the experience, around the world, of Homo sapiens . Ancient human history begins with the invention, independently at several sites on Earth, of writing, which created the infrastructure for lasting, accurately transmitted memories and thus for the diffusion and growth of knowledge. Nevertheless, an appreciation of the roots of civilization requires at least cursory consideration to humanity's prehistory.
Human history is marked both by a gradual accretion of discoveries and inventions, as well as by quantum leaps—paradigm shifts, revolutions—that comprise epochs in the material and spiritual evolution of humankind.
One such epoch was the advent of the Agricultural Revolution. Between 8,500 and 7,000 BCE, in the Fertile Crescent (a region in the Near East, incorporating the Levant and Mesopotamia), humans began the systematic husbandry of plants and animals — agriculture. It spread to neighboring regions, and also developed independently elsewhere, until most Homo sapiens lived sedentary lives as farmers in permanent settlements centered about life-sustaining bodies of water. These communities coalesced over time into increasingly larger units, in parallel with the evolution of ever more efficient means of transport.
The relative security and increased productivity provided by farming allowed these communities to expand. Surplus food made possible an increasing division of labor, the rise of a leisured upper class, and the development of cities and thus of civilization. The growing complexity of human societies necessitated systems of accounting; and from this evolved, beginning in the Bronze Age, writing. The independent invention of writing at several sites on Earth allows a number of regions to claim to be cradles of civilization.
Civilizations developed perforce on the banks of rivers. By 3,000 BCE they had arisen in the Middle East's Mesopotamia (the "land between the Rivers" Euphrates and Tigris), on the banks of Egypt's River Nile, in India's Indus River valley, and along the great rivers of China.
The history of the Old World is commonly divided into Antiquity (in the ancient Near East, the Mediterranean basin of classical antiquity, ancient China, and ancient India, up to about the 6th century); the Middle Ages, from the 6th through the 15th centuries; the Early Modern period, including the European Renaissance, from the 16th century to about 1750; and the Modern period, from the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, beginning about 1750, to the present.
In Europe, the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 CE) is commonly taken as signaling the end of antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. A thousand years later, in the mid-15th century, Johannes Gutenberg's invention of modern printing, employing movable type, revolutionized communication, helping end the Middle Ages and usher in modern times, the European Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution.
By the 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology, especially in Europe, had reached a critical mass that sparked into existence the Industrial Revolution. Over the quarter-millennium since, the growth of knowledge, technology, commerce, and of the potential destructiveness of war has accelerated, creating the opportunities and perils that now confront the human communities that together inhabit the planet.
Prehistory
Main article: PrehistoryPaleolithic
Main articles: Paleolithic, Recent African Origin, Early Homo sapiens, and Early human migrations"Paleolithic" means "Old Stone Age." This was the earliest period of the Stone Age. The Lower Paleolithic is the period in human evolution when humans first began using stone tools. The Lower Paleolithic began 2.5 million years ago with the emergence of the genus homo. Homo habilis is the earliest known species in the genus Homo. The Middle Paleolithic originated 300,000 years ago. The period is characterized by prepared-core techniques for manufacturing stone tools. The term Archaic homo sapiens is typically used to refer to the early hominids of the Middle Paleolithic. Anatomically modern humans also emerged during the Middle Paleolithic.
Humans spread from East Africa to Asia some 100,000-50,000 years ago, and further to southern Asia and Australasia by at least 50 millennia ago, northwestwards into Europe and eastwards into Central Asia some 40 millennia ago, and further east to the Americas from ca. 13 millennia ago. The Upper Paleolithic is taken to begin some 40 millennia ago, with the appearance of wider variety of artifacts and a blossoming of symbolic culture. Expansion to North America and Oceania took place at the climax of the most recent Ice Age, when today's temperate regions were extremely inhospitable. By the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 BP, humans had colonised nearly all the ice-free parts of the globe.
Throughout the Paleolithic, humans generally lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherer societies have tended to be very small and egalitarian, though hunter-gatherer societies with abundant resources or advanced food-storage techniques have sometimes developed a settled lifestyle, complex social structures such as chiefdoms, and social stratification; and long-distance contacts may be possible, as in the case of Indigenous Australian "highways."
Mesolithic
Main article: MesolithicThe "Mesolithic", or "Middle Stone Age" (from the Greek " mesos ", "middle", and " lithos ", "stone") was a period in the development of human technology between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age.
The Mesolithic period began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000 BP, and ended with the introduction of agriculture, the date of which varied by geographic region. In some areas, such as the Near East, agriculture was already underway by the end of the Pleistocene, and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term "Epipaleolithic" is sometimes preferred.
Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended have a much more evident Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe, societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands fostered by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviours which are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. These conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 4000 BCE (6,000 BP) in northern Europe.
In forested areas, the first signs of deforestation have been found, although this would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was needed for agriculture.
The Mesolithic is characterized in most areas by small composite flint tools — microliths and microburins. Fishing tackle, stone adzes and wooden objects, e.g. canoes and bows, have been found at some sites. These technologies first occur in Africa, associated with the Azilian cultures, before spreading to Europe through the Ibero-Maurusian culture of Spain and Portugal, and the Kebaran culture of Palestine. Independent discovery is not always ruled out.
During the Mesolithic as in the preceding Paleolithic period, people lived in small (mostly egalitarian) bands and tribes.
Neolithic
Main article: Neolithic"Neolithic" means "New Stone Age." This was a period of primitive technological and social development, toward the end of the "Stone Age." Neolithic culture appeared in the Levant, centering around Jericho in the modern-day West Bank. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture circa the 10th millennium BCE (12,000 BP) and was marked by the development of early villages, agriculture, animal domestication and tools.
Rise of agriculture
Main article: History of AgricultureA major change, described by prehistorian Vere Gordon Childe as the "Agricultural Revolution", occurred about the 10th millennium BCE with the adoption of agriculture. The Sumerians first began farming ca. 9500 BCE. By 7000 BCE agriculture had spread to India; by 6000 BCE to Egypt; by 5000 BCE to China. About 2700 BCE agriculture had come to Mesoamerica.
Although attention has tended to concentrate on the Middle East's Fertile Crescent, archaeology in the Americas, East Asia and Southeast Asia indicates that agricultural systems, using different crops and animals, may in some cases have developed there nearly as early. The development of organized irrigation, and the use of a specialized workforce, by the Sumerians, began about 5500 BCE. Stone was supplanted by bronze and iron in implements of agriculture and warfare. Agricultural settlements had until then been almost completely dependent on stone tools. In Eurasia, copper and bronze tools, decorations and weapons began to be commonplace about 3000 BCE. After bronze, the Eastern Mediterranean region, Middle East and China saw the introduction of iron tools and weapons.
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