3000 BC – 2500 BC: Earliest evidence of autochthonous iron production in West Africa.[5]
3000 BC – 2300 BC: The East African Pastoral neolithic culture builds East Africa's earliest and largest monumental cemetery at Lothagam North Pillar Site.[6]
2600 BC: Oldest known surviving literature: Sumerian texts from Abu Salabikh, including the Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh temple hymn.[7][8][9][10]
2600 BC: Mature Harappan phase of the Indus Valley civilization (in present-day Pakistan and India ) begins.
2600 BC: Emergence of Mayan culture in the Yucatán Peninsula.
2560 BC: King Khufu completes the Great Pyramid of Giza. The Land of Punt in the Horn of Africa first appears in Egyptian records around this time.
2500 BC: The last mammoth population, on Wrangel Island in Siberia, goes extinct.
Late 24th century BC: Akkadian Empire is founded, dating depends upon whether the Middle chronology or the Short chronology is used.[11]
2291 BC: Pharaoh Teti is thought to be the earliest known victim of assassination.[12]
2250 BC: Oldest known depiction of the Staff God, the oldest image of a god to be found in the Americas.
2200 BC – 2100 BC: 4.2-kiloyear event: a severe aridification phase, likely connected to a Bond event, which was registered throughout most of North Africa, Middle East and continental North America. Related droughts very likely caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.
1800 BC: The Old Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh constitutes the earliest complete version of that narrative.[16][17]
1780 BC: Oldest Record of Hammurabi's Code.
c. 1750 BC: Mycenaean civilization begins in mainland Greece.
1700 BC – 1400 BC: The Proto-Sinaitic script is the oldest alphabet created in Egypt.
1700 BC: Indus Valley Civilization comes to an end but is continued by the Cemetery H culture; The beginning of Poverty Point culture in North America.
1600 BC:Minoan eruption destroys Akrotiri and causes damage to some Minoan sites in eastern Crete.[18][19][20]
1600 BC: The beginning of Shang dynasty in China;[21] evidence of a fully developed writing system, see Oracle bone script.
1500 BC – 400 BC: Olmec civilization flourishes in Pre-Columbian Mexico, during Mesoamerica's Formative period.[26]
c. 1400 BC: Oldest known song with notation.
1200 BC: The Hallstatt culture begins.
1200 BC – 1150 BC: Bronze Age collapse occurs in Southwestern Asia and in the Eastern Mediterranean region. This period is also the setting of the Iliad and the Odyssey epic poems (which were composed about four centuries later).
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. It refers to the timeframe of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.[29][30] Ancient history includes the recorded Greek history beginning in about 776 BC (First Olympiad). This coincides roughly with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC and the beginning of the history of Rome.[31][32]
650 BC – 550 BC: The Urewe culture dominates the African Great Lakes region. It was one of Africa's oldest iron smelting centres.[33][34]
612 BC: An alliance between the Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians succeeds in destroying Nineveh and causing subsequent fall of the Assyrian empire.
600 BC: Pandyan kingdom is founded in South India.
600 BC: Sixteen Mahajanapadas ("Great Realms" or "Great Kingdoms") emerge in India.
600 BC: Evidence of writing system appears in Oaxaca used by the Zapotec civilization.
c. 600 BC: Rise of the Sao civilization near Lake Chad.
563 BC: Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), founder of Buddhism is born as a prince of the Shakya clan, which ruled parts of Magadha, one of the Mahajanapadas.
546 BC: Cyrus the Great overthrows Croesus, King of Lydia.
544 BC: Rise of Magadha as the dominant power under Bimbisara.
539 BC: The fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and liberation of the Jews by Cyrus the Great.
529 BC: Death of Cyrus the Great.
525 BC: Cambyses II of Persia conquers Ancient Egypt.
c. 512 BC: Darius I (Darius the Great) of Persia, subjugates eastern Thrace, Macedonia submits voluntarily, and annexes the Libyan Kingdom, Persian Empire at largest extent.
509 BC: Expulsion of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, founding of Roman Republic (traditional date).
500 BC: Panini standardizes the grammar and morphology of Sanskrit in the text Ashtadhyayi. Panini's standardized Sanskrit is known as Classical Sanskrit.
499 BC: King Aristagoras of Miletus incites all of Hellenic Asia Minor to rebel against the Persian Empire, beginning the Greco-Persian Wars.
490 BC: Greek city-states defeat Persian invasion at Battle of Marathon.
331 BC: Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela, completing his conquest of Persia.
326 BC: Alexander the Great defeats Indian king Porus in the Battle of the Hydaspes River.
323 BC: Death of Alexander the Great at Babylon.
322 BC: Death of Aristotle.
321 BC: Chandragupta Maurya overthrows the Nanda dynasty of Magadha.
321 BC: Establishment of the Seleucid Empire by Seleucus I Nicator. The empire existed until 63 BC.
305 BC: Chandragupta Maurya seizes the satrapies of Paropamisadae (Kabul), Aria (Herat), Arachosia (Qanadahar) and Gedrosia (Baluchistan) from Seleucus I Nicator, the Macedonian satrap of Babylonia, in return for 500 elephants.
c. 300 BC:Pingala uses zero and binary numeral system.
300 BC:Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், Canka ilakkiyam) period in the history of ancient southern India (known as the Tamilakam)
300 BC: Chola Empire forms in South India.
300 BC: Construction of the Great Pyramid of Cholula, the world's largest pyramid by volume (the Great Pyramid of Giza built 2560 BC Egypt stands 146.5 meters, making it 91.5 meters taller), begins in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico.
257 BC: An Dương Vương takes over Việt Nam (then Kingdom of Âu Lạc).
255 BC:Ashoka sends a Buddhist missionary led by his son who was Mahinda Thero (Buddhist monk) to Sri Lanka (then Lanka) Mahinda (Buddhist monk).
250 BC: Rise of Parthia (Ashkâniân), the second native dynasty of ancient Persia.
232 BC: Death of Emperor Ashoka; Decline of the Mauryan Empire.
230 BC: Emergence of Satavahana in South India.
221 BC: Qin Shi Huang unifies China, end of Warring States period; marking the beginning of Imperial rule in China which lasts until 1912. Construction of the Great Wall by the Qin dynasty begins.
216 BC: Battle of Cannae - Rome defeated in major battle in the second Punic War.
207 BC: Kingdom of Nanyue extends from Guangzhou to North Việt Nam .
206 BC: Han dynasty established in China, after the death of Qin Shi Huang; China in this period officially becomes a Confucian state and opens trading connections with the West, i.e. the Silk Road.
202 BC: Scipio Africanus defeats Hannibal at Battle of Zama.
200 BC: El Mirador, largest early Maya city, flourishes.
149 BC – 146 BC: Third Punic War between Rome and Carthage. War ends with the complete destruction of Carthage, allowing Rome to conquer modern day Tunisia and Libya.
146 BC: Roman conquest of Greece, see Roman Greece.
100 BC – 100 AD: Bantu speaking communities in the great lakes region of Africa develop iron forging techniques that enable them to produce carbon steel.[35]
100 BC – 300 AD: The earliest Bantu settlements in the Swahili coast appear on the archaeological record in Kwale County in Kenya, Misasa in Tanzania and Ras Hafun in Somalia.[36]
c. 82 BC: Burebista becomes the king of Dacia.
71 BC: Death of Spartacus. End of the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic.
c. 63 BC: The Siege of Jerusalem leads to the conquest of Judea by the Romans.
c. 60 BC – 44 BC: Burebista conquers territories from south Germany to Thrace, reaching the coast of the Aegean sea.
49 BC: Roman Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great.
44 BC: Julius Caesar murdered by Marcus Brutus and others; End of Roman Republic; beginning of Roman Empire.
44 BC: Burebista is assassinated in the same year like Julius Caesar and his empire breaks into 4 and later 5 kingdoms in modern-day Romania.
31 BC – 30 BC: Battle of Actium. The Roman conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt.
30 BC: Cleopatra ends her reign as the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt.
27 BC: Formation of Roman Empire: Augustus is given titles of Princeps and Augustus by Roman Senate – beginning of Pax Romana. Formation of influential Praetorian Guard to provide security to Emperor.
27 BC – 22 BC: Amanirenas, the kandake (Queen) of the Kingdom of Kush, leads Kushite armies against the Romans.[37][38][39]
18 BC:Three Kingdoms period begins in Korea. Herod's Temple is reconstructed.
6 BC: Earliest theorized date for birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Roman succession: Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar groomed for the throne.
4 BC: Widely accepted date (Ussher) for birth of Jesus Christ.
c. 1 AD – 50 AD: The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a Graeco-Roman manuscript is written. It describes an established Indian Ocean Trade route.[40]
220:Three Kingdoms period begins in China after the fall of Han dynasty.
226: Fall of the Parthian Empire and Rise of the Sassanian Empire.
238: Defeat of Gordian III (238–244), Philip the Arab (244–249), and Emperor Valerian (253–260), by Shapur I of Persia (Valerian was captured by the Persians).
280: Emperor Wu of Jin established the First Jin dynasty providing a temporary unity of China after the devastating Three Kingdoms period.
285: Diocletian becomes emperor of Rome and splits the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western Roman Empires.
285: Diocletian begins a large-scale persecution of Christians.
292: The capital of the Roman empire is officially moved from Rome to Mediolanum (modern day Milan).
300 – 1000: Growth of Azanian and Zanj settlements in the Swahili coast. Local industry and international trade flourish.[36]
313:Edict of Milan declared that the Roman Empire would tolerate all forms of religious worship.
316: Emperor Min of Jin executed, with northern China then controlled by various kingdoms founded by non-Han people. The Jin dynasty continues to rule the south.
361: Constantius II dies, his cousin Emperor Julian succeeds him.
378: Battle of Adrianople, Roman army is defeated by the Germanic tribes.
380: Roman Emperor Theodosius I declares the Arian faith of Christianity heretical.
395: Theodosius I outlaws all religions other than Catholic Christianity.
406: Romans are expelled from Britain.
407 – 409: Visigoths and other Germanic tribes cross into Roman-Gaul for the first time.
410: Visigoths sack Rome in 410 for the first time since 390 BC.
415: Germanic tribes enter Spain.
420: The general Liu Yu usurps the Jin in southern China, beginning the Liu Song dynasty.
429: Vandals enter North Africa from Spain for the first time.
439: Vandals have conquered the land stretching from Morocco to Tunisia by this time.
439: The Northern Wei dynasty unites northern China, beginning the Northern and Southern dynasties period.
455: Vandals sack Rome, capture Sicily and Sardinia.
c. 455: Skandagupta repels a Huna people attack on India .
476: Romulus Augustulus, last Western Roman Emperor is forced to abdicate by Odoacer, a chieftain of the Germanic Heruli; Odoacer returns the imperial regalia to Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno in Constantinople in return for the title of dux of Italy; most frequently cited date for the end of ancient history.
End of ancient history in Europe
The date used as the end of the ancient era is arbitrary. The transition period from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages is known as Late Antiquity. Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century (c. ACE 284) to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius. The Early Middle Ages are a period in the history of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from CE 500 to 1000. Not all historians agree on the ending dates of ancient history, which frequently falls somewhere in the 5th, 6th, or 7th century. Western scholars usually date the end of ancient history with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in CE 476, the death of the emperor Justinian I in CE 565, or the coming of Islam in CE 632 as the end of classical antiquity.
↑"Beginning in the pottery-phase of the Neolithic, clay tokens are widely attested as a system of counting and identifying specific amounts of specified livestock or commodities. The tokens, enclosed in clay envelopes after being impressed on their rounded surface, were gradually replaced by impressions on flat or plano-convex tablets, and these in turn by more or less conventionalized pictures of the tokens incised on the clay with a reed stylus. The transition to writing was complete W. Hallo; W. Simpson (1971). The Ancient Near East. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. p. 25.
↑Gardiner, Alan (1961). Egypt of the Pharoahs. Oxford University Press.
↑Caroline Alexander, "Stonehenge," National Geographic, June 2008.
↑Hildebrand, Elisabeth; et al. (2018). "A monumental cemetery built by eastern Africa's first herders near Lake Turkana, Kenya". PNAS. 115 (36): 8942–8947. doi:10.1073/pnas.1721975115. PMC 6130363. PMID30127016.
↑Two fragmentary Akkadian versions survive, from the 15th century BCE and from the end of the second millennium BCE: "Its great antiquity and popularity is evidenced by the large number of manuscripts of it that have survived" (Beaulieu in Clifford 2007:4).
↑Paris, Raphael, et al., (2022). "A Minoan and a Neolithic tsunami recorded in coastal sediments of Ios Island, Aegean Sea, Greece", in: Marine Geology, Volume 452, October 2022, Abstract: "...tsunami deposits on the coasts of Ios Island, Aegean Sea, Greece...marine sediments and pumices from the ~1600 BCE Minoan eruption of Santorini volcano. This is the first evidence of the Minoan tsunami in the Cycladic Islands North of Santorini."
↑Antonopoulos, J. (1992). "The great Minoan eruption of Thera volcano and the ensuing tsunami in the Greek Archipelago". Natural Hazards5 (2): 153–68. doi:10.1007/BF00127003.
↑Flood, Gavin D. (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press.
↑Anthony, David W. (2007). The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World. Princeton University Press.
↑Thapar, Romila; Witzel, Michael; Menon, Jaya; Friese, Kai; Khan, Razib (2019). Which of us are Aryans? rethinking the concept of our origins. New Delhi: Aleph. ISBN978-93-88292-38-2.
↑Ehret, Christopher (2001). "Bantu Expansions: Re-Envisioning a Central Problem of Early African History". The International Journal of African Historical Studies34 (1): 5–41. doi:10.2307/3097285. ISSN0361-7882.
↑Tishkoff, S. A.; Reed, F. A.; Friedlaender, F. R.; et al. (2009). "The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans". Science. 324 (5930): 1035–44. Bibcode:2009Sci...324.1035T. doi:10.1126/science.1172257. PMC 2947357. PMID19407144
↑It is used to refer to various other periods of ancient history, like Ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia (such as, Assyria, Babylonia and Sumer) or other early civilizations of the Near East. It is less commonly used in reference to civilizations of the Far East.
↑Chris Scarre, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome (London: Penguin Books, 1995).
↑Adkins, Lesley; Roy Adkins (1998). Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN:0-19-512332-8. page 3.
↑Clist, Bernard. (1987). A critical reappraisal of the chronological framework of the early Urewe Iron Age industry. Muntu. 6. 35-62.
↑Paul Lane, Ceri Ashley & Gilbert Oteyo (2006) New Dates for Kansyore and Urewe Wares from Northern Nyanza, Kenya, AZANIA: Journal of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, 41:1, 123-138, DOI: 10.1080/00672700609480438
↑Schmidt, P.; Avery, D.H. (1978). "Complex iron smelting and prehistoric culture in Tanzania". Science. 201 (4361): 1085–89. Bibcode:1978Sci...201.1085S. doi:10.1126/science.201.4361.1085. PMID17830304. S2CID 37926350
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