Ancient History and Prehistory
Ancient history is the study of the written past[1] from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC. [2] This is the beginning of history, as opposed to prehistory, according to the definition used by most historians. [3] The term classical antiquity is often used to refer to ancient history in the Old World since the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC (First Olympiad).
This roughly coincides with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome, and the beginning of the Archaic period in Ancient Greece. Although the ending date of ancient history is disputed, some Western scholars use the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476,[4][5] the closure of the Platonic Academy in 529 AD,[6] the death of the emperor Justinian I,[7] the coming of Islam[8] or the rise of Charlemagne[9] as the end of ancient and Classical European history.
In India, the period includes the early period of the Middle Kingdoms,[10][11][12] and, in China, the time up to the Qin Dynasty is included Prehistory is a term often used to describe the period before written history. The early human migration[35] patterns in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia. The controlled use of fire occurred about 800 thousand years ago. Near 250 thousand years ago, Homo sapiens evolves in Africa. Around 70–60 thousand years ago, modern humans migrate out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia.
About 50 thousand years ago, modern humans spread from Asia to the Near East. Followed by about 40 thousand years ago, in which Europe was first reached by modern humans. By about 15 thousand years ago, the migration to the New World occurred. The 10th millennium BC, Invention of agriculture is the earliest given date for the beginning of the ancient era. Gobekli Tepe was erected by hunter-gatherers in the 10th millennium BC (c. 11,500 years ago), before the advent of sedentism. Together with Neval? Cori, it has revolutionized understanding of the Eurasian Neolithic. In the 7th millennium BC, Jiahu culture began in China.
By the 5th millennium BC, the late Neolithic civilizations saw the invention of the wheel and spread of proto-writing. In the 4th millennium BC, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the Ukraine-Moldova-Romania region develops. By 3400 BC, “proto-literate” cuneiform is spread in the Middle East. [36] The 30th century BC, referred to as the Early Bronze Age II, saw the beginning of the literate period in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt arise. Around 27th century BC, the Old Kingdom of Egypt and the First Dynasty of Uruk are founded, according to the earliest reliable regnal eras.
