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128-812: Since the Paleolithic age , the Steppe Route has been the main overland route between Europe , Western Asia , Central Asia , East Asia and South Asia economically, politically, and culturally. The Steppe route is a predecessor not only of the Silk Road , which developed during antiquity and the Middle Ages , but also of the Eurasian Land Bridge in the modern era. It has been home to nomadic empires and many large tribal confederations and ancient states throughout history, such as

256-428: A nomadic lifestyle. In addition, even a large area of land could not support many people without being actively farmed - food was difficult to come by and so groups were prevented from growing too large by the amount of food they could gather. Like contemporary hunter-gatherers, Paleolithic humans enjoyed an abundance of leisure time unparalleled in both Neolithic farming societies and modern industrial societies. At

384-686: A branch of the Uralic language family, who previously lived in the steppe in what is now Southern Russia, settled in the Carpathian basin in year 895. Mongolic languages are in Mongolia. In Manchuria one finds Tungusic languages and some others. Tengrism was introduced by Turko-Mongol nomads. Nestorianism and Manichaeism spread to the Tarim Basin and into China, but they never became established majority religions. Buddhism spread from

512-694: A group of early humans, frequently called Homo heidelbergensis , came to Europe from Africa and eventually evolved into Homo neanderthalensis ( Neanderthals ). In the Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals were present in the region now occupied by Poland. Both Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis became extinct by the start of the Upper Paleolithic. Descended from Homo sapiens , the anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens emerged in eastern Africa c.  300,000  BP, left Africa around 50,000 BP, and expanded throughout

640-793: A herd of animals at a waterhole so as to stun one of them. There are no indications of hafting , and some artifacts are far too large for that. Thus, a thrown hand axe would not usually have penetrated deeply enough to cause very serious injuries. Nevertheless, it could have been an effective weapon for defense against predators. Choppers and scrapers were likely used for skinning and butchering scavenged animals and sharp-ended sticks were often obtained for digging up edible roots. Presumably, early humans used wooden spears as early as 5 million years ago to hunt small animals, much as their relatives, chimpanzees , have been observed to do in Senegal , Africa. Lower Paleolithic humans constructed shelters, such as

768-679: A more secular approach into historical study. According to John Tosh , "From the High Middle Ages (c.1000–1300) onwards, the written word survives in greater abundance than any other source for Western history." Western historians developed methods comparable to modern historiographic research in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and Germany, where they began investigating these source materials to write histories of their past. Many of these histories had strong ideological and political ties to their historical narratives. In

896-505: A need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply. Raymond C. Kelly speculates that the relative peacefulness of Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies resulted from a low population density, cooperative relationships between groups such as reciprocal exchange of commodities and collaboration on hunting expeditions, and because the invention of projectile weapons such as throwing spears provided less incentive for war, because they increased

1024-557: A number of ecoregions , distinguished by elevation, climate, rainfall, and other characteristics and home to distinct animal and plant communities and species and distinct habitat ecosystems . The major centers of population and high culture in Eurasia are Europe, the Middle East, India and China. For some purposes it is useful to treat Greater Iran as a separate region. All these regions are connected directly or indirectly by

1152-540: A number of ways by modern archaeologists. The earliest explanation, by the prehistorian Abbe Breuil , interpreted the paintings as a form of magic designed to ensure a successful hunt. However, this hypothesis fails to explain the existence of animals such as saber-toothed cats and lions , which were not hunted for food, and the existence of half-human, half-animal beings in cave paintings. The anthropologist David Lewis-Williams has suggested that Paleolithic cave paintings were indications of shamanistic practices, because

1280-531: A pronounced hierarchy and a somewhat formal division of labor ) and may have engaged in endemic warfare . Some argue that there was no formal leadership during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Like contemporary egalitarian hunter-gatherers such as the Mbuti pygmies, societies may have made decisions by communal consensus decision making rather than by appointing permanent rulers such as chiefs and monarchs . Nor

1408-477: A rich caravan the steppe nomads could either rob it, or tax it, or hire themselves out as guards. Economically, these three forms of taxation or parasitism amounted to the same thing. Trade was usually most vigorous when a strong empire controlled the steppe and reduced the number of petty chieftains preying on trade. The silk road first became significant and Chinese silk began reaching the Roman Empire about

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1536-453: Is a general glacial excursion, termed a "glacial". Glacials are separated by "interglacials". During a glacial, the glacier experiences minor advances and retreats. The minor excursion is a "stadial"; times between stadials are "interstadials". Each glacial advance tied up huge volumes of water in continental ice sheets 1,500–3,000  m (4,900–9,800  ft ) deep, resulting in temporary sea level drops of 100 m (330 ft) or more over

1664-412: Is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers ; however, due to rapid decomposition, these have not survived to any great degree. About 50,000 years ago, a marked increase in the diversity of artifacts occurred. In Africa, bone artifacts and

1792-709: Is disagreement concerning exactly when prehistory becomes history, and when proto-writing became "true writing". However, invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age in the late Neolithic of the late 4th millennium BCE . The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400 to 3200 BCE, with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BCE . The earliest chronologies date back to

1920-583: Is more pronounced in Lower Paleolithic humans such as Homo erectus than in modern humans, who are less polygynous than other primates, which suggests that Lower Paleolithic humans had a largely polygynous lifestyle, because species that have the most pronounced sexual dimorphism tend more likely to be polygynous. Human societies from the Paleolithic to the early Neolithic farming tribes lived without states and organized governments. For most of

2048-543: Is no evidence of hominins in America, Australia, or almost anywhere in Oceania during this time period. Fates of these early colonists, and their relationships to modern humans, are still subject to debate. According to current archaeological and genetic models, there were at least two notable expansion events subsequent to peopling of Eurasia c.  2,000,000  – c.  1,500,000  BP. Around 500,000 BP

2176-518: Is one of the earliest mentions of "pigtail of Brahmin boys". These poems also allude to historical incidents, ancient Tamil kings, the effect of war on loved ones and households. The Pattinappalai poem in the Ten Idylls group, for example, paints a description of the Chola capital, the king Karikala , the life in a harbor city with ships and merchandise for seafaring trade, the dance troupes,

2304-502: Is one of the few documents containing material relating to the Nāga and Yakkha peoples , indigenous inhabitants of Lanka prior to the legendary arrival of Prince Vijaya from Singha Pura of Kalinga. The Sangam literature offers a window into some aspects of the ancient South Indian culture, secular and religious beliefs, and the people. For example, in the Sangam era Ainkurunuru poem 202

2432-778: Is the main part of the Eurasian Steppe in East Asia. It covers large parts of Mongolia and the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia . The two are separated by a relatively dry area marked by the Gobi Desert . South of the Mongol Steppe is the high and thinly peopled Tibetan Plateau . The northern edge of the plateau is the Gansu or Hexi Corridor , a belt of moderately dense population that connects China proper with

2560-615: The Culavamsa "Lesser Chronicle", compiled by Sinhala monks, covers the period from the 4th century to the British takeover of Sri Lanka in 1815. The Culavamsa was compiled by a number of authors of different time periods. The combined work, sometimes referred to collectively as the Mahavamsa , provides a continuous historical record of over two millennia, and is considered one of the world's longest unbroken historical accounts. It

2688-506: The !Kung San who live similarly to their Paleolithic predecessors. The economy of a typical Paleolithic society was a hunter-gatherer economy. Humans hunted wild animals for meat and gathered food, firewood, and materials for their tools, clothes, or shelters. The population density was very low, around only 0.4 inhabitants per square kilometre (1/sq mi). This was most likely due to low body fat, infanticide , high levels of physical activity among women, late weaning of infants, and

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2816-489: The Altai Mountains and Indonesia, were radiocarbon dated to c.  30,000  – c.  40,000  BP and c.  17,000  BP respectively. For the duration of the Paleolithic, human populations remained low, especially outside the equatorial region. The entire population of Europe between 16,000 and 11,000 BP likely averaged some 30,000 individuals, and between 40,000 and 16,000 BP, it

2944-606: The Aral Sea and provide irrigation for agriculture. In the southeast is the densely populated Fergana Valley and west of it the great oasis cities of Tashkent , Samarkand and Bukhara along the Zeravshan River . The southern area has a complex history (see Central Asia and Greater Iran ), while in the north, the Kazakh Steppe proper was relatively isolated from the main currents of written history . Along

3072-722: The Arctic Circle . By the end of the Upper Paleolithic Age humans had crossed Beringia and expanded throughout the Americas continents. The term " Palaeolithic " was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek: παλαιός , palaios , "old"; and λίθος , lithos , "stone", meaning "old age of the stone" or "Old Stone Age ". The Paleolithic overlaps with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time. Both ended 12,000 years ago although

3200-990: The Caspian Sea , forming the Ural-Caspian Narrowing, that joins the Pontic-Caspian Steppe in Europe with the Kazakh Steppe in Central Asia . The Kazakh Steppe makes up most of the Eurasian Steppe in Central Asia. It extends from the Urals to Dzungaria . To the south, it grades off into semi-desert and desert which is interrupted by two great rivers, the Amu Darya (Oxus) and Syr Darya (Jaxartes), which flow northwest into

3328-847: The Caucasus Mountains . In the west, the Great Hungarian Plain is an island of steppe separated from the main steppe by the mountains of Transylvania . On the north shore of the Black Sea, the Crimean Peninsula has some interior steppe and ports on the south coast which link the steppe to the civilizations of the Mediterranean basin. The steppe narrows around the southern end of the Ural Mountains , about 650 km (400 mi) northeast of

3456-582: The Hadza people and the Aboriginal Australians suggest that the sexual division of labor in the Paleolithic was relatively flexible. Men may have participated in gathering plants, firewood and insects, and women may have procured small game animals for consumption and assisted men in driving herds of large game animals (such as woolly mammoths and deer) off cliffs. Additionally, recent research by anthropologist and archaeologist Steven Kuhn from

3584-510: The Isthmus of Panama , bringing a nearly complete end to South America's distinctive marsupial fauna. The formation of the isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, because warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off, and the cold Arctic and Antarctic waters lowered temperatures in the now-isolated Atlantic Ocean. Most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect

3712-742: The Kurgan hypothesis , their common ancestor is thought to have originated on the Pontic-Caspian steppe. The Tocharians were an early Indo-European branch in the Tarim Basin . At the beginning of written history the entire steppe population west of Dzungaria spoke Iranian languages . From about 500 AD the Turkic languages replaced the Iranian languages first on the steppe, and later in the oases north of Iran . Additionally, Hungarian speakers,

3840-646: The Mousterian and the Aterian industries. Lower Paleolithic humans used a variety of stone tools, including hand axes and choppers. Although they appear to have used hand axes often, there is disagreement about their use. Interpretations range from cutting and chopping tools, to digging implements, to flaking cores, to the use in traps, and as a purely ritual significance, perhaps in courting behavior . William H. Calvin has suggested that some hand axes could have served as "killer frisbees " meant to be thrown at

3968-510: The Old Stone Age (from Ancient Greek παλαιός ( palaiós )  'old' and λίθος ( líthos )  'stone'), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools , and which represents almost the entire period of human prehistoric technology . It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins , c.  3.3 million years ago, to

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4096-533: The Oldowan , began around 2.6 million years ago. It produced tools such as choppers , burins , and stitching awls . It was completely replaced around 250,000 years ago by the more complex Acheulean industry, which was first conceived by Homo ergaster around 1.8–1.65 million years ago. The Acheulean implements completely vanish from the archaeological record around 100,000 years ago and were replaced by more complex Middle Paleolithic tool kits such as

4224-513: The Pleistocene epoch, our ancestors relied on simple food processing techniques such as roasting . The Upper Palaeolithic saw the emergence of boiling, an advance in food processing technology which rendered plant foods more digestible, decreased their toxicity, and maximised their nutritional value. Thermally altered rock (heated stones) are easily identifiable in the archaeological record. Stone-boiling and pit-baking were common techniques which involved heating large pebbles then transferring

4352-721: The Ruwenzori Range in east and central Africa were larger. Glaciers existed in the mountains of Ethiopia and to the west in the Atlas Mountains . In the northern hemisphere, many glaciers fused into one. The Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered the North American northwest; the Laurentide covered the east. The Fenno-Scandian ice sheet covered northern Europe, including Great Britain; the Alpine ice sheet covered

4480-824: The Tarim Basin . The Hexi Corridor was the main route of the Silk Road . In the southeast the Silk Road led over some hills to the east-flowing Wei River valley which led to the North China Plain . South of the Khingan Mountains and north of the Taihang Mountains , the Mongolian-Manchurian steppe extends east into Manchuria as the Liao Xi steppe. In Manchuria, the steppe grades off into forest and mountains without reaching

4608-576: The Xiongnu , Scythia , Cimmeria , Sarmatia , Hunnic Empire , Sogdia , Xianbei , Mongol Empire and Göktürk Khaganate . The Eurasian Steppe extends for 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) from near the mouth of the Danube in Romania to the western edge of Manchuria . It is bounded on the north by the forests of European Russia and Asian Russia or Siberia . There is no clear southern boundary although

4736-639: The brown bear are predators roaming the steppe. Smaller mammal species are the Mongolian gerbil , the little souslik and the bobak marmot . Furthermore, the Eurasian steppe is home to a great variety of bird species. Threatened bird species living there are for example the imperial eagle , the lesser kestrel , the great bustard , the pale-back pigeon and the white-throated bushchat . The primary domesticated animals raised were sheep and goats with fewer cattle than one might expect. Camels were used in

4864-665: The domra , traditional costumes such as the kaftan . Russian Cossack and tea culture were strongly influenced by the culture of Asian nomadic peoples. The Eurasian steppes play a major role in Eastern Europe history and the steppes are a subject of many Slavic as well as Russian folk-songs . Paleolithic Fertile Crescent : Europe : Africa : Siberia : The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( c.  3.3 million  – c.  11,700 BC ) ( / ˌ p eɪ l i oʊ ˈ l ɪ θ ɪ k , ˌ p æ l i -/ PAY -lee-oh- LITH -ik, PAL -ee- ), also called

4992-423: The historical method . For broader world history , recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BCE, and it coincides with the invention of writing . For some geographic regions or cultures , written history is limited to a relatively recent period in human history because of the limited use of written records. Moreover, human cultures do not always record all of

5120-575: The "father of history" composing his The Histories from the 450s to the 420s BCE. However, his contemporary Thucydides (c. 460 BCE – c. 400 BCE) is credited with having first approached history with a well-developed historical method in his work the History of the Peloponnesian War . Thucydides, unlike Herodotus, regarded history as being the product of the choices and actions of human beings, and looked at cause and effect, rather than as

5248-501: The 2000s this was done using analogue recording methods such as cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes . With the onset of new technologies, there are now digital recordings , which may be recorded to compact disks. Nevertheless, historical record and interpretation often relies heavily on written records, partially because it dominates the extant historical materials, and partially because historians are used to communicating and researching in that medium. The historical method comprises

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5376-403: The 20th century, academic historians began focusing less on epic nationalistic narratives, which often tended to glorify the nation or great men , to attempt more objective and complex analyses of social and intellectual forces. A major trend of historical methodology in the 20th century was a tendency to treat history more as a social science rather than as an art , which traditionally had been

5504-726: The Alps. Scattered domes stretched across Siberia and the Arctic shelf. The northern seas were frozen. During the late Upper Paleolithic (Latest Pleistocene) c.  18,000  BP, the Beringia land bridge between Asia and North America was blocked by ice, which may have prevented early Paleo-Indians such as the Clovis culture from directly crossing Beringia to reach the Americas. According to Mark Lynas (through collected data),

5632-664: The Eurasian Steppe route which was an active predecessor of the Silk Road . The latter started in the Guanzhong region of China and ran west along the Hexi Corridor to the Tarim Basin. From there it went southwest to Greater Iran and turned southeast to India or west to the Middle East and Europe. A minor branch went northwest along the great rivers and north of the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. When faced with

5760-407: The Eurasian Steppe and begins near the mouth of the Danube , stretching northeast almost to Kazan and then southeast to the southern tip of the Ural Mountains . Its northern edge was a broad band of forest steppe which has now been obliterated by the conversion of the whole area to agricultural land. In the southeast the Black Sea–Caspian Steppe extends between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea to

5888-571: The Lower Paleolithic ( c.  1.9  million years ago) or at the latest in the early Middle Paleolithic ( c.  250,000 years ago). Some scientists have hypothesized that hominins began cooking food to defrost frozen meat, which would help ensure their survival in cold regions. Archaeologists cite morphological shifts in cranial anatomy as evidence for emergence of cooking and food processing technologies. These morphological changes include decreases in molar and jaw size, thinner tooth enamel , and decrease in gut volume. During much of

6016-787: The Lower Paleolithic, human societies were possibly more hierarchical than their Middle and Upper Paleolithic descendants, and probably were not grouped into bands , though during the end of the Lower Paleolithic, the latest populations of the hominin Homo erectus may have begun living in small-scale (possibly egalitarian) bands similar to both Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies and modern hunter-gatherers. Middle Paleolithic societies, unlike Lower Paleolithic and early Neolithic ones, consisted of bands that ranged from 20–30 or 25–100 members and were usually nomadic. These bands were formed by several families. Bands sometimes joined together into larger "macrobands" for activities such as acquiring mates and celebrations or where resources were abundant. By

6144-427: The Mediterranean Sea, such as Coa de sa Multa ( c.  300,000  BP), has also indicated that both Middle and Upper Paleolithic humans used rafts to travel over large bodies of water (i.e. the Mediterranean Sea) for the purpose of colonizing other bodies of land. By around 200,000 BP, Middle Paleolithic stone tool manufacturing spawned a tool-making technique known as the prepared-core technique , which

6272-406: The Middle Paleolithic because trade between bands would have helped ensure their survival by allowing them to exchange resources and commodities such as raw materials during times of relative scarcity (i.e. famine, drought). Like in modern hunter-gatherer societies, individuals in Paleolithic societies may have been subordinate to the band as a whole. Both Neanderthals and modern humans took care of

6400-473: The Neanderthals hunted large game animals mostly by ambushing them and attacking them with handheld weapons such as thrusting spears rather than attacking them from a distance with projectiles. During the Upper Paleolithic , further inventions were made, such as the net ( c.  22,000 or c.  29,000  BP) bolas , the spear thrower ( c.  30,000  BP), the bow and arrow ( c.  25,000 or c.  30,000  BP) and

6528-417: The Neolithic. Upper Paleolithic cultures were probably able to time the migration of game animals such as wild horses and deer. This ability allowed humans to become efficient hunters and to exploit a wide variety of game animals. Recent research indicates that the Neanderthals timed their hunts and the migrations of game animals long before the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. The social organization of

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6656-434: The Pacific. The central area of forest-steppe was inhabited by pastoral and agricultural peoples, while to the north and east was a thin population of hunting tribes of the Siberian type. Big mammals of the Eurasian steppe were the Przewalski's horse , the saiga antelope , the Mongolian gazelle , the goitered gazelle , the wild Bactrian camel and the onager . The gray wolf , corsac fox , Pallas's cat and occasionally

6784-466: The Paleolithic Age went through a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures. By c.  50,000  – c.  40,000  BP, the first humans set foot in Australia . By c.  45,000  BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe . By c.  30,000  BP, Japan was reached, and by c.  27,000  BP humans were present in Siberia , above

6912-471: The Pleistocene started 2.6 million years ago, 700,000 years after the Paleolithic's start. This epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies. During the preceding Pliocene , continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250  km (160  mi ) from their present locations to positions only 70 km (43 mi) from their current location. South America became linked to North America through

7040-473: The Pleistocene's overall climate could be characterized as a continuous El Niño with trade winds in the south Pacific weakening or heading east, warm air rising near Peru , warm water spreading from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific, and other El Niño markers. The Paleolithic is often held to finish at the end of the ice age (the end of the Pleistocene epoch), and Earth's climate became warmer. This may have caused or contributed to

7168-433: The University of Arizona is argued to support that this division of labor did not exist prior to the Upper Paleolithic and was invented relatively recently in human pre-history. Sexual division of labor may have been developed to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently. Possibly there was approximate parity between men and women during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, and that period may have been

7296-410: The adoption of agriculture because women in farming societies typically have more pregnancies and are expected to do more demanding work than women in hunter-gatherer societies. Like most modern hunter-gatherer societies, Paleolithic and Mesolithic groups probably followed a largely ambilineal approach. At the same time, depending on the society, the residence could be virilocal, uxorilocal, and sometimes

7424-461: The advancement of technology. History can now be recorded through photography , audio recordings , and video recordings . More recently, Internet archives have been saving copies of webpages, documenting the history of the Internet . Other methods of collecting historical information have also accompanied the change in technologies; for example, since at least the 20th century, attempts have been made to preserve oral history by recording it. Until

7552-412: The bards and artists, the worship of the Hindu god Murugan and the monasteries of Buddhism and Jainism. Indica is an account of Mauryan India by the Greek writer Megasthenes . The original book is now lost, but its fragments have survived in later Greek and Latin works. The earliest of these works are those by Diodorus Siculus , Strabo ( Geographica ), Pliny , and Arrian ( Indica ). In

7680-415: The beginning of the period. Climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. Ice sheets grew on Antarctica . The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by an abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Ocean beds. Mid-latitude glaciation probably began before

7808-451: The case. French historians associated with the Annales School introduced quantitative history, using raw data to track the lives of typical individuals, and were prominent in the establishment of cultural history. The Zuo zhuan , attributed to Zuo Qiuming in the 5th century BCE covers the period from 722 to 468 BCE in a narrative form. The Book of Documents is one of the Five Classics of Chinese classic texts and one of

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7936-410: The center of the steppe. The Northern Silk Road went along the north and south sides of the Tarim Basin and then crossed the mountains west to the Fergana Valley . At the west end of the basin the Pamir Mountains connect the Tian Shan Mountains to the Himalayas . To the south, the Kunlun Mountains separate the Tarim Basin from the thinly peopled Tibetan Plateau . The Mongolian-Manchurian Steppe

8064-401: The civilization of their subjects, lost their nomadic skills and were either assimilated or driven out. Along the northern fringe of the Eurasian steppe, nomads would collect tribute from and blend with the forest tribes (see Khanate of Sibir , Buryats ). Russia paid tribute (compare yasak ) to the Golden Horde from about 1240 to 1480. South of the Kazakh steppe the nomads blended with

8192-441: The continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africa's collision with Asia created the Mediterranean, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean . During the Pleistocene , the continents were essentially at their modern positions; the tectonic plates on which they sit have probably moved at most 100 km (62 mi) from each other since

8320-692: The damage done to the attacker and decreased the relative amount of territory attackers could gain. However, other sources claim that most Paleolithic groups may have been larger, more complex, sedentary and warlike than most contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, due to occupying more resource-abundant areas than most modern hunter-gatherers who have been pushed into more marginal habitats by agricultural societies. Anthropologists have typically assumed that in Paleolithic societies, women were responsible for gathering wild plants and firewood, and men were responsible for hunting and scavenging dead animals. However, analogies to existent hunter-gatherer societies such as

8448-491: The drier areas for transport as far west as Astrakhan . There were some yaks along the edge of Tibet . The horse was used for transportation and warfare. The horse was first domesticated on the Pontic–Caspian or Kazakh steppe sometime before 3000 BC, but it took a long time for mounted archery to develop and the process is not fully understood. The stirrup does not seem to have been completely developed until 300 AD (see Stirrup , Saddle , Composite bow , Domestication of

8576-555: The earliest Paleolithic ( Lower Paleolithic ) societies remains largely unknown to scientists, though Lower Paleolithic hominins such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus are likely to have had more complex social structures than chimpanzee societies. Late Oldowan/Early Acheulean humans such as Homo ergaster / Homo erectus may have been the first people to invent central campsites or home bases and incorporate them into their foraging and hunting strategies like contemporary hunter-gatherers, possibly as early as 1.7 million years ago; however,

8704-512: The earliest civilizations of Early Dynastic Period of Egypt , Mesopotamia and the Sumerians , which emerged independently of each other from roughly 3500 BCE. Earliest recorded history, which varies greatly in quality and reliability, deals with Pharaohs and their reigns , as preserved by ancient Egyptians . Much of the earliest recorded history was re-discovered relatively recently due to archaeological dig sites findings. A number of different traditions have developed in different parts of

8832-470: The earliest narratives of China. The Spring and Autumn Annals , the official chronicle of the State of Lu covering the period from 722 to 481 BCE, is arranged on annalistic principles. It is traditionally attributed to Confucius (551–479 BCE). Zhan Guo Ce was a renowned ancient Chinese historical compilation of sporadic materials on the Warring States period compiled between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. Sima Qian (around 100 BCE)

8960-483: The earliest solid evidence for the existence of home bases or central campsites (hearths and shelters) among humans only dates back to 500,000 years ago. Similarly, scientists disagree whether Lower Paleolithic humans were largely monogamous or polygynous . In particular, the Provisional model suggests that bipedalism arose in pre-Paleolithic australopithecine societies as an adaptation to monogamous lifestyles; however, other researchers note that sexual dimorphism

9088-528: The east of India to the Tarim Basin and found a new home in China. By about 1400 AD, the entire steppe west of Dzungaria had adopted Islam . By about 1600 AD, Islam was established in the Tarim Basin while Dzungaria and Mongolia had adopted Tibetan Buddhism . Raids between tribes were prevalent throughout the region's history. This relates to the ease with which a defeated enemy's flocks and herds can be driven away, making raiding profitable. In terms of warfare and raiding, in relation to sedentary societies,

9216-537: The elderly members of their societies during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Some sources claim that most Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were possibly fundamentally egalitarian and may have rarely or never engaged in organized violence between groups (i.e. war). Some Upper Paleolithic societies in resource-rich environments (such as societies in Sungir , in what is now Russia) may have had more complex and hierarchical organization (such as tribes with

9344-531: The end of the Pleistocene , c.  11,650 cal BP . The Paleolithic Age in Europe preceded the Mesolithic Age , although the date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years. During the Paleolithic Age, hominins grouped together in small societies such as bands and subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, and hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic Age

9472-480: The end of the Paleolithic era ( c.  10,000  BP), people began to settle down into permanent locations, and began to rely on agriculture for sustenance in many locations. Much evidence exists that humans took part in long-distance trade between bands for rare commodities (such as ochre , which was often used for religious purposes such as ritual ) and raw materials, as early as 120,000 years ago in Middle Paleolithic. Inter-band trade may have appeared during

9600-794: The end of the Paleolithic, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic, people began to produce works of art such as cave paintings , rock art and jewellery and began to engage in religious behavior such as burials and rituals. At the beginning of the Paleolithic, hominins were found primarily in eastern Africa, east of the Great Rift Valley . Most known hominin fossils dating earlier than one million years before present are found in this area, particularly in Kenya , Tanzania , and Ethiopia . By c.  2,000,000  – c.  1,500,000  BP, groups of hominins began leaving Africa, settling southern Europe and Asia. The South Caucasus

9728-740: The end of the Pleistocene caused the mammoths' habitat to shrink, resulting in a drop in population. The small populations were then hunted out by Paleolithic humans. The global warming that occurred during the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene may have made it easier for humans to reach mammoth habitats that were previously frozen and inaccessible. Small populations of woolly mammoths survived on isolated Arctic islands, Saint Paul Island and Wrangel Island , until c.  3700  BP and c.  1700  BP respectively. The Wrangel Island population became extinct around

9856-430: The end of the epoch. The global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas . The Pleistocene climate was characterized by repeated glacial cycles during which continental glaciers pushed to the 40th parallel in some places. Four major glacial events have been identified, as well as many minor intervening events. A major event

9984-632: The entire surface of the Earth. During interglacial times, drowned coastlines were common, mitigated by isostatic or other emergent motion of some regions. The effects of glaciation were global. Antarctica was ice-bound throughout the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene. The Andes were covered in the south by the Patagonian ice cap. There were glaciers in New Zealand and Tasmania . The decaying glaciers of Mount Kenya , Mount Kilimanjaro , and

10112-403: The extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna , although it is also possible that the late Pleistocene extinctions were (at least in part) caused by other factors such as disease and overhunting by humans. New research suggests that the extinction of the woolly mammoth may have been caused by the combined effect of climatic change and human hunting. Scientists suggest that climate change during

10240-400: The figurines as representations of goddesses , pornographic imagery, apotropaic amulets used for sympathetic magic, and even as self-portraits of women themselves. R. Dale Guthrie has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings, but also a variety of lower-quality art and figurines, and he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He also points out that

10368-474: The first art appear in the archaeological record. The first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa . Archaeologists classify artifacts of the last 50,000 years into many different categories, such as projectile points , engraving tools, sharp knife blades, and drilling and piercing tools. Humankind gradually evolved from early members of

10496-513: The first users of stone tools. Excavations in Gona, Ethiopia , have produced thousands of artifacts, and through radioisotopic dating and magnetostratigraphy the sites can be firmly dated to 2.6 million years ago. Evidence shows these early hominins intentionally selected raw stone with good flaking qualities and chose appropriately sized stones for their needs to produce sharp-edged tools for cutting. The earliest Paleolithic stone tool industry,

10624-587: The former Sino-Soviet border , mountains extend north almost to the forest zone, separating the Central Steppe from the Eastern Steppe, leaving only limited grassland in Dzungaria . This discontinuous section of the Eurasian steppe connects the great steppes of Central Asia and East Asia . The east-west Tian Shan Mountains divide the steppe into Dzungaria in the north and the Tarim Basin to

10752-488: The genus Homo —such as Homo habilis , who used simple stone tools—into anatomically modern humans as well as behaviourally modern humans by the Upper Paleolithic . During the end of the Paleolithic Age, specifically the Middle or Upper Paleolithic Age, humans began to produce the earliest works of art and to engage in religious or spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual . Conditions during

10880-642: The horse and related articles). Parts of the Eurasian steppe experience an ecological regime shift in form of woody plant encroachment , such as the Black Sea-Kazakhstan steppe, the Tibetan Plateau steppe, and the Central Asian steppe. This process involves the gradual increase of shrubs at the expense of grasses. The World Wide Fund for Nature divides the Eurasian steppe's temperate grasslands , savannas and shrublands into

11008-512: The horse gave the nomads an advantage of mobility. Horsemen could raid a village and retreat with their loot before an infantry -based army could be mustered and deployed. When confronted with superior infantry, horsemen could simply ride away, retreat and regroup. Outside of Europe and parts of the Middle East, agrarian societies had difficulty raising a sufficient supply of war horses and often had to enlist cavalry from their nomadic enemies (as mercenaries ). Nomads could not easily be pursued onto

11136-546: The hot stones into a perishable container to heat the water. This technology is typified in the Middle Palaeolithic example of the Abri Pataud hearths. The Lower Paleolithic Homo erectus possibly invented rafts ( c.  840,000  – c.  800,000  BP) to travel over large bodies of water, which may have allowed a group of Homo erectus to reach the island of Flores and evolve into

11264-449: The information which is considered relevant by later historians, such as the full impact of natural disasters or the names of individuals. Recorded history for particular types of information is therefore limited based on the types of records kept. Because of this, recorded history in different contexts may refer to different periods of time depending on the topic. The interpretation of recorded history often relies on historical method , or

11392-695: The invention of these devices brought fish into the human diets, which provided a hedge against starvation and a more abundant food supply. Thanks to their technology and their advanced social structures, Paleolithic groups such as the Neanderthals—who had a Middle Paleolithic level of technology—appear to have hunted large game just as well as Upper Paleolithic modern humans, and the Neanderthals in particular may have likewise hunted with projectile weapons. Nonetheless, Neanderthal use of projectile weapons in hunting occurred very rarely (or perhaps never) and

11520-434: The lack of control of fire: studies of cave settlements in Europe indicate no regular use of fire prior to c.  400,000  – c.  300,000  BP. East Asian fossils from this period are typically placed in the genus Homo erectus . Very little fossil evidence is available at known Lower Paleolithic sites in Europe, but it is believed that hominins who inhabited these sites were likewise Homo erectus . There

11648-527: The land becomes increasingly dry as one moves south. The steppe narrows at two points, dividing it into three major parts. The Pannonian Steppe is a western exclave of the Eurasian Steppe, separated from the main steppe by the Carpathian Mountains . It is found in modern-day Austria , Hungary , Romania , Serbia and Slovakia . The Pontic–Caspian Steppe is the main European end of

11776-581: The late Middle Paleolithic around 100,000 BP or perhaps even earlier. Archaeological evidence from the Dordogne region of France demonstrates that members of the European early Upper Paleolithic culture known as the Aurignacian used calendars ( c.  30,000  BP). This was a lunar calendar that was used to document the phases of the moon. Genuine solar calendars did not appear until

11904-454: The main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the over-sexual representation of women) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males during the Upper Paleolithic. Recorded history Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using

12032-681: The mixture of agriculture and pastoralism in Manchuria its inhabitants, the Manchu knew how to deal with both nomads and the settled populations and therefore were able to conquer much of northern China when both Chinese and Mongols were weak. The steppe culture of Russia was shaped in Russia through cross-cultural contact mostly by Slavic, Tatar-Turkic, Mongolian and Iranian people. Rus' rulers would ally themselves by marriage with fellow-steppe peoples. In addition to ethnicity, also instruments such as

12160-415: The most gender-equal time in human history. Archaeological evidence from art and funerary rituals indicates that a number of individual women enjoyed seemingly high status in their communities, and it is likely that both sexes participated in decision making. The earliest known Paleolithic shaman ( c.  30,000  BP) was female. Jared Diamond suggests that the status of women declined with

12288-432: The object of study." Historians use other types of sources to understand history as well. Secondary sources are written accounts of history based upon the evidence from primary sources. These are sources which, usually, are accounts, works, or research that analyse, assimilate, evaluate, interpret, and/or synthesize primary sources. Tertiary sources are compilations based upon primary and secondary sources and often tell

12416-620: The oldest example of ceramic art, the Venus of Dolní Věstonice ( c.  29,000  – c.  25,000  BP). Kilu Cave at Buku island , Solomon Islands , demonstrates navigation of some 60 km of open ocean at 30,000 BCcal. Early dogs were domesticated sometime between 30,000 and 14,000 BP, presumably to aid in hunting. However, the earliest instances of successful domestication of dogs may be much more ancient than this. Evidence from canine DNA collected by Robert K. Wayne suggests that dogs may have been first domesticated in

12544-471: The paintings of half-human, half-animal figures and the remoteness of the caves are reminiscent of modern hunter-gatherer shamanistic practices. Symbol-like images are more common in Paleolithic cave paintings than are depictions of animals or humans, and unique symbolic patterns might have been trademarks that represent different Upper Paleolithic ethnic groups. Venus figurines have evoked similar controversy. Archaeologists and anthropologists have described

12672-481: The period during which a culture or civilization has not yet developed writing, but other cultures have noted its existence in their own writings. More complete writing systems were preceded by proto-writing . Early examples are the Jiahu symbols ( c.  6600 BCE ), Vinča signs ( c.  5300 BCE ), early Indus script ( c.  3500 BCE ) and Nsibidi script ( c.  before 500 CE ). There

12800-695: The pigment ochre from late Lower Paleolithic Acheulean archaeological sites suggests that Acheulean societies, like later Upper Paleolithic societies, collected and used ochre to create rock art. Nevertheless, it is also possible that the ochre traces found at Lower Paleolithic sites is naturally occurring. Upper Paleolithic humans produced works of art such as cave paintings, Venus figurines, animal carvings, and rock paintings. Upper Paleolithic art can be divided into two broad categories: figurative art such as cave paintings that clearly depicts animals (or more rarely humans); and nonfigurative, which consists of shapes and symbols. Cave paintings have been interpreted in

12928-486: The planet. Multiple hominid groups coexisted for some time in certain locations. Homo neanderthalensis were still found in parts of Eurasia c.  40,000  BP years, and engaged in an unknown degree of interbreeding with Homo sapiens sapiens . DNA studies also suggest an unknown degree of interbreeding between Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens denisova . Hominin fossils not belonging either to Homo neanderthalensis or to Homo sapiens species, found in

13056-647: The possible wood hut at Terra Amata . Fire was used by the Lower Paleolithic hominins Homo erectus and Homo ergaster as early as 300,000 to 1.5 million years ago and possibly even earlier by the early Lower Paleolithic (Oldowan) hominin Homo habilis or by robust Australopithecines such as Paranthropus . However, the use of fire only became common in the societies of the following Middle Stone Age and Middle Paleolithic . Use of fire reduced mortality rates and provided protection against predators. Early hominins may have begun to cook their food as early as

13184-530: The preface to his book, the Muqaddimah (1377), the Arab historian and early sociologist , Ibn Khaldun , warned of seven mistakes that he thought that historians regularly committed. In this criticism, he approached the past as strange and in need of interpretation. Ibn Khaldun often criticised "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data." As a result, he introduced a scientific method to

13312-620: The prestigious Ban family of the Eastern Han dynasty era. In Sri Lanka , the oldest historical text is the Mahavamsa ( c. 5th century CE). Buddhist monks of the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya maintained chronicles of Sri Lankan history starting from the 3rd century BCE. These annals were combined and compiled into a single document in the 5th century by the Mahanama of Anuradhapura while Dhatusena of Anuradhapura

13440-528: The relative strength of the nomadic and agrarian heartlands. Over the last few hundred years, the Russian steppe and much of Inner Mongolia has been cultivated. The fact that most of the Russian steppe is not irrigated implies that it was maintained as grasslands as a result of the military strength of the nomads. According to the most widely held hypothesis of the origin of the Indo-European languages ,

13568-618: The result of divine intervention. History developed as a popular form of literature in later Greek and Roman societies in the works of Polybius , Tacitus and others. Saint Augustine was influential in Christian and Western thought at the beginning of the medieval period. Through the Medieval and Renaissance periods, history was often studied through a sacred or religious perspective. Around 1800, German philosopher and historian Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel brought philosophy and

13696-408: The same time the island was settled by prehistoric humans. There is no evidence of prehistoric human presence on Saint Paul island (though early human settlements dating as far back as 6500 BP were found on the nearby Aleutian Islands ). Nearly all of our knowledge of Paleolithic people and way of life comes from archaeology and ethnographic comparisons to modern hunter-gatherer cultures such as

13824-487: The sedentary population, partly because the Middle East has significant areas of steppe (taken by force in past invasions) and pastoralism. There was a sharp cultural divide between Mongolia and China and almost constant warfare from the dawn of history until the Qing conquest of Dzungaria in 1757. The nomads collected large amounts of tribute from the Chinese and several Chinese dynasties were of steppe origin. Perhaps because of

13952-583: The set of techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write accounts of the past. The question of what constitutes history, and whether there is an effective method for interpreting recorded history, is raised in the philosophy of history as a question of epistemology . The study of different historical methods is known as historiography , which focuses on examining how different interpreters of recorded history create different interpretations of historical evidence. Prehistory traditionally refers to

14080-423: The small hominin Homo floresiensis . However, this hypothesis is disputed within the anthropological community. The possible use of rafts during the Lower Paleolithic may indicate that Lower Paleolithic hominins such as Homo erectus were more advanced than previously believed, and may have even spoken an early form of modern language. Supplementary evidence from Neanderthal and modern human sites located around

14208-521: The south and west of Dzungaria, and separated from it by the Tian Shan mountains, is an area about twice the size of Dzungaria, the oval Tarim Basin . The Tarim Basin's arid conditions make it unsuitable for sustaining a nomadic population. However, along its periphery, rivers descend from the mountains, creating a circle of cities that thrived on irrigation agriculture and engaged in east-west trade. The Tarim Basin formed an island of near civilization in

14336-611: The south. Dzungaria is bounded by the Tarbagatai Mountains on the west and the Mongolian Altai Mountains on the east, neither of which is a significant barrier. Dzungaria has good grassland around the edges and a central desert. It often behaved as a westward extension of Mongolia and connected Mongolia to the Kazakh Steppe. To the north of Dzungaria are mountains and the Siberian forest. To

14464-423: The span of time before recorded history, ending with the invention of writing systems . Prehistory refers to the past in an area where no written records exist, or where the writing of a culture is not understood. Protohistory refers to the transition period between prehistory and history, after the advent of literacy in a society but before the writings of the first historians . Protohistory may also refer to

14592-481: The spouses could live with neither the husband's relatives nor the wife's relatives at all. Taken together, most likely, the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers can be characterized as multilocal. Early examples of artistic expression, such as the Venus of Tan-Tan and the patterns found on elephant bones from Bilzingsleben in Thuringia , may have been produced by Acheulean tool users such as Homo erectus prior to

14720-754: The start of the Middle Paleolithic period. However, the earliest undisputed evidence of art during the Paleolithic comes from Middle Paleolithic / Middle Stone Age sites such as Blombos Cave –South Africa–in the form of bracelets , beads , rock art , and ochre used as body paint and perhaps in ritual. Undisputed evidence of art only becomes common in the Upper Paleolithic. Lower Paleolithic Acheulean tool users, according to Robert G. Bednarik, began to engage in symbolic behavior such as art around 850,000 BP. They decorated themselves with beads and collected exotic stones for aesthetic, rather than utilitarian qualities. According to him, traces of

14848-477: The steppe since the steppe could not easily support a land army. If the Chinese sent an army into Mongolia, the nomads would flee and come back when the Chinese ran out of supplies. But the steppe nomads were relatively few and their rulers had difficulty holding together enough clans and tribes to field a large army. If steppe nomads conquered an agricultural area they often lacked the skills to administer it. If they tried to hold agrarian land they gradually absorbed

14976-464: The study of history, and he often referred to it as his "new science". His historical method also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state , communication , propaganda and systematic bias in history, and he is thus considered to be the "father of historiography" or the "father of the philosophy of history". While recorded history begins with the invention of writing, over time new ways of recording history have come along with

15104-520: The techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write history . Primary sources are first-hand evidence of history (usually written, but sometimes captured in other mediums) made at the time of an event by a present person. Historians think of those sources as the closest to the origin of the information or idea under study. These types of sources can provide researchers with, as Dalton and Charnigo put it, "direct, unmediated information about

15232-467: The time that the Emperor of Han pushed Chinese power west to the Tarim Basin. The nomads would occasionally tolerate colonies of peasants on the steppe in the few areas where farming was possible. These were often captives who grew grain for their nomadic masters. Along the fringes there were areas that could be used for either plowland or grassland. These alternated between one and the other depending on

15360-422: The tools themselves that allowed access to a wider variety and amount of food sources. For example, microliths or small stone tools or points were invented around 70,000–65,000 BP and were essential to the invention of bows and atlatls (spear throwers) in the following Upper Paleolithic. Harpoons were invented and used for the first time during the late Middle Paleolithic ( c.  90,000  BP);

15488-427: The world as to how to interpret these ancient accounts. Dionysius of Halicarnassus knew of seven predecessors of Herodotus , including Hellanicus of Lesbos , Xanthus of Lydia and Hecataeus of Miletus . He described their works as simple, unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, Greek or foreign, including popular legends. Herodotus (484 BCE – c. 425 BCE) has generally been acclaimed as

15616-523: Was even lower at 4,000–6,000 individuals. However, remains of thousands of butchered animals and tools made by Palaeolithic humans were found in Lapa do Picareiro , a cave in Portugal , dating back between 41,000 and 38,000 years ago. Some researchers have noted that science, limited in that age to some early ideas about astronomy (or cosmology ), had limited impact on Paleolithic technology. Making fire

15744-429: Was more elaborate than previous Acheulean techniques. This technique increased efficiency by allowing the creation of more controlled and consistent flakes . It allowed Middle Paleolithic humans to create stone-tipped spears , which were the earliest composite tools, by hafting sharp pointy stone flakes onto wooden shafts. In addition to improving tool-making methods, the Middle Paleolithic also saw an improvement of

15872-402: Was occupied by c.  1,700,000  BP, and northern China was reached by c.  1,660,000  BP. By the end of the Lower Paleolithic, members of the hominin family were living in what is now China, western Indonesia, and, in Europe, around the Mediterranean and as far north as England, France, southern Germany, and Bulgaria. Their further northward expansion may have been limited by

16000-710: Was ruling the Anuradhapura Kingdom . It was written based on prior ancient compilations known as the Atthakatha , which were commentaries written in Sinhala. An earlier document known as the Dipavamsa (4th century CE) "Island Chronicles" is much simpler and contains less information than the Mahavamsa and was probably compiled using the Atthakatha on the Mahavamsa as well. A companion volume,

16128-694: Was the first in China to lay the groundwork for professional historical writing. His written work was the Records of the Grand Historian , a monumental lifelong achievement in literature. Its scope extends as far back as the 16th century BCE, and it includes many treatises on specific subjects and individual biographies of prominent people, and also explores the lives and deeds of commoners, both contemporary and those of previous eras. His work influenced every subsequent author of history in China, including

16256-459: Was there a formal division of labor during the Paleolithic. Each member of the group was skilled at all tasks essential to survival, regardless of individual abilities. Theories to explain the apparent egalitarianism have arisen, notably the Marxist concept of primitive communism . Christopher Boehm (1999) has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have evolved in Paleolithic societies because of

16384-433: Was widespread knowledge, and it was possible without an understanding of chemical processes, These types of practical skills are sometimes called crafts. Religion, superstitution or appeals to the supernatural may have played a part in the cultural explanations of phenomena like combustion . Paleolithic humans made tools of stone, bone (primarily of deer), and wood. The early paleolithic hominins, Australopithecus , were

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