Provenance (from French provenir 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art , but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology , paleontology , archival science , economy , computing , and scientific inquiry in general.
139-829: The Humboldt Forum is a museum dedicated to human history , art and culture, located in the Berlin Palace on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin . It is named in honour of the Prussian scholars Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt . Considered the "German equivalent" of the British Museum , the Humboldt Forum houses the non-European collections of the Berlin State Museums , temporary exhibitions and public events. Due to
278-576: A nomadic life to a sedentary existence as farmers in permanent settlements . The growing complexity of human societies necessitated systems of accounting and writing . These developments paved the way for the emergence of early civilizations in Mesopotamia , Egypt , the Indus Valley , and China , marking the beginning of the Ancient period in 3500 BCE. These civilizations supported
417-424: A central government, a complex economy and social structure, and systems for keeping records. These cultures variously invented the wheel, mathematics, bronze-working, sailing boats, the potter's wheel , woven cloth, construction of monumental buildings, and writing. Polytheistic religions developed, centered on temples where priests and priestesses performed sacrificial rites. Writing facilitated
556-541: A common source, or fonds , should be kept together – where practicable, physically, but in all cases intellectually, in the way in which they are catalogued and arranged in finding aids . Conversely, records of different provenance should be preserved and documented separately. In archival practice, proof of provenance is provided by the operation of control systems that document the history of records kept in archives, including details of amendments made to them. The authority of an archival document or set of documents of which
695-408: A considerable difference to its selling price in the market. This is affected by the degree of certainty of the provenance, the status of past owners as collectors, and in many cases by the strength of evidence that an object has not been illegally excavated or exported from another country. The provenance of a work of art may vary greatly in length, depending on context or the amount that is known, from
834-732: A core area in Central Asia and Iran. They oversaw the Timurid Renaissance of art and architecture. Since at least the 4th century, Christianity has played a prominent role in shaping the culture, values, and institutions of Western civilization, primarily through Catholicism and later also Protestantism . Europe during the Early Middle Ages was characterized by depopulation, deurbanization , and barbarian invasions, all of which had begun in late antiquity . The barbarian invaders formed their own new kingdoms in
973-476: A few months further. In April 2020, two tar cookers exploded at the construction site, injuring one worker. On 16 September 2022, the opening of the eastern wing, the last section of the Humboldt Forum museum, meant the Humboldt Forum museum was finally completed. It became Germany's currently most expensive cultural project. The Humboldt Forum has its seat in the reconstructed Berlin Palace . The foundation stone
1112-472: A more general work on the artist, period or genre. Similarly, a photograph of a painting may show inscriptions (or a signature) that subsequently became lost as a result of overzealous restoration. Conversely, a photograph may show that an inscription was not visible at an earlier date. One of the disputed aspects of the "Rice" portrait of Jane Austen concerns apparent inscriptions identifying artist and sitter. Provenance – also known as custodial history –
1251-625: A new contender that quickly surpassed both of these empires. Muhammad , the founder of Islam, initiated the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century. He established a new unified polity in Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate , culminating in the establishment of Muslim rule on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) by 750 CE. The subsequent Abbasid Caliphate oversaw
1390-588: A painting whose current ownership and location are known, it is important to record the physical details of the painting – style, subject, signature, materials, dimensions, frame, etc. The titles of paintings and the attribution to a particular artist may change over time. The size of the work and its description can be used to identify earlier references to the painting. The back of a painting can contain significant provenance information. There may be exhibition marks, dealer stamps, gallery labels and other indications of previous ownership. There may be shipping labels. In
1529-417: A photograph of the item with its original owner. Simple yet definitive documentation such as that can increase its value by an order of magnitude, but only if the owner was of high renown. Many items that were sold at auction have gone far past their estimates because of a photograph showing that item with a famous person. Some examples include antiques owned by politicians, musicians, artists, actors, etc. In
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#17327879186731668-409: A piano's provenance. Pianos can sell for millions of dollars, when the provenance is significant enough to increase its value well beyond what it would be worth as a musical instrument alone. When decisions need to be made in a court of law for a bankruptcy, or before a piano goes up for auction, or when an educational institution needs to establish a value for a deed of trust being established with
1807-634: A political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rents from lands and manors. Kingdoms became more centralized after the decentralizing effects of the breakup of the Carolingian Empire . In 1054, the Great Schism between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches led to the prominent cultural differences between Western and Eastern Europe. The Crusades were
1946-504: A private transaction, there may be a bill of sale or sales receipt that provides evidence of provenance. Where the artist is known, there may be a catalogue raisonné listing all the artist's known works and their location at the time of writing. A database of catalogues raisonné is available at the International Foundation for Art Research . Historic photos of the painting may be discussed and illustrated in
2085-416: A provenience and a provenance. The provenance of works of fine art , antiques and antiquities is of great importance, especially to their owner. There are a number of reasons why painting provenance is important, which mostly also apply to other types of fine art. A good provenance increases the value of a painting, and establishing provenance may help confirm the date, artist and, especially for portraits,
2224-473: A series of empires of unprecedented size develop. Well-trained professional armies, unifying ideologies, and advanced bureaucracies created the possibility for emperors to rule over large domains whose populations could attain numbers upwards of tens of millions of subjects. International trade also expanded, most notably the massive trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea, the maritime trade web in
2363-562: A series of religious wars waged by Christians to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Muslims and succeeded for long enough to establish some Crusader states in the Levant . Italian merchants imported slaves to work in households or in sugar processing. Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism and the founding of universities, while the building of Gothic cathedrals and churches
2502-429: A single name to an entry in a scholarly catalogue some thousands of words long. An expert certification can mean the difference between an object having no value and being worth a fortune. Certifications themselves may be open to question. Jacques van Meegeren forged the work of his father Han van Meegeren , who had forged the work of Vermeer . Jacques sometimes produced a certificate with his forgeries, stating that
2641-460: A site. Artifacts can be moved through looting as well as trade, far from their place of origin and long before modern rediscovery. Many source nations have passed legislation forbidding the domestic trade in cultural heritage. Further research is often required to establish the true provenance and legal status of a find, and what the relationship is between the exact provenience and the overall provenance. In paleontology and paleoanthropology , it
2780-510: A variety of periodizations. Humans evolved in Africa from great apes through the lineage of hominins , which arose 7–5 million years ago. The ability to walk on two legs emerged after the split from chimpanzees in early hominins, such as Australopithecus , as an adaptation possibly associated with a shift from forest to savanna habitats. Hominins began to use rudimentary stone tools c. 3.3 million years ago, marking
2919-494: A work was created by his father. John Drewe was able to pass off as genuine paintings, a large number of forgeries that would have easily been recognised as such by scientific examination. He established an impressive, but false provenance. Because of this, galleries and dealers accepted the paintings as genuine. He created this false provenance by forging letters and other documents, including false entries in earlier exhibition catalogues. Sometimes provenance can be as simple as
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#17327879186733058-475: A writing system and used the concept of zero in their mathematics. West of the Maya area, in central Mexico, the city of Teotihuacan prospered due to its control of the obsidian trade. Its power peaked around 450 CE, when its 125,000–150,000 inhabitants made it one of the world's largest cities. Technology developed sporadically in the ancient world. There were periods of rapid technological progress, such as
3197-449: Is a core concept within archival science and archival processing . The term refers to the individuals, groups, or organizations that originally created or received the items in an accumulation of records, and to the items' subsequent chain of custody . The principle of provenance, also termed the principle of "archival integrity", and a major strand in the broader principle of respect des fonds , stipulates that records originating from
3336-582: Is an example of a Neolithic religious or civic site. Metalworking was first used in the creation of copper tools and ornaments around 6400 BCE. Gold and silver soon followed, primarily for use in ornaments. The first signs of bronze , an alloy of copper and tin , date to around 4500 BCE, but the alloy did not become widely used until the third millennium BCE. The Bronze Age saw the development of cities and civilizations . Early civilizations arose close to rivers, first in Mesopotamia (3300 BCE) with
3475-417: Is an inscription on the object, or an account of it in written materials from the same era, an object of study in archaeology or cultural anthropology may have an early provenance – a known history that predates modern research – then a provenience from its modern finding, and finally a continued provenance relating to its handling and storage or display after the modern acquisition. Evidence of provenance in
3614-561: Is authenticated before a piano is inducted into a museum, sold at an auction, or appraised for an estate or legal action, when it has extraordinary value in connection to a composer, performer, event or location that has become famous. For example, the piano that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart used during the final 10 years of his life, is on display in the Mozarteum Museum in Salzberg, one of many historical pianos in museums around
3753-454: Is essentially a matter of documentation . The term dates to the 1780s in English. Provenance is conceptually comparable to the legal term chain of custody . For museums and the art trade , in addition to helping establish the authorship and authenticity of an object, provenance has become increasingly important in helping establish the moral and legal validity of a chain of custody, given
3892-523: Is no firm provenance during that period. Documented evidence of provenance for an object can help to establish that it has not been altered and is not a forgery, a reproduction, stolen or looted art . Provenance helps assign the work to a known artist, and a documented history can be of use in helping to prove ownership. An example of a detailed provenance is given in the Arnolfini portrait . The quality of provenance of an important work of art can make
4031-430: Is recognized that fossils can also move from their primary context and are sometimes found, apparently in-situ , in deposits to which they do not belong because they have been moved, for example, by the erosion of nearby but different outcrops . It is unclear how strictly paleontology maintains the provenience and provenance distinction. For example, a short glossary at a website, primarily aimed at young students, of
4170-406: Is that provenience is an artifact's "birthplace", while provenance is its " résumé ". This can be imprecise. Many artifacts originated as trade goods created in one region, but were used and finally deposited in another. Aside from scientific precision, a need for the distinction in these fields has been described thus: Archaeologists ... don't care who owned an object—they are more interested in
4309-582: Is that the early waves of migration died out and all modern non-Africans are descended from a single group that left Africa 70,000–50,000 years ago. H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Australia 65,000 years ago, Europe 45,000 years ago, and the Americas 21,000 years ago. These migrations occurred during the most recent Ice Age , when various temperate regions of today were inhospitable. Nevertheless, by
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4448-809: Is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present . Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers . They migrated out of Africa during the Last Ice Age and had populated most of the Earth by the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago. Soon afterward, the Neolithic Revolution in West Asia brought the first systematic husbandry of plants and animals, and saw many humans transition from
4587-463: The American Museum of Natural History treats the terms as synonymous, while scholarly paleontology works make frequent use of provenience in the same precise sense as used in archaeology and paleoanthropology. While exacting details of a find's provenience are primarily of use to scientific researchers, most natural history and archaeology museums also make strenuous efforts to record how
4726-721: The Athenian Empire (454–404 BCE), which was defeated by a Spartan-led coalition during the Peloponnesian War . Philip of Macedon unified the Greek city-states into the Hellenic League and his son Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) founded an empire extending from present-day Greece to India. The empire divided into several successor states shortly after his death, resulting in the founding of many cities and
4865-1076: The Ayyubids in the 12th century, and them later by the Mamluks in the 13th century. In the Maghreb and Western Sahara , the Almoravids dominated from the 11th century, until it was subsumed by the Almohad Caliphate in the 12th century. The Almohad's collapse gave rise to the Marinids in Morocco, the Zayyanids in Algeria, and the Hafsids in Tunisia. In Nubia the Kingdom of Kush
5004-674: The COVID-19 pandemic , it opened digitally on 16 December 2020 and became accessible to the general public on 20 July 2021. The Humboldt Forum incorporates two former museums, the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and the Museum of Asian Art . Both had their roots in the Ancient Prussian Art Chamber. The Ancient Prussian Art Chamber was originally established by Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg in
5143-708: The Eastern Agricultural Complex . They built earthworks such as Watson Brake (4000 BCE) and Poverty Point (3600 BCE), both in Louisiana. From 800 to 200 BCE, the Axial Age saw the emergence of transformative philosophical and religious ideas that developed in many different places mostly independently of each other. Chinese Confucianism , Indian Buddhism and Jainism , and Jewish monotheism all arose during this period. Persian Zoroastrianism began earlier, perhaps around 1000 BCE, but
5282-660: The Indus script . In China, writing was first used during the Shang dynasty (1766–1045 BCE). Transport was facilitated by waterways, including rivers and seas, which fostered the projection of military power and the exchange of goods, ideas, and inventions. The Bronze Age also saw new land technologies, such as horse-based cavalry and chariots , that allowed armies to move faster. Trade became increasingly important as urban societies exchanged manufactured goods for raw materials from distant lands, creating vast commercial networks and
5421-854: The Late Bronze Age collapse that affected many Mediterranean civilizations between 1300 and 1000 BCE. The foundations of many cultural aspects in India were laid in the Vedic period (1750–600 BCE), including the emergence of Hinduism . From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas were established across the subcontinent. Speakers of the Bantu languages began expanding across Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa as early as 3000 BCE until 1000 CE. Their expansion and encounters with other groups resulted in
5560-720: The Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Qin Shi Huang was an adherent of the Legalist school of thought and he displaced the hereditary aristocracy by creating an efficient system of administration staffed by officials appointed according to merit. The harshness of the Qin dynasty led to rebellions and the dynasty's fall. It was followed by the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), which combined the Legalist bureaucratic system with Confucian ideals. The Han dynasty
5699-613: The Sui dynasty (581–618). The Chinese were confronted by Turkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in the region. Originally the relationship was largely cooperative but in 630, the Tang dynasty began an offensive against the Turks by capturing areas of the Ordos Desert . In the 8th century, Islam began to penetrate the region and soon became the sole faith of most of
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5838-793: The Tigris and Euphrates , followed by the Egyptian civilization along the Nile River (3200 BCE), the Norte Chico civilization in coastal Peru (3100 BCE), the Indus Valley civilization in Pakistan and northwestern India (2500 BCE), and the Chinese civilization along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers (2200 BCE). These societies developed a number of shared characteristics, including
5977-578: The U.S. Global Change Research Program . Some international academic consortia, such as the Research Data Alliance , have specific groups to tackle issues of provenance. In that case it is the Research Data Provenance Interest Group. Within computer science , informatics uses the term "provenance" to mean the lineage of data , as per data provenance, with research in the last decade extending
6116-716: The Yellow River Valley may have cultivated millet by 7000 BCE. Pigs were the most important domesticated animal in early China. People in Africa's Sahara cultivated sorghum and several other crops between 8000 and 5000 BCE, while other agricultural centers arose in the Ethiopian Highlands and the West African rainforests. In the Indus River Valley , crops were cultivated by 7000 BCE and cattle were domesticated by 6500 BCE. In
6255-494: The compass , one of China's Four Great Inventions . In Africa, the Kingdom of Kush prospered through its interactions with both Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa. It ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty from 712 to 650 BCE, then continued as an agricultural and trading state based in the city of Meroë until the fourth century CE. The Kingdom of Aksum , centered in present-day Ethiopia, established itself by
6394-792: The early Muslim conquests , the Islamic Golden Age , and the commencement and expansion of the Arab slave trade , followed by the Mongol invasions and the founding of the Ottoman Empire. South Asia had a series of middle kingdoms , followed by the establishment of Islamic empires in India. In West Africa, the Mali and Songhai Empires rose. On the southeast coast of Africa, Arabic ports were established where gold, spices , and other commodities were traded. This allowed Africa to join
6533-668: The printing press greatly affected subsequent history. During the early modern period , spanning from approximately 1500 to 1800 CE, European powers explored and colonized regions worldwide, intensifying cultural and economic exchange. This era saw substantial intellectual, cultural, and technological advances in Europe driven by the Renaissance , the Scientific Revolution , and the Enlightenment . By
6672-449: The sack of Constantinople in 1204. In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the Mongols , swept through the region but were eventually eclipsed by the Turks and the founding of the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey around 1299. Steppe nomads from Central Asia continued to threaten sedentary societies in the post-classical era, but they also faced incursions from the Arabs and Chinese. China expanded into Central Asia during
6811-505: The stirrup (India, 2nd century BCE and Central Asia, 1st century CE), both of which diffused widely throughout the world. The Chinese learned to make silk and built massive engineering projects such as the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canal . The Romans were also accomplished builders, inventing concrete , perfecting the use of arches in construction, and creating aqueducts to transport water over long distances to urban centers. Most ancient societies practiced slavery , which
6950-499: The 10th and 9th millennia BCE. Pastoral societies based on nomadic animal herding also developed, mostly in dry areas unsuited for plant cultivation such as the Eurasian Steppe or the African Sahel . Conflict between nomadic herders and sedentary agriculturalists was frequent and became a recurring theme in world history. Neolithic societies usually worshiped ancestors, sacred places, or anthropomorphic deities . The vast complex of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, dated 9500–8000 BCE,
7089-495: The 1880s, about a century after provenance . Outside of academic contexts, it has been used as a synonymous variant spelling of provenance , especially in American English . Any given antiquity may have both a provenience, where it was found, and a provenance, where it has been since it was found. A summary of the distinction is that "provenience is a fixed point, while provenance can be considered an itinerary that an object follows as it moves from hand to hand." Another metaphor
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#17327879186737228-450: The 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology had reached a critical mass that brought about the Industrial Revolution , substantial to the Great Divergence , and began the modern period starting around 1800 CE. The rapid growth in productive power further increased international trade and colonization , linking the different civilizations in the process of globalization , and cemented European dominance throughout
7367-577: The 19th century. Over the last quarter-millennium, despite the devastating effects of two world wars , there has been a great acceleration in the rates of growth of many domains, including human population , agriculture, industry, commerce, scientific knowledge, technology, communications, military capabilities, and environmental degradation . The study of human history relies on insights from academic disciplines including history , archaeology , anthropology , linguistics , and genetics . To provide an accessible overview, researchers divide human history by
7506-418: The 1st century CE as a major trading empire, dominating its neighbors in South Arabia and Kush and controlling the Red Sea trade. It minted its own currency and carved enormous monolithic stelae to mark its emperors' graves. Successful regional empires were also established in the Americas, arising from cultures established as early as 2500 BCE. In Mesoamerica, vast pre-Columbian societies were built,
7645-409: The 7th century CE. Buddhism became the main religion in much of South, Southeast, and East Asia. The Greek philosophical tradition diffused throughout the Mediterranean world and as far as India, starting in the 4th century BCE after the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon . Both Christianity and Islam developed from the beliefs of Judaism . The millennium from 500 BCE to 500 CE saw
7784-420: The 9th century, when it succumbed to pressure from new invaders—the Vikings , Magyars , and Arabs. During the Carolingian era, churches developed a form of musical notation called neume which became the basis for the modern notation system. Kievan Rus' expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as
7923-484: The Americas, squash was cultivated by at least 8500 BCE in South America, and domesticated arrowroot appeared in Central America by 7800 BCE. Potatoes were first cultivated in the Andes of South America, where the llama was also domesticated. It is likely that women played a central role in plant domestication throughout these developments. Various explanations of the causes of the Neolithic Revolution have been proposed. Some theories identify population growth as
8062-468: The BBC TV programme Fake or Fortune? the provenance of the painting Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil was investigated using a gallery sticker and shipping label on the back. Early provenance can sometimes be indicated by a cartellino , a trompe-l'œil representation of an inscribed label, added to the front of a painting. However, these can be forged, or can fade or be painted over. Auction records are an important resource to assist in researching
8201-416: The Berlin Palace. By 2019, the Forum's overall costs totaled $ 700 million; at the time, it was considered Europe's most expensive cultural project. Its opening was initially planned for autumn 2019, then delayed to 2020 due to technical problems, including with its air conditioning system. Delivery delays and the unavailability of workers during a lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany pushed it back
8340-459: The Greco-Roman era in the Mediterranean region. Greek science , technology , and mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period, typified by devices such as the Antikythera mechanism . There were also periods of technological decay, such as the Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuing early medieval period. Two of the most important innovations were paper (China, 1st and 2nd centuries CE) and
8479-504: The Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace has been set up to create the museum. MacGregor has proposed to make the museum admission-free, based on the model of the British Museum. The Humboldt Forum houses 4 major wings: America, Africa, Asia, Oceania. In edition to this it also has several other galleries, including the Humboldt Lab, the Berlin-Exhibition, Sounds of the World, and spaces for temporary exhibitions. The Humboldt Forum came under criticism before and after its 2020 opening due to
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#17327879186738618-419: The Indian Department of the Ethnological Museum in 1904. Wilhelm von Bode , the Director-General of the Royal Museums in Berlin, established the Museum of East Asian Art as a separate collection in 1906. In 2006 the Museum of Indian Art and the Museum of East Asian Art were merged to form the Museum of Asian Art. From 2020 the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art are both part of the Humboldt Forum in
8757-465: The Indian Ocean , and the Silk Road . The kingdom of the Medes helped to destroy the Assyrian Empire in tandem with the nomadic Scythians and the Babylonians . Nineveh , the capital of Assyria, was sacked by the Medes in 612 BCE. The Median Empire gave way to successive Iranian states, including the Achaemenid (550–330 BCE), Parthian (247 BCE–224 CE), and Sasanian Empires (224–651 CE). Two major empires began in modern-day Greece . In
8896-705: The Islamic Golden Age, an era of learning, science, and invention during which philosophy , art , and literature flourished. Scholars preserved and synthesized knowledge and skills of ancient Greece and Persia the manufacture of paper from China and the decimal positional numbering system from India. At the same time, they made significant original contributions in various fields, such as Al-Khwarizmi 's development of algebra and Avicenna 's comprehensive philosophical system. Islamic civilization expanded both by conquest and based on its merchant economy. Merchants brought goods and their Islamic faith to China , India , Southeast Asia , and Africa . Arab domination of
9035-444: The Mediterranean region during late Roman times" says an archaeologist. ... [P]rovenance for an art historian is important to establish ownership, but provenience is interesting to an archaeologist to establish meaning. In this context, the provenance can occasionally be the detailed history of where an object has been since its creation, as in art history contexts – not just since its modern finding. In some cases, such as where there
9174-428: The Mediterranean-European world, political unity was always eventually restored. After the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty and the demise of the Three Kingdoms, nomadic tribes from the north began to invade, causing many Chinese people to flee southward. The post-classical period, dated roughly from 500 to 1500 CE, was characterized by the rise and spread of major religions while civilization expanded to new parts of
9313-405: The Middle East ended in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks , migrating south from the Turkic homelands. The Seljuks were challenged by Europe during the Crusades , a series of religious wars aimed at rolling back Muslim territory and regaining control of the Holy Land . The Crusades were ultimately unsuccessful and served more to weaken the Byzantine Empire, especially with
9452-399: The Netherlands in 1898, often referred to as the " Dutch Manual ". Seamus Ross has argued a case for adapting established principles and theories of archival provenance to the field of modern digital preservation and curation. Provenance is also the title of the journal published by the Society of Georgia Archivists. In the case of books, the study of provenance refers to the study of
9591-448: The Norte Chico culture emerged in Peru around 3100 BCE. The Norte Chico built public monumental architecture at the city of Caral , dated 2627–1977 BCE. The later Chavín polity is sometimes described as the first Andean state, centered on the religious site at Chavín de Huantar . Other important Andean cultures include the Moche , whose ceramics depict many aspects of daily life, and the Nazca , who created animal-shaped designs in
9730-523: The OPM Vocabulary and the PROV Ontology make extensive use of metadata models such as Dublin Core and Semantic Web technologies such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL). Current practice is to rely on the W3C PROV data model, OPM's successor. There are several maintained and open-source provenance capture implementation at the operating system level such as CamFlow, Progger for Linux and MS Windows, and SPADE for Linux, MS Windows , and MacOS . Operating system level provenance have gained interest in
9869-446: The Preservations Artisans Guild, were chosen by Mercersburg Academy to research and authenticate the provenance of the Lennon - Ono - Green - Warhol piano before it was put up for sale to fund a Deed of Trust by the Shaool Family to Mercersburg Academy for future student scholarships. Because this piano was part of a famous lawsuit in 2000 and had extensive coverage as the "Lost Lennon Piano", when provenance research done by Lile
10008-568: The Romans. The Republic became an empire and by the time of Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), it had established dominion over most of the Mediterranean Sea. The empire continued to grow and reached its peak under Trajan (53–117 CE), controlling much of the land from England to Mesopotamia. The two centuries that followed are known as the Pax Romana , a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe. Christianity
10147-697: The Southeast Asia trading system, bringing it contact with Asia; this resulted in the Swahili culture . China experienced the relatively successive Sui, Tang, Song , Yuan , and early Ming dynasties . Middle Eastern trade routes along the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through the Gobi Desert , provided limited economic and cultural contact between Asian and European civilizations. During
10286-612: The administration of cities, the expression of ideas, and the preservation of information. It may have independently developed in at least four ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (3300 BCE), Egypt (around 3250 BCE), China (1200 BCE), and lowland Mesoamerica (by 650 BCE). The earliest system of writing was the Mesopotamian cuneiform script , which began as a system of pictographs , whose pictorial representations eventually became simplified and more abstract. Other influential early writing systems include Egyptian hieroglyphs and
10425-507: The advent of the Paleolithic era. The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus . The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia, and the earliest named species is Homo habilis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago. The most important difference between Homo habilis and Australopithecus was a 50% increase in brain size. H. erectus evolved about 2 million years ago and
10564-613: The beginnings of archaic globalization . Bronze production in Southwest Asia, for example, required the import of tin from as far away as England. The growth of cities was often followed by the establishment of states and empires. In Egypt, the initial division into Upper and Lower Egypt was followed by the unification of the whole valley around 3100 BCE. Around 2600 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization built major cities at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro . Mesopotamian history
10703-698: The better-known provenance representation systems that preceded it, such as the Proof Markup Language and the Open Provenance Model. Interoperability is a design goal of most recent computer science provenance theories and models, for example the Open Provenance Model (OPM) 2008 generation workshop aimed at "establishing inter-operability of systems" through information exchange agreements. Data models and serialisation formats for delivering provenance information typically reuse existing metadata models where possible to enable this. Both
10842-609: The books owned by a writer may help to show which works influenced him or her. Many provenance studies are historically focused, and concentrated on books owned by writers, politicians and public figures. The recent ownership of books is studied, however, as is evidence of how ordinary or anonymous readers have interacted with books. Provenance can be studied both by examining the books themselves, for instance looking at inscriptions, marginalia , bookplates , book rhymes , and bindings, and by reference to external sources of information such as auction catalogues. Provenance for pianos
10981-650: The conceptual model of causality and relation to include processes that act on data and agents that are responsible for those processes. See, for example, the proceedings of the International Provenance Annotation Workshop (IPAW) and Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP). Semantic web standards bodies, including the World Wide Web Consortium in 2014, have ratified a standard data model for provenance representation known as PROV which draws from many of
11120-418: The context of an object within the community of its (mostly original) users. ... [W]e are interested in why a Roman coin turned up in a shipwreck 400 years after it was made; while art historians don't really care, since they can generally figure out what mint a coin came from by the information stamped on its surface. "It's a Roman coin, what else do we need to know?" says an art historian; "The shipping trade in
11259-522: The context of discussions about the restitution of cultural objects in museum collections of colonial origin , the AfricaMuseum in Belgium started to publicly present information about such objects in its permanent exhibition in 2021. The objective of provenance research is to produce a complete list of owners (together, where possible, with the supporting documentary proof) from when the painting
11398-410: The creation of the first cities and states . Cities were centers of trade , manufacturing , and political power . They developed mutually beneficial relationships with their surrounding countrysides , receiving agricultural products and providing manufactured goods and varying degrees of political control in return. Early proto-cities appeared at Çatalhöyük and Jericho , possibly as early as
11537-574: The desert called Nazca lines . The Olmecs of Mesoamerica developed by about 1200 BCE and are known for the colossal stone heads that they carved from basalt . They also devised the Mesoamerican calendar that was used by later cultures such as the Maya and Teotihuacan . Societies in North America were primarily egalitarian hunter-gatherers, supplementing their diet with the plants of
11676-633: The displacement of the Pygmy peoples and the Khoisan , and in the spread of mixed farming and ironworking throughout sub-Saharan Africa, laying the foundations for later states. The Lapita culture emerged in the Bismarck Archipelago near New Guinea around 1500 BCE and colonized many uninhabited islands of Remote Oceania , reaching as far as Samoa by 700 BCE. In the Americas,
11815-560: The end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, humans had colonized nearly all ice-free parts of the globe. Human expansion coincided with both the Quaternary extinction event and the Neanderthal extinction . These extinctions were probably caused by climate change, human activity, or a combination of the two. Beginning around 10,000 BCE, the Neolithic Revolution marked the development of agriculture , which fundamentally changed
11954-458: The establishment of regional empires and acted as a fertile ground for the advent of transformative philosophical and religious ideas, initially Hinduism during the late Bronze Age , and later Buddhism , Confucianism , Greek philosophy , Jainism , Judaism , Taoism , and Zoroastrianism during the Axial Age . The following post-classical period , from about 500 to 1500 CE, witnessed
12093-648: The frontiers hastened internal dissolution. The Han dynasty fell into civil war in 220 CE, beginning the Three Kingdoms period, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralized and divided about the same time in what is known as the Crisis of the Third Century . From the Eurasian Steppe, horse-based nomads dominated a large part of the continent. The development of the stirrup and
12232-435: The gift of a piano, then experts are usually hired to authenticate the piano's provenance. Piano provenance has emerged as a field of study with experts having college degrees in some specialty connected to the piano or to art combined with professional training and experience in the field. Most experts belong to some form of association. For example, Karen Earle Lile niece of Tony Terran and Kendall Ross Bean , members of
12371-754: The human ability to communicate. Signs of early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, implying a form of spirituality generally interpreted as animism or shamanism . The earliest known musical instruments besides the human voice are bone flutes from the Swabian Jura in Germany, dated around 40,000 years old. Paleolithic humans lived as hunter-gatherers and were generally nomadic . The migration of anatomically modern humans out of Africa took place in multiple waves beginning 194,000–177,000 years ago. The dominant view among scholars
12510-456: The human lifestyle. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa , in at least 11 separate centers of origin . Cereal crop cultivation and animal domestication had occurred in Mesopotamia by at least 8500 BCE in the form of wheat, barley , sheep, and goats. The Yangtze River Valley in China domesticated rice around 8000–7000 BCE;
12649-478: The increasing amount of looted art . These issues first became a major concern regarding works that had changed hands in Nazi-controlled areas in Europe before and during World War II. Many museums began compiling pro-active registers of such works and their history. Recently the same concerns have come to prominence for works of African art , often exported illegally, and antiquities from many parts of
12788-440: The items in their collections were acquired. These records are often of use in helping to establish a chain of provenance. Scientific research is generally held to be of good provenance when it is documented in detail sufficient to allow reproducibility . Scientific workflow systems assist scientists and programmers with tracking their data through all transformations, analyses, and interpretations. Data sets are reliable when
12927-697: The late 1340s, and killed tens of millions of Europeans in six years; between a quarter and a third of the population perished. Africa was home to many different civilizations. In the 7th century North Africa saw the extinguishment of Byzantine Africa and the Berber kingdoms in the Early Muslim conquests . From the 10th century the Arabian empire's African territory was consumed by the Fatimid Caliphate centred on Egypt, who were supplanted by
13066-545: The late 14th century formed a personal union with Poland . The Late Middle Ages were marked by difficulties and calamities. Famine, plague, and war devastated the population of Western Europe. The Black Death alone killed approximately 75 to 200 million people between 1347 and 1350. It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Starting in Asia, the disease reached the Mediterranean and Western Europe during
13205-684: The late 5th century BCE, several Greek city states checked the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars . These wars were followed by the Golden Age of Athens , the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilization , including the first theatrical performances . The wars led to the creation of the Delian League , founded in 477 BCE, and eventually
13344-416: The main factor, leading people to seek out new food sources. Others see population growth not as the cause but as the effect of the associated improvements in food supply. Further suggested factors include climate change, resource scarcity, and ideology. The transition to agriculture created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production, permitting far denser populations and
13483-543: The mid 16th century, but was nearly destroyed during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). The art chamber was rebuilt as a magnificent collection by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg , and was moved to the newly extended Berlin Palace by Frederick I of Prussia in the early 18th century. The Ethnological Museum opened in 1886 as a successor of the Ancient Prussian Art Chamber; the Museum of Asian Art originated as
13622-528: The more general sense can be of importance in archaeology. Fakes are not unknown, and finds are sometimes removed from the context in which they were found without documentation, reducing their value to science. Even when apparently discovered in situ , archaeological finds are treated with caution. The provenience of a find may not be properly represented by the context in which it was found, e.g. due to stratigraphic layers being disturbed by erosion, earthquakes, or ancient reconstruction or other disturbance at
13761-579: The most notable being the Zapotec civilization (700 BCE–1521 CE), and the Maya civilization, which reached its highest state of development during the Mesoamerican classic period (c. 250–900 CE), but continued throughout the post-classic period. The great Maya city-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout the Yucatán and surrounding areas. The Maya developed
13900-555: The museum had not done enough to research the provenance and failed to critically present objects originating from the Global South in its collection. In October 2024 the Forum announced to alter the lyrics of Udo Lindenbergs 1983 song Sonderzug nach Pankow in an upcoming choir performance. In 1983 Lindenberg had used the word "Oberindianer" to address East Germanies head of state Erich Honecker . The Humboldt Forum announced
14039-541: The museum's ownership of stolen art and other artifacts which were acquired from the German colonial empire and other European colonies in Africa and Asia, such as the Benin Bronzes . In 2018, it was at the center of a debate about the legality of cultural heritage from former German colonies being put on display in Germany, drawing protests from activists and art historians including as Bénédicte Savoy , who alleged
14178-513: The ownership of individual copies of books. It is usually extended to include the study of the circumstances in which individual copies of books have changed ownership, and of evidence left in books that shows how readers interacted with them. Provenance studies may shed light on the books themselves, providing evidence of the role particular titles have played in social, intellectual and literary history. Such studies may also add to our knowledge of particular owners of books. For instance, looking at
14317-495: The period referred to as ancient India's golden age. The resulting stability helped usher in a flourishing period for Hindu and Buddhist culture in the 4th and 5th centuries, as well as major advances in science and mathematics. In South India , three prominent Dravidian kingdoms emerged: the Cheras , Cholas , and Pandyas . In China, Qin Shi Huang put an end to the chaotic Warring States period by uniting all of China under
14456-429: The piano. For a piano, provenance can be established by starting with the authentication of the brand of manufacture and serial number, which will usually identify age. Then bills of sale, tuning records, bills of lading, concert programs that identify a piano by serial number, letters, famous signatures inside or on the outside of a piano, statements under oath in a court of law and photographs can all help authenticate
14595-729: The population, though Buddhism remained strong in the east. From the 9th to 13th centuries, Central Asia was divided among several powerful states, including the Samanid , Seljuk , and Khwarazmian Empires . These states were succeeded by the Mongols in the 13th century. In 1370, Timur , a Turkic leader in the Mongol military tradition, conquered most of the region and founded the Timurid Empire . Timur's large empire collapsed soon after his death, but his descendants retained control of
14734-435: The potential of improving with age , the issue of provenance has a large bearing on the assessment of the contents of a bottle, both in terms of quality and the risk of wine fraud . A documented history of wine cellar conditions is valuable in estimating the quality of an older vintage due to the fragile nature of wine. Recent technology developments have aided collectors in assessing the temperature and humidity history of
14873-488: The processes used to create them are reproducible and analyzable for defects. Security researchers are interested in data provenance because it can analyze suspicious data and make large opaque systems transparent. Current initiatives to effectively manage, share, and reuse ecological data are indicative of the increasing importance of data provenance. Examples of these initiatives are National Science Foundation Datanet projects, DataONE and Data Conservancy, as well as
15012-564: The provenance is uncertain, because of gaps in the recorded chain of custody, will be considered to be severely compromised. The principles of archival provenance were developed in the 19th century by both French and Prussian archivists, and gained widespread acceptance on the basis of their formulation in the Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives by Dutch state archivists Samuel Muller, J. A. Feith, and R. Fruin, published in
15151-488: The provenance of an object or entity is normally to provide contextual and circumstantial evidence for its original production or discovery, by establishing, as far as practicable, its later history, especially the sequences of its formal ownership, custody and places of storage. The practice has a particular value in helping authenticate objects. Comparative techniques, expert opinions and the results of scientific tests may also be used to these ends, but establishing provenance
15290-461: The provenance of paintings. If a painting has been in private hands for an extended period and on display in a stately home , it may be recorded in an inventory – for example, the Lumley inventory . The painting may also have been noticed by a visitor who subsequently wrote about it. It may have been mentioned in a will or a diary. Where the painting has been bought from a dealer, or changed hands in
15429-407: The provenience is recorded in three dimensions on a site grid with great precision, and may also be recorded on video to provide additional proof and context. In older work, often undertaken by amateurs, only the general site or approximate area may be known, especially when an artifact was found outside a professional excavation and its specific position not recorded. The term provenience appeared in
15568-652: The remains of the Western Roman Empire. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, most of the new kingdoms incorporated existing Roman institutions. Christianity expanded in Western Europe, and monasteries were founded. In the 7th and 8th centuries, the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty established an empire covering much of Western Europe; it lasted until
15707-605: The rise of Islam and the continued spread and consolidation of Christianity while civilization expanded to new parts of the world and trade between societies increased. These developments were accompanied by the rise and decline of major empires, such as the Byzantine Empire , the Islamic Caliphates , the Mongol Empire , and various Chinese dynasties . This period's invention of gunpowder and of
15846-653: The same period, civilizations in the Americas, such as the Mississippians , Aztecs , Maya, and Inca reached their zenith. Before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the Middle East was dominated by the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires, which frequently fought each other for control of several disputed regions. This was also a cultural battle, with Byzantine Christian culture competing against Persian Zoroastrian traditions. The birth of Islam created
15985-419: The security community notably to develop novel intrusion detection techniques. Other implementations exist for specific programming and scripting languages, such as RDataTracker for R , and NoWorkflow for Python . In the geologic use of the term, provenance instead refers to the origin or source area of particles within a rock, most commonly in sedimentary rocks . It does not refer to the circumstances of
16124-437: The smartphone user. This takes the trust issue out of the hands of the owner and gives it to a third party for verification. Archaeology and anthropology researchers use provenience to refer to the exact location or find spot of an artifact , a bone or other remains, a soil sample, or a feature within an ancient site, whereas provenance covers an object's complete documented history. Ideally, in modern excavations,
16263-410: The species Homo heidelbergensis . Humans continued to develop over the succeeding millennia, and by 100,000 years ago, were using jewelry and ocher to adorn the body. By 50,000 years ago, they buried their dead, used projectile weapons, and engaged in seafaring. One of the most important changes (the date of which is unknown) was the development of syntactic language , which dramatically improved
16402-589: The spread of Greek culture throughout conquered regions, a process referred to as Hellenization . The Hellenistic period lasted from the death of Alexander in 323 BCE to 31 BCE when Ptolemaic Egypt fell to Rome. In Europe, the Roman Republic was founded in the 6th century BCE and began expanding its territory in the 3rd century BCE. Priorly, the Carthaginian Empire had dominated the Mediterranean, however lost three successive wars to
16541-497: The state religion. During the High Middle Ages , which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and crop yields to increase. The establishment of the feudal system affected the structure of medieval society. It included manorialism , the organization of peasants into villages that owed rents and labor service to nobles, and vassalage ,
16680-468: The subject of a painting. It may confirm whether a painting is genuinely of the period it seems to date from. The provenance of paintings can help resolve ownership disputes. For example, provenance between 1933 and 1945 can determine whether a painting was looted by the Nazis . Many galleries are putting a great deal of effort into researching the provenance of paintings in their collections for which there
16819-493: The use of horse archers made the nomads a constant threat to sedentary civilizations. In the 4th century CE, the Roman Empire split into western and eastern regions, with usually separate emperors. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE to German influence under Odoacer . The Eastern Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire , was more long-lasting. In China, dynasties rose and fell, but, in sharp contrast to
16958-408: The wine which are two key components in establishing perfect provenance. For example, there are devices available that rest inside the wood case and can be read through the wood by waving a smartphone equipped with a simple app. These devices track the conditions the case has been exposed to for the duration of the battery life, which can be as long as 15 years, and sends a graph and high/low readings to
17097-526: The word could be perceived as hurtful and racist by indigenous people and other visitors and will therefor be replaced. Critics like Wolfgang Kubicki saw a violation of Artistic freedom , while historian Hubertus Knabe said the Humboldt Forum was leaning towards a "far-left Cult" and stated that the people responsible should be voted out of office. Images of the highlights shown at the Humboldt Forum: Human history Human history
17236-638: The world and trade between societies intensified. From the 10th to 13th centuries, the Medieval Warm Period in the northern hemisphere aided agriculture and led to population growth in parts of Europe and Asia. It was followed by the Little Ice Age , which, along with the plagues of the 14th century, put downward pressure on the population of Eurasia. Major inventions of the period were gunpowder , guns, and printing, all of which originated in China. The post-classical period encompasses
17375-468: The world, but currently especially in Iraq , and then Syria . In archaeology and paleontology , the derived term provenience is used with a related but very particular meaning, to refer to the location (in modern research, recorded precisely in three dimensions) where an artifact or other ancient item was found. Provenance covers an object's complete documented history. An artifact may thus have both
17514-515: The world. The 300,000th Steinway piano that was presented to President Franklin D. Roosevelt by Theodore Steinway, on behalf of the Steinway family is on display in the White House. It is one of many pianos with a provenance that have extraordinary value because of art, sculpture or design incorporated into the cabinet. It has legs carved into golden eagles and figures painted on the body of
17653-535: Was legalized by Constantine I in 313 CE after three centuries of imperial persecution . It became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 CE while the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions in 391–392 CE. In South Asia, Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire (320–185 BCE), which flourished under Ashoka the Great . From the 4th to 6th centuries CE, the Gupta Empire oversaw
17792-584: Was characterized by frequent wars between city-states, leading to shifts in hegemony from one city to another. In the 25th–21st centuries BCE, the empires of Akkad and the Neo-Sumerians arose in this area. In Crete, the Minoan civilization emerged by 2000 BCE and is regarded as the first civilization in Europe. Over the following millennia, civilizations developed across the world. By 1600 BCE, Mycenaean Greece began to develop. It flourished until
17931-418: Was commissioned or in the artist's studio through to the present time. In practice, there are likely to be gaps in the list and documents that are missing or lost. The documented provenance should also list when the painting has been part of an exhibition and a bibliography of when it has been discussed, or illustrated in print. Where the research is proceeding backwards, to discover the previous provenance of
18070-467: Was comparable in power and influence to the Roman Empire that lay at the other end of the Silk Road. As economic prosperity fueled their military expansion, the Han conquered parts of Mongolia, Central Asia, Manchuria , Korea, and northern Vietnam. As with other empires during the classical period, Han China advanced significantly in the areas of government, education, science, and technology. The Han invented
18209-645: Was institutionalized by the Achaemenid Empire during the Axial Age. New philosophies took hold in Greece during the 5th century BCE, epitomized by thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle . The first Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE, marking a period known as " classical antiquity ". In 508 BCE, the world's first democratic system of government was instituted in Athens . Axial Age ideas shaped subsequent intellectual and religious history. Confucianism
18348-550: Was laid by President Joachim Gauck in a ceremony on 12 June 2013. On completion in 2020, the City Palace housed the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and the Museum of Asian Art , as well as two restaurants, a theater, a movie theater and an auditorium. The project is led by a three-member management committee, chaired by founding director Neil MacGregor and also including the co-directors, archaeologist Hermann Parzinger and art historian Horst Bredekamp . The Foundation for
18487-561: Was not a simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species . Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution. DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non- sub-Saharan African populations. Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans, may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non-sub-Saharan African humans. Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago from
18626-432: Was one of the outstanding artistic achievements of the age. The Middle Ages witnessed the first sustained urbanization of Northern and Western Europe and lasted until the beginning of the early modern period in the 16th century. The Mongols reached Europe in 1236 and conquered Kievan Rus' , along with briefly invading Poland and Hungary . Lithuania cooperated with the Mongols but remained independent and in
18765-468: Was one of the three schools of thought that came to dominate Chinese thinking, along with Taoism and Legalism . The Confucian tradition, which would become particularly influential, looked for political morality not to the force of law but to the power and example of tradition. Confucianism would later spread to Korea and Japan. Buddhism reached China in about the 1st century CE and spread widely, with 30,000 Buddhist temples in northern China alone by
18904-449: Was particularly prevalent in Athens and Rome , where slaves made up a large proportion of the population and were foundational to the economy. Patriarchy was also common, with men controlling more political and economic power than women. The ancient empires faced common problems associated with maintaining huge armies and supporting a central bureaucracy . In Rome and Han China, the state began to decline, and barbarian pressure on
19043-672: Was revealed by the Alex Cooper Auctioneers to the public, the provenance became the subject of dozens of newspapers and magazines that picked up the story. In the case of sculpture or art that are incorporated into the piano's cabinet, experts might be come from the field of art valuation and belong to an appraiser society such as the American Society of Appraisers or the International Society of Appraisers. In transactions of old wine with
19182-598: Was succeeded by the Christian kingdoms of Makuria , Alodia , and Nobatia . In the 7th century Makuria conquered Nobatia to become the dominant power in the region and resisted Muslim expansion. They later entered a severe decline following civil war and Arab migrations to the Sudan and had disintegrated by the 15th century, giving rise to the Funj Sultanate . Provenance The primary purpose of tracing
19321-680: Was the first hominin species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia. Perhaps as early as 1.5 million years ago, but certainly by 250,000 years ago, hominins began to use fire for heat and cooking. Beginning about 500,000 years ago, Homo diversified into many new species of archaic humans such as the Neanderthals in Europe, the Denisovans in Siberia , and the diminutive H. floresiensis in Indonesia . Human evolution
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