7th millennium BC

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Millennia:
Centuries:
  • 70th century BC
  • 69th century BC
  • 68th century BC
  • 67th century BC
  • 66th century BC
  • 65th century BC
  • 64th century BC
  • 63rd century BC
  • 62nd century BC
  • 61st century BC

The 7th millennium BC spanned the years 7000 BC to 6001 BC (c. 9 ka to c. 8 ka). It is impossible to precisely date events around this millennium, and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis.

Contents

Towards the end of this millennium, the islands of Great Britain, and Ireland were severed from continental Europe by rising seawater.

Communities

Neolithic stone figures, 7th millennium BC 7th millennium BC sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.jpg
Neolithic stone figures, 7th millennium BC

Population

Neolithic culture and technology were established in the Near East by 7000 BC and there is increasing evidence through the millennium of its spread or introduction to Europe and the Far East. In most of the world, however, including north and western Europe, people still lived in scattered Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer communities. The Mehrgarh chalcolithic civilization began around 7000 BC. The world population is believed to have been stable and slowly increasing. It has been estimated that there were perhaps ten million people worldwide at the end of this millennium, growing to forty million by 5000 BC and 100 million by 1600 BC, an average growth rate of 0.027% p.a. from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age. [1]

Europe

Neolithic culture and technology reached modern Turkey and Greece c. 7000 BC; and Crete about the same time. The innovations, including the introduction of farming, spread from the Middle East through Turkey and Egypt. There is evidence of domesticated sheep or goats, pigs, and cattle, together with grains of cultivated bread wheat. [2] The domestication of pigs in Eastern Europe is believed to have begun c. 6800 BC. The pigs may have descended from European wild boar or were probably introduced by farmers migrating from the Middle East. [3] There is evidence, c. 6200 BC, of farmers from the Middle East reaching the Danube and moving into Romania and Serbia. [4] Farming gradually spread westward and northward over the next four millennia, finally reaching Great Britain and Scandinavia c. 3000 BC to complete the transition of Europe from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. [5]

Near East

The Ubaid period (c. 6500–3800 BC) began in Mesopotamia, its name derived from Tell al-'Ubaid where the first significant excavation took place. [6] [7]

By the end of this millennium, Jericho had become a large agricultural settlement with some eight to ten acres within its walls. Kathleen Kenyon reckoned that it was home to about three thousand people. Construction was done using stone implements to mould clay into bricks. The main crop was wheat. [8]

The Steppe

“Sheep and goats were domesticated in South West Asia, probably in the region of eastern Anatolia and northern Syria between 8000 and 7500 BC, and were part of the agricultural package that was transmitted to Greece and the Balkans during the pioneering movements in the seventh millennium. From there the herding of domesticated sheep and goats was gradually taken up by foraging communities in the Pontic-Caspian steppe during the sixth and fifth millennia and became an essential part of the herder economy.”

[9]

Geologic and climatic change

The Northgrippian

In the geologic time scale, the "Northgrippian" succeeded the "Greenlandian" c. 6236 BC (to c. 2250 BC). [10] The starting point for the Northgrippian is the so-called 8.2 kiloyear event, which was an abrupt climate change lasting some four centuries in which there was a marked decrease in global temperatures, possibly caused by an influx of glacial meltwater into the North Atlantic Ocean. [11]

Creation of Great Britain and Ireland

The influx is believed to be one factor in the creation of Great Britain and Ireland as islands separate from the European continent. After the Last Ice Age ended c. 9700 BC, increasing sea levels gradually inundated Doggerland, a land bridge which linked Great Britain to Denmark and the Netherlands. This process began the formation of the North Sea and the English Channel. Further west, another low-lying land area was being flooded to form the Irish Sea and create Ireland. Sometime in the second half of the 7th millennium, the Storegga Slides occurred off Norway to generate a huge tsunami which completely overwhelmed Doggerland and its Mesolithic community of an estimated 5,000 hunter-gatherers. By about 6100 BC, Great Britain had become an island. [12]

Astronomy

Jupiter occulted Saturn in 6857 B.C.E. [13] This is one of the rarest astronomical events in the solar system, [14] with the next occurrence on February 17, 7541. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mesolithic</span> Prehistoric period, second part of the Stone Age

The Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymously, especially for outside northern Europe, and for the corresponding period in the Levant and Caucasus. The Mesolithic has different time spans in different parts of Eurasia. It refers to the final period of hunter-gatherer cultures in Europe and the Middle East, between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the Neolithic Revolution. In Europe it spans roughly 15,000 to 5,000 BP; in the Middle East roughly 20,000 to 10,000 BP. The term is less used of areas farther east, and not at all beyond Eurasia and North Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neolithic</span> Archaeological period, last part of the Stone Age

The Neolithic or New Stone Age is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Europe, Asia and Africa. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This "Neolithic package" included the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. The term 'Neolithic' was coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system.

The 5th millennium BC spanned the years [5000 BCE - 4000 BCE), that is, inclusive of 5000 BCE but exclusive of 4000 BCE. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis.

The 6th millennium BC spanned the years 6000 BC to 5001 BC. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis. The only exceptions are the felling dates for some construction timbers from Neolithic wells in Central Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">9th millennium BC</span> Millennium between 9000 BC and 8001 BC

The 9th millennium BC spanned the years 9000 BC to 8001 BC. In chronological terms, it is the first full millennium of the current Holocene epoch that is generally reckoned to have begun by 9700 BC. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis, or by radiometric dating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">8th millennium BC</span> Millennium between 8000 BC and 7001 BC

The 8th millennium BC spanned the years 8000 BC to 7001 BC. In chronological terms, it is the second full millennium of the current Holocene epoch and is entirely within the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) phase of the Early Neolithic. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis, or by radiometric dating.

The 10th millennium BC spanned the years 10,000 BC to 9001 BC. It marks the beginning of the transition from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic via the interim Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic periods, which together form the first part of the Holocene epoch that is generally believed to have begun c. 9700 BC and is the current geological epoch. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium, and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological analysis, anthropological analysis, and radiometric dating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ubaid period</span> Prehistoric period of Mesopotamia

The Ubaid period is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially in 1919 by Henry Hall and later by Leonard Woolley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prehistoric Britain</span> Prehistoric human occupation of Britain

Several species of humans have intermittently occupied Great Britain for almost a million years. The earliest evidence of human occupation around 900,000 years ago is at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast, with stone tools and footprints probably made by Homo antecessor. The oldest human fossils, around 500,000 years old, are of Homo heidelbergensis at Boxgrove in Sussex. Until this time Britain had been permanently connected to the Continent by a chalk ridge between South East England and northern France called the Weald-Artois Anticline, but during the Anglian Glaciation around 425,000 years ago a megaflood broke through the ridge, and Britain became an island when sea levels rose during the following Hoxnian interglacial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neolithic Europe</span> Era of pre-history

The European Neolithic is the period from the arrival of Neolithic technology and the associated population of Early European Farmers in Europe, c. 7000 BC until c. 2000–1700 BC. The Neolithic overlaps the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe as cultural changes moved from the southeast to northwest at about 1 km/year – this is called the Neolithic Expansion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neolithic Revolution</span> Transition in human history from hunter-gatherer to settled peoples

The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible. These settled communities permitted humans to observe and experiment with plants, learning how they grew and developed. This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants into crops.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pre-Pottery Neolithic B</span> Neolithic culture in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant c. 8800–6500 BC

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, dating to c. 10,800 – c. 8,500 years ago, that is, 8800–6500 BC. It was typed by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon during her archaeological excavations at Jericho in the West Bank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of agriculture</span>

Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin. The development of agriculture about 12,000 years ago changed the way humans lived. They switched from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to permanent settlements and farming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Mesopotamia</span>

The history of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity. This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writing in the late 4th millennium BC, an increasing amount of historical sources. While in the Paleolithic and early Neolithic periods only parts of Upper Mesopotamia were occupied, the southern alluvium was settled during the late Neolithic period. Mesopotamia has been home to many of the oldest major civilizations, entering history from the Early Bronze Age, for which reason it is often called a cradle of civilization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Late Neolithic</span> Later part of the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia

In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is sometimes further divided into Pottery Neolithic A (PNA) and Pottery Neolithic B (PNB) phases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pre-Pottery Neolithic</span> Earlier part of the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent, dating to c. 12,000 – c. 8,500 years ago,. It succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipalaeolithic Near East, as the domestication of plants and animals was in its formative stages, having possibly been induced by the Younger Dryas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neolithic Greece</span> Greece from 7000–3200 BC

Neolithic Greece is an archaeological term used to refer to the Neolithic phase of Greek history beginning with the spread of farming to Greece in 7000–6500 BC, and ending around 3200 BC. During this period, many developments occurred such as the establishment and expansion of a mixed farming and stock-rearing economy, architectural innovations, as well as elaborate art and tool manufacturing. Neolithic Greece is part of the Prehistory of Southeastern Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neolithic British Isles</span> British, Irish and Manx history c. 4100–2500 BC

The Neolithic period in the British Isles lasted from c. 4100 to c. 2,500 BC. Constituting the final stage of the Stone Age in the region, it was preceded by the Mesolithic and followed by the Bronze Age.

H3 is an archaeological site in the Subiya Region (Kuwait) that was occupied during the second half of the sixth millennium BC. It was the Mesopotamian frontier of the Arabian Neolithic. Among the finds at the site were a boat model and pieces of bitumen covered with reed impressions that may have come from an actual boat, making this among the earliest evidence of a sea-going vessel in the world.

References

  1. ↑ Jean-Noël Biraben, "Essai sur l'évolution du nombre des hommes", Population 34-1 (1979), pp. 13–25.
  2. ↑ Barry Cunliffe (2011). Europe Between the Oceans. Yale University Press. p. 94.
  3. ↑ "Ancient Pig DNA Study Sheds New Light on Colonization of Europe By Early Farmers". ScienceDaily. 4 September 2007. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  4. ↑ "Isotopic data show farming arrived in Europe with migrants". EurekAlert!. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 11 February 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  5. ↑ "Neolithic". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2019. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  6. ↑ Carter, Robert A. and Philip, Graham Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, Number 63) Archived 15 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (2010) ISBN   978-1-885923-66-0 p. 2; "Radiometric data suggest that the whole Southern Mesopotamian Ubaid period, including Ubaid 0 and 5, is of immense duration, spanning nearly three millennia from about 6500 to 3800 B.C."
  7. ↑ Hall, Henry R. and Woolley, C. Leonard. 1927. Al-'Ubaid. Ur Excavations 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  8. ↑ Bronowski, p. 70.
  9. ↑ — By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia by Barry Cunliffe https://a.co/3dkOTDJ
  10. ↑ "GSSP Table – All Periods". www.stratigraphy.org. International Commission on Stratigraphy. 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
  11. ↑ Alley, Richard B.; Ágústsdóttir, Anna Maria (2005). "The 8k event: cause and consequences of a major Holocene abrupt climate change". Quaternary Science Reviews. 24 (10–11): 1123–49. Bibcode:2005QSRv...24.1123A. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2004.12.004.
  12. ↑ Lane, Megan (15 February 2011). "The moment Great Britain became an island". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  13. ↑ Bob King (20 December 2020). "Jupiter and Saturn Embrace in Solstice Conjunction". Sky & Telescope.
  14. ↑ "Chapter 2: PREDICTABLE NON-PERIODIC EVENTS-PART II". Archived from the original on 13 August 2012. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  15. ↑ "Jusatocc.txt". Archived from the original on 11 May 2012.

Bibliography

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