15,000








9,500



9,000

8,200
8,000


7,000


6,000
5,500

5,000





4,000




4,000-2,500



3,500



3,500-1,750
3,300
3,200

MESOLITHIC ERA BEGINS IN EUROPE
This is associated with a wide variety of races, including the Azilian Ofnet Man (Bavaria); several types of Cro-Magnon Man, brachycephalic humans (short-skulled), dolichocephalic humans (long-skulled). The Mesolithic is a transitional era between the hunter-gatherer culture of the Upper Paleolithic, and the farming culture of the Neolithic. In areas with no ice (eg. the Middle East), people transitioned quite rapidly from hunting/gathering to agriculture. Their Mesolithic period was therefore short, and often referred to as the Epi-Paleolithic or Epipaleolithic. In 10,000 BCE we witness the end of the Pleistocene geological epoch and the beginning of Holocene Epoch. Start of Chinese Pottery.
Cuevas de las Manos (Cave of the Hands), stencils, paintings, Argentina, the earliest known prehistoric art of the American continent. Large quantity of Stone Age artifacts found at Fell's Cave in Patagonia and Blackwater Draw in eastern New Mexico (Clovis culture).
Bhimbetka Rock Art, paintings, stencils, ideomorphs, India.
Pachmari Hills: sandstone rock drawings, paintings, India.
Wonderwerk Cave engravings of geometric designs, ideomorphs, animals, South Africa.
End of the Ice Age.
Tassili-n-Ajjer rock art, Algerian paintings and petroglyphs.
Ancient Persian pottery from Ganj Dareh (Valley of Treasure).
Jiahu turquoise carvings, bone flutes, Henan Province China.
Oven-fired pottery appears in Mesopotamia where farming begins. Pigs domesticated.
People settle on the banks of the River Nile.
Coldstream Burial Stone, Western Cape Province, South Africa.
Goddess terracotta figurine, Çatal Hüyük, Anatolia, an early example of religious art.
Egyptian bone, ivory, stone figurines from Naquada I Period.
Persian Chalcolithic pottery.
Linear Ceramic culture emerges in France, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic.
Thinker of Cernavoda, terracotta fine art sculpture, Romanian Hamangia culture.
Fish God of Lepenski Vir, sandstone carving of therianthropic figure, Serbia.
Samarra and Halaf Plates, Samarra/Halaf Style Iraqi/Syrian Ceramics.

NEOLITHIC ERA BEGINS IN EUROPE
Mesolithic Era ends in Europe, superceded by the Neolithic (New Stone Age), a much more settled form of existence, based on farming and rearing of domesticated animals. (Light plough introduced in Europe.) The major art form of the Neolithic art was ceramic pottery.
Silk production begins in Asia.
Earliest megalithic architecture, like: the megalithic arrangement at Évora, in Portugal (from 5,000); Breton Cairn of Barnenez (from 4,450); the tombs and monuments of Carrowmore, Cúil Irra Peninsula, Ireland (from 4,300). UN World Heritage site of Newgrange (from 3,300) and Stonehenge (stonework dated c.2,800 BCE).
Mesopotamian civilization begins (Iraq). Emergence of Uruk, first city-state. First wheeled vehicles appear in Europe. Ancient Persian art includes the intricate ceramics from Susa and Persepolis. Oldest known prehistoric bronze sculptures produced in the Maikop culture of the Russian North Caucasus around 3,500, using simple arsenic bronze process.
Sumerian civilization (S. Iraq). First writing system (hieroglyphs). Cuneiform script 3200.
Egyptian art and civilization begins. First walled city. Pharoah Namer unites Egypt 3100.
Sumerian civilization develops its own monumental architecture - a type of stepped pyramid called a ziggurat, built from clay-fired bricks, finished with coloured glazes.