Prehistoric Times GENERAL INTRODUCTION: PREHISTORIC TIMES [Excerpted from Philip Van Ness Myers, Ancient History, Revised Edition (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1904), pp. 1-12] The Antiquity of Man.--We do not know when man first appeared upon the earth. We only know that in ages long past, when both the climate and the outline of the continents were very different from what they are at present, primitive man roamed over them with animals now extinct; and that, about 5000 B.C., when the historic curtain first rises, in some favored regions, as in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, there were nations and civilizations already venerable with age, and possessing arts, governments, and institutions that bear evidence of slow growth through very long periods of time.

[The Book of Genesis, which the Christian Church holds to be a divinely inspired record, fixes no definite date for the beginning of human life on the earth.] The Prehistoric and the Historic Age.--The uncounted millenniums which lie back of the time when man began to keep written records of what he thought and did and of what befell him, are called the Prehistoric Age. The comparatively few centuries of human life which are made known to us through written records comprise the Historic Age. In the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates there have been discovered written records which were made at least four or five thousand years before Christ; so we say that the historic period began in those lands six or seven thousand years ago. On the island of Crete numerous inscriptions have recently been found that apparently were written as early as the fourth millennium B.C. These, however, have not yet been deciphered. Some written records used by Chinese historians seem to go back to the third millennium before our era. In other regions the historic period still begins for us at a much later date.

Thus the truly historic age did not open in Greece and Italy until about 800 or 700 B.C., and for the countries of Northern Europe, speaking broadly, not until about the beginning of our era. How we learn about Prehistoric Man.--A knowledge of what prehistoric man was and what he did is indispensable to the historical student; for the dim prehistoric ages of human life form the childhood of the race,--and the man cannot be understood without at least some knowledge of the child. But how, in the absence of written records, are we to find out anything about prehistoric man? In many ways we are able to learn much about him. Thus, for instance, we may regard existing savage and semi-savage races as representing the prehistoric state of the advanced races. As it has been put, what they now are we once were. So by acquainting ourselves with the life and customs of these laggard races we acquaint ourselves with our own prehistoric past and that of all other civilized peoples. Again, the men who lived before the dawn of history left behind them many things which witness as to what manner of men they were.

In ancient gravel beds along the streams where they fished or hunted, in the caves which afforded them shelter in the refuse heaps (kitchen middens) on the sites of their villages or camping places, or in the graves where they laid away their dead, we find great quantities of tools and weapons and other articles shaped by their hands. From these things we learn what skill these early men had acquired as tool makers and to what degree of culture they had attained. [Besides these material things which can be seen and handled, there are many immaterial things, as, for instance, language, which light up for us the dim ages before history.] Divisions of Prehistoric Times.--The long period of prehistoric times is divided into different ages which are named from the material which man used in the manufacture of his weapons and tools. The earliest epoch is known as the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age; the following one as the Neolithic or New Stone Age; and the later period as the Age of Metals. The division lines between these ages are not sharply drawn. In most countries the epochs run into and overlap one another, just as in modern times the Age of Steam runs into and overlaps the Age of Electricity.

The Paleolithic or Old Stone Age.--In the Old Stone Age man's implements were usually made of stone, and particularly of easily chipped flints, though sometimes bones, horns, tusks, and other material were used in their manufacture. These rude tools and weapons of Paleolithic man, found in gravel beds and in caves, are the very oldest things in existence shaped by human hands. The man of the Old Stone Age saw t he retreating glaciers of the last great ice age, of which geology tells us. Among the animals which lived with him on the continent of Europe--we know most of Paleolithic man there--were the mammoth, the cave bear, the elk, the rhinoceros, the wild horse, and the reindeer; species which are no longer found in the regions where primitive man hunted- them. As the climate gradually grew warmer they either became extinct or retreated up the mountains or migrated towards the north.

What we know of Paleolithic man may be summed up as follows: he was a hunter and fisher; his habitation was a cave or a rock shelter; his implements were in the main roughly shaped flints; he had no domestic animals save possibly the dog and the reindeer; he was practically ignorant of the art of making pottery; he had no belief in a future life, at least we have no evidence that he buried his dead after the manner of those folk who have come to hold such a belief. The length of the Old Stone Age no one knows; we do not attempt to reckon its duration by centuries or millenniums even, but only by geologic epochs. But we do know--and this is something of vastly greater moment than a knowledge of the duration of the age--that the long slow epochs did not pass away without some progress having been made by primeval man, which assures us that though so lowly a creature he was a creature endowed with capacity for growth and improvement.

Before the end of the age man had learned the use of fire, as we know from the traces of fire found in the caves which were his abode, and had invented the bow and arrow, as is evidenced by arrowheads of flint and of bone which have been discovered. This important invention gave man what was to be one of his chief weapons in the chase and in war down to and even after the invention of firearms late in the historic age. But most prophetic of the great future before this savage or semi-savage cave man is the sense of form and beauty which he possessed; for, strange as it may seem, the man of this epoch was in his way an artist. Hundreds of specimens of drawings or carvings, chiefly of animals, on bone-or on ivory have been discovered. The Neolithic or New Stone Age.--The Old Stone Age was followed by the New. Chipped or hammered stone implements still continued to be used, but what characterizes this period was the use of ground or polished implements. The North American Indians were in this stage of culture at the time of the discovery of the New World. The old Egyptians and Babylonians seem to have been just emerging from it when they first appear in the dawn of the historic day.

Neolithic man in Europe was in many respects much advanced over Paleolithic man. He had learned to cultivate the soil; he had learned to make pottery, to spin, and to weave; he had domesticated various wild animals; he built houses and constructed great earthen forts; and he buried his dead in such a manner--with " accompanying gifts "--as to show that he had come to believe in a future life. The Age of Metals.--Finally the long ages of stone passed into the Age of Metals. This age falls into three subdivisions, --the Age of Copper, the Age of Bronze, and the Age of Iron. Some peoples, like the [sub-Saharan] African[s] ..., passed directly from the use of stone to the use of iron; but in most of the countries of the Orient and of Europe the three metals came into use one after the other and in the order named. Speaking broadly, we may say that the Age of Metals embraces the five millenniums preceding the opening of our era.

This means that for some peoples, as for instance the Egyptians and the Babylonians, these epochs or stages of culture fall within their historic period, while for others, as for instance the Greeks and the Romans, they begin in their prehistoric and overlap their historic age. [The use of copper seems to have begun among the peoples of the Orient before 5000 B.C. It is a soft metal, and tools and weapons made of it were not so greatly superior to the stone ones then in else as to put them out of service. But either by accident or through experiment it was discovered that by mixing about nine parts of copper with one part of the a new metal, called bronze, much harder than either tin or copper, could be made. So greatly superior were bronze to stone implements that their introduction caused the use of stone for tools and weapons to be discontinued, and consequently the Age of Bronze constitutes a well-defined and important epoch in the history of culture. Bronze seems to have been used by the first kings of Egypt, about 4500 B.C. From the East the metal was carried into Europe.

Iron was already in use among the Oriental peoples about 1500 B.C., and was gradually introduced among the European tribes.] The history of metals has been declared to be the history of civilization. Indeed, it would be almost impossible to overestimate their importance to man. Man could do very little with stone implements compared with what he could do with metal implements. It was a great labor for primitive man, even with the aid of fire, to fell a tree with a stone axe and to hollow out the trunk for a boat. He was hampered in all his tasks by the rudeness of his tools. It was only as the bearer of metal implements and weapons that he began really to subdue the earth and to get dominion over nature. All the higher cultures of the ancient world with which history begins were based on the knowledge and use of metals. The Origin of the Use of Fire.--In this and following paragraphs we shall dwell briefly upon some of the special discoveries and achievements, several of which have already been mentioned, marking important steps in man's progress during the prehistoric ages. Prominent among these was the discovery of fire. The origin of the use of fire is hidden in the obscurity of prehistoric times.

That fire was known to Paleolithic man we learn, as already noted, from the traces of it discovered in the caves and rock shelters which were his abode. No people has ever been found so low in the scale of culture as to be without it. As to the way in which early man came into possession of fire we have no knowledge. Possibly he kindled his first fire from a glowing lava stream or from some burning tree trunk set aflame by the lightning. However this may be, he had in the earliest times learned to produce the vital spark by means of friction. The fire borer, according to Tylor, is among the oldest of human inventions. Only gradually did primeval man learn the various properties of fire and discover the different uses to which it might be put, just as historic man has learned only gradually the possible uses of electricity. By some happy accident or discovery he learned that it would harden clay, and he became a potter; that it would smelt ores, and he became a worker in metals; and that it would aid him in a hundred other ways.

"Fire," says Joly, " presided at the birth of nearly every art, or quickened its progress." The place it holds in the development of the family, of religion, and of the industrial arts is revealed by these three significant words --" the hearth, the altar, the forge." No other agent has contributed more to the progress of civilization. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive how without fire primitive man could ever have emerged from the Age of Stone. The Domestication of Animals.--"When we visit a farm at the present day and observe the friendly nature of the life which goes on there,--the horse proudly and obediently bending his neck to his yoke; the cow offering her streaming udder to the milkmaid; the woolly flock going forth to the field, accompanied by their trusty protector, the dog, who comes fawning to his master,--this familiar intercourse between man and beast seems so natural that it is scarcely conceivable that things may once have been different.

And yet in the picture we see only the final result of thousands and thousands of years of the work of civilization, the enormous importance of which simply escapes our notice because it is by everyday wonders that our amazement is least excited." [Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples (London, 1890), p. 259] The most of this work of inducing the animals of the fields and the woods to become as it were members or dependents of the human family, to enter into a league of friendship with man and to become his helpers, was done by prehistoric man. When man appears in history, he appears surrounded by almost all the domestic animals known to us to-day. The horse was already his willing servant; the dog was his faithful companion; the sheep, the cow, and the goat shared his shelter with him. The domestication of animals had such a profound effect upon human life and occupation that it marks the opening of a new epoch in history. The hunter became a shepherd, and the hunting stage in culture gave place to the pastoral. [It is of Interest to know that most of the wild stocks whence have come our domestic animals are of Old World origin.

It is thought by some that one reason why the tribes of the New World at the time of its discovery were so far behind the peoples of the Old was that there were fewer tamable animals here.] The Domestication of Plants.--Long before the dawn of history those peoples of the Old World who were to play great parts in early historic times had advanced from the pastoral to the agricultural stage of culture. Just as the step from the hunting to the pastoral stage had been taken with the aid of a few of the most social species of animals, so had this second upward step from the pastoral to the agricultural stage been taken by means of the domestication of a few of the innumerable species of the seed grasses and plants growing wild in field and wood. Wheat and barley, two of the most important of the cereals. were probably first domesticated on the plains of Babylonia and from there carried over Asia and Europe. These grains, together with oats and rice, have been, in the words of Tylor, "the mainstay of human life and the great moving power of civilization." They constituted the basis of the earliest great states and civilizations of Asia and Europe.

The domestication of plants and the art of tilling the soil effected a great revolution in prehistoric society. The wandering life of the hunter and the herder now gave way to a settled mode of existence. Cities were built, and within them began to be amassed those treasures, material and immaterial, which constitute the precious heirloom of humanity. This attachment to the soil of the hitherto roving clans and tribes meant also the beginning of political life. The cities were united into states and great kingdoms were formed, and the political history of man began, as in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. Early man seems to have realized how much he owed to the art of husbandry, for in the mythologies of many peoples some god or goddess is represented as having taught men how to till the soil and to plant the seed. It seemed to man that for so great a boon he must be beholden to the beneficence of the gods.

[So thorough was prehistoric man's search for whatever in the plant world could be cultivated for food that historic man has not been able during the last 2000 years from the tens of thousands of wild plants to discover any species comparable in value to any one of the staple food-plants selected and domesticated by primeval man (De Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 451) . It is interesting further to note that while early man exploited the organic kingdoms, that is to say the animal and vegetable realms, he made few and slight requisitions upon the forces of the inorganic world. It was reserved for the men of the later historic age to domesticate, so to speak, the powerful agents steam and electricity and by their utilization to effect revolutions in modem society like those effected in prehistoric times by the domestication of animals and plants.] The Formation of Language.--Another great task and achievement of primitive man was the making of language.

The earliest speech used by historic man, as Tylor observes, " teaches the interesting lesson that the main work of language-making was done in the ages before history." The vastness of this work is indicated by the rich and intricate nature of the languages with which history begins, for language making, particularly in its earliest stages, is a very slow process. Periods of time like geologic epochs must have been required for the formation out of the scanty speech of the first men, by the slow process of word-making, of the rich and copious languages already upon the lips of the great peoples of antiquity, the Hamitic Egyptians, the Semitic Babylonians, the Aryans of India and Persia, and their kinsmen, the Greeks and Romans, when they first appear in the morning light of history We need not dwell upon the inestimable value to man of the acquisition of language. Without it all his other acquisitions and discoveries would have remained comparatively fruitless, all his efforts to lift himself to higher levels of culture have been unavailing. Without it, so far as we can see, he must have remained forever in an unprogressive and savage or semi-savage state.

The Invention of Writing.--Still another achievement of prehistoric man, and after the making of language perhaps his greatest, certainly the most fruitful, was the invention of writing. The first form of writing used by primitive man was picture writing, such as was and is still used by some of the Indian tribes of the New World. In this system of writing the characters are rude pictures of material objects, as for instance a picture of an eye to indicate the organ of sight; or they are symbols of ideas, as for illustration a picture consisting of wavy lines beneath an arc representing the sky to indicate rain. This way of representing ideas, which seems natural to man, is known as ideographic writings and the signs are called ideograms. A great step in advance is taken when the picture writer uses his pictures or symbols to represent not actual objects or ideas, but sounds of the human voice, that is, words. This step was taken in prehistoric times by different peoples independently. It seems to have been taken by means of the rebus, a mode of writing which children love to employ. What makes rebus writing possible is the existence in every language of words having the same sound but different meanings.

Thus in English the pronoun I is sounded like the word eye, and the word reign, to rule, like the word rain. Now the picture writer, wishing to express the idea I reign, could do so by the use of the two pictures or ideograms given above, in this way. When so used, the ideogram becomes a phonogram, and the writing is phonetic or sound writing. In this manner the great chasm between picture writing and sound writing is bridged, and one of the most difficult steps taken in the development of a practical system of representing thought. In the first stage of sound writing, each picture or symbol stands for a whole word. In such a system as this there must of course be as many characters or signs as there are words in the language represented. In working out their system of writing the Chinese stuck fast at this point . Two additional steps beyond this stage are required in order to perfect the system. The first of these is taken when the characters are used to represent syllables instead of words. This reduces at once the number of signs needed from many thousands to a few hundreds, since the words of any given language are formed by the combination of a comparatively small number of syllables.

With between four and five hundred symbols the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians, who used this form of writing, were able to represent all the words of their respective languages. Characters or symbols used to represent syllables are called syllabic phonograms, and a collection of such signs is called a syllabary. While a collection of syllabic signs is a great improvement over a collection of word signs, still it is a clumsy instrument for expressing ideas, and the system requires still further simplification. This is done and the final step in developing a convenient System of writing is taken when the symbols are used to represent not syllables but elementary sounds of the human voice. Then the symbols become true letters, a complete collection of which is called an alphabet. and the mode of writing alphabetic. When and where the final step was taken we do not know. But as early as the ninth century B.C. we find several Semitic peoples in possession of an alphabet. [Our earliest inscriptions in the North Semitic alphabet date from the ninth century B.C.; but they show unmistakably that this script had then been in use for a considerable time. We probably possess South Arabian inscriptions written already in the fourteenth century B.C.

While some scholars regard the Southern alphabet as a modification of the Northern, others consider both as independent adaptations of an earlier alphabetic script and are inclined to look to some of the Ægeo-Cretan systems of writing for a clew to the origin of the alphabet.] Through the agency of Phoenician and other traders this so-called Semitic alphabet was spread east and west, and became the parent of most of the existing alphabets of the world. With the invention of phonetic writing and the practice of keeping records, with names of actors and dates of events, the truly historic age for man begins. The Great Bequest.--We of this twentieth century esteem ourselves fortunate in being the heirs of a noble heritage,--the inheritors of the precious accumulations of all the past centuries of history. We are not used to thinking of the men of the first generation of historic times as also the heirs of a great legacy. But even the scanty review we have made of what was discovered, invented, and thought out by man during the unmeasured epochs before history began cannot fail to have impressed us with the fact that a vast estate was transmitted by prehistoric to historic man.

If our hasty glance at those far-away times has done nothing more than this, then we shall never again regard history quite as may have been our wont. We shall see everything in a new light. We shall see the story of man to be more wonderful than we once thought, the path which he has followed to be longer and more toilsome than we ever imagined. But our interest in the traveler will have been deepened through our knowing more of his origin, of his early hard and narrow life, and of his first painful steps in the path of civilization. We shall follow with deeper interest and sympathy this wonderful being, child of earth and child of heaven, this heir of all the ages, as he journeys on and upward with his face toward the light. Egypt Egypt No other countrynot even China or Indiahas such a long unbroken history as Egypt. Nearly 3,000 years before the birth of Jesus, the Egyptians had reached a high stage of civilization. They lived under an orderly government; they carried on commerce in ships; they built great stone structures; and, most important of all, they had acquired the art of writing.

Because they lived so long ago, the Egyptian people had to find out for themselves how to do many things that are easily done today. They adopted some inventions of the Sumerians but made more extensive use of them. In the Nile Valley the early development of the arts and crafts that formed the foundation of Western civilization can be traced. The traveler along the Nile sees many majestic monuments that reveal the achievements of ancient Egypt. Most of these monuments are tombs and temples. The ancient Egyptians were very religious. They believed in a life after deathat first only for kings and noblesif the body could be preserved. So they carefully embalmed the body and walled it up in a massive tomb. On the walls of the tomb they carved pictures and inscriptions. Some private tombs were decorated with paintings. They put into the tomb the person's statue and any objects they thought would be needed when the soul returned to the body. The hot sand and dry air of Egypt preserved many of these objects through the centuries. Thousands of them are now in museums all over the world. Together with written documents, they show how people lived in ancient Egypt. The desert sands have also preserved the remains of prehistoric people.

By their sides, in the burial pits, lie stone tools and weapons, carved figures, and decorated pottery. These artifacts help archaeologists and historians piece together the story of life in the Nile Valley centuries before the beginning of the historical period. Prehistoric Era Ages ago the land of Egypt was very different from what it is today. There was rain. There was no delta, and the sea extended far up the Nile Valley. The plateau on each side of the water was grassland. The people wandered over the plateau in search of game and fresh pastures and had no permanent home. They hunted with a crude stone hand ax and with a bow and arrow. Their arrows were made of chipped flint. Very gradually the rains decreased and the grasslands dried up. The Nile began to deposit silt in the valley and to build up the delta. The animals went down to the valley. The hunters followed them and settled at the edge of the jungle that lined the river. In the Nile Valley the people's way of life underwent a great change. They settled down in more or less permanent homes and progressed from food gathering to food producing. They still hunted the elephant and hippopotamus and wild fowl, and they fished in the river.

More and more, however, they relied for meat on the animals they bredlong-horned cattle, sheep, goats, and geese. The early Egyptians learned that the vegetables and wild grain they gathered grew from seeds. When the Nile floodwater drained away, they dug up the ground with a wooden hoe, scattered seeds over the wet soil, and waited for the harvest. They cut the grain with a sharp-toothed flint sickle set in a straight wooden holder and then ground it between two flat millstones. The people raised emmer (wheat), barley, a few vegetables, and flax. From the grain they made bread and beer, and they spun and wove the flax for linen garments. The first houses were round or oval, built over a hole in the ground. The walls were lumps of mud, and the roofs were matting. Later houses were rectangular, made of shaped bricks, with wooden frames for doors and windowsmuch like the houses the Egyptian farmers live in today. To work the lumber, the people used ground stone axheads and flint saws. Beautiful clay pottery was created, without the wheel, to hold food and drink.

They fashioned ornaments of ivory, made beads and baskets, and carved in stone the figures of people and animals. They built ships that had oars, and they carried on trade with nearby countries. Instead of names, the ships had simple signs, probably indicating the home port. These signs were an early step in the invention of writing. Good farmland was scarce. The desert came down close to the marshes that edged the river. To gain more land, the people rooted out the jungle, filled in marshes, and built mud walls to keep out floodwater. In time they engaged in large-scale irrigation work, digging canals that cut across miles of land. This required the cooperation of many people living in different places. Leaders became necessary to plan the work and direct the workers. Because of this need, orderly government arose. Population and wealth grew with the increase in farmland. There was food enough to support a professional class, who worked at crafts instead of farming. Villages grew into towns. Large towns spread their rule over nearby villages and became states. At the end of the prehistoric period, there were only two political unitsLower Egypt (the delta) and Upper Egypt (the valley).

Later, when Egypt was united, the people still called it the Two Lands, and the king of all Egypt wore a double crown combining the white crown of the south with the red crown of the north. Before the prehistoric period ended, the Egyptians were stimulated by their contact with people who lived in a Mesopotamian river valley in Asia. These people were more advanced than the Egyptians in working metal, and they also had writing. Although this was probably the inspiration for Egyptian writing, the Egyptians did not take over the Mesopotamian script but developed a script of their own. This great invention brought Egypt abruptly to the threshold of history, for history begins with written records. DYNASTIES OF EGYPT The beginnings of writing in Egypt go back to about 3100 BC, when the Two Lands became united in a single kingdom. According to tradition, it was Menes, a king of Upper Egypt, who brought about the union. He stands first in the long line of kings who ruled Egypt for about 3,000 years. Egyptian priests made lists of their kings, or pharaohs, and noted the most important events of their reigns.

About 280 BC one of these priests, Manetho, grouped the pharaohs into 30 dynasties. (A dynasty is a succession of rulers of the same line of descent.) Modern historians group the dynasties into periods. The periods when Egyptian civilization flourished are the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom. These are separated by periods of decline called the First Intermediate Period and the Second Intermediate Period. The final period of decline is called the Late Period. The Old Kingdom Little is known of Menes' successors until the reign of King Zoser, or Djoser, at the end of the 3rd dynasty. Zoser's capital was located at Memphis, on the Nile's west bank near the point where the Two Lands met. Imhotep, a master builder, erected Zoser's tomb, the step pyramid of Saqqara, on high ground overlooking the city. This monumentthe first great building in the country made entirely of stonemarked the beginning of Egypt's most creative period, the Pyramid Age. Later kings built their tombs in true pyramidal form. Each pyramid guarded the body of one king, housed in a chamber deep within the pile.

The climax of pyramid building was reached in the three gigantic tombs erected for Kings Khufu (Cheops), Khafre, and Menkure at Giza (Gizeh). Near them in the sand lies the Great Sphinx, a stone lion with the head of King Khafre. The Old Kingdom lasted about 500 years. It was an active, optimistic age, an age of peace and splendor. Art reached a brilliant flowering. Sculpture achieved a grandeur never later attained. The pharaoh kept a splendid court. The people worshiped him as a god on Earth, for they believed him to be the son of Ra, or Re, the great sun-god. They called him pr-'o (in the Bible, pharaoh), meaning "great house." About 2200 BC the Old Kingdom came to an end. Nobles became independent and ruled as if they were kings. The country was split up into small warring states. Irrigation systems fell into disrepair. According to writers of the time: "The desert is spread throughout the land. The robbers are now in the possession of riches. Men sit in the bushes until the benighted traveler comes to . . .

steal what is upon him." Thieves broke into the pyramids and robbed them of their treasures. The archaeologists of today can only imagine the splendid treasures they might have unearthed had thieves not stolen them first. The Middle Kingdom The Middle Kingdom period began about 2050 BC. After a long struggle, the rulers of Thebes won out over their enemies and once again united Egypt into a single state. Thebes was then a little town on the Nile in Upper Egypt. In the New Kingdom it became one of the ancient world's greatest capitals. The pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom constructed enormous irrigation works in the Faiy�m. Noting the annual heights of the Nile flood at Asw�n, they laid plans to use the Nile water wisely. They sent trading ships up the Nile to Nubia and across the sea to Mediterranean lands. They got gold from Nubia and copper from the mines in Sinai. Construction of the most colossal temple of all time, the Temple of Amen (Amon) at El Karnak, was begun. After two centuries of peace and prosperity, Egypt entered another dark age. About 1800 BC it fell for the first time to foreign invaders.

Down from the north came the Hyksos, a barbarian people who used horses and chariots in combat and also had superior bows. The Egyptians, fighting on foot, were no match for them. The Hyksos occupied Lower Egypt, living in fortified camps behind great earthen walls; but they failed to conquer Upper Egypt. When the Egyptians had learned the new methods of warfare, the ruler Kamose began a successful war of liberation. The New Kingdom A new era dawned for Egypt after the Hyksos had been expelled. This period, the New Kingdom, was the age of empire. The once-peaceful Egyptians, having learned new techniques of warfare, embarked on foreign conquest on a large scale. The empire reached its peak under Thutmose III, one of the first great generals in history. He fought many campaigns in Asia and extended Egypt's rule to the Euphrates. Slaves and tribute poured into Egypt from the conquered nations. The tribute was paid in goods, for the ancient world still did not have money. Wall paintings show people from Nubia, Babylonia, Syria, and Palestine bearing presents on their backs and bowing humbly before the pharaoh.

The Egyptian rulers used their new wealth and slaves to repair the old temples and build new ones. Hatshepsut, Egypt's first great female leader, enlarged the great Temple of Amen at El Karnak. She also built her own beautiful temple at Deir el Bahri. Amenhotep III built the wonderful temple at Luxor and put up the famous pair of colossal seated statues called the Colossi of Memnon. In the Middle Kingdom period, the pharaohs of Thebes had built modest brick pyramids for their tombs. In the New Kingdom period they broke with this tradition and began to hew tombs deep in the cliffs of an isolated valley west of Thebes. About 40 kings were buried in this Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. In the last years of his reign Amenhotep III paid little attention to the empire. It was already decaying when his son Amenhotep IV came to the throne. This king was more interested in religion than in warfare. Even before his father's death, he began to promote a new religious doctrine. He wanted the people to give up all their old gods and worship only the radiant sun, which was then called Aten.

He changed his name from Amenhotep ("Amen is satisfied") to Ikhnaton (Akhenaton) ("It is well with Aten"). He left Thebes and built a splendid new capital sacred to Aten at El Amarna in middle Egypt. Throughout the land he had the word "gods" and the name "Amen" removed from tombs and monuments. Ikhnaton's idea of a single god gained no hold on the Egyptian people. His successor, Tutankhamen, moved the capital back to Thebes and restored the name of Amen on monuments. Tutankhamen is famous chiefly for his lavishly furnished tomb, discovered in 1922. Its treasures reveal the luxury of the most magnificent period of Egyptian history. Half a century later Ramses II completed the gigantic hall at El Karnak and set up many statues of himself. He also had his name carved on monuments built by earlier rulers, so that he became better known than any other king. He regained part of Egypt's Asian empire. But the kings who followed him had to use the army to defend Egypt against invaders. The Late Period In the Late Period, the final decline of Egypt's power set in.

The treasury had been drained by extensive building projects and by the army. Hungry workers had to resort to strikes to get their wages in grain. The central government weakened, and the country split up once more into small states. About 730 BC, Ethiopian invaders entered Egypt and established a strong, new dynasty. However, they were unable to withstand an invasion from the north by the Assyrians. When Assyria's power waned, a new Egyptian dynasty reorganized the country. Persia conquered Egypt in 525 BC and held it until 404 BC. Three brief Egyptian dynasties followed, ending with the 30th, which fell to a second Persian conquest in 341 BC. Postdynastic Periods Persian rule lasted until Alexander the Great invaded Egypt in 332 BC. After Alexander's death, Ptolemy, one of his generals, seized the throne. The Ptolemys introduced Greek manners and ideas into Egypt. The city of Alexandria became the center of Greek civilization in the Near East.

The rule of Egypt by the Ptolemaic line ended with the beautiful Queen Cleopatra, who reigned first with her brother Ptolemy XIII, then with her brother Ptolemy XIV, and finally with Caesarion, her son by Julius Caesar. In 30 BC Egypt was proclaimed a province of Rome. After the Roman Empire was divided in half in the 4th century AD, Egypt was ruled from Constantinople by the Byzantine emperors. During this period most Egyptians were converted to Christianity. In the 7th century, Egypt fell to the Arabs. (Encyclopaedia Britannica Article) History of Computing - Pre Historic Era 100.000 bc - 1438 bc A small introduction to this timeline. Centuries ago knowledge traveled with caravans between India to an area what we now call Middle East and back. It were mathematicians (called philosophers) that traveled along and passed the knowledge to people at their destination. Sometimes they were even invited to come over and amuse a king or other rulers in Mesopotamia, Turkey, Egypt, India and China. The same thing happened at courts in Europe, centuries later.

Mostly they stayed several years at a king's court and it was no exception that they changed courts from one king to another thousands of miles away. Yet this is how scientists passed the science or knowledge they possessed. In this and the following chapters the same sort of events will occur in different time epochs. Also observe that once an artifact is mentioned, there must have taken place a considerable technological evolution before the artifact became what is has become when first mentioned. So when we mention a date it must have been sometimes eons back in the past when developments began. How many false starts were made before the end product came to fruition, there is no way to tell. Prehistoric Era 15,000,000,000 BC - 409 BC This chapter deals with the era that human kind learned to count, supported by objects like bones and pebbles. It took tens of thousands of years for human kind to come to the more philosophical concepts of numeric systems, the zero and mathematical methods. What we will read here is that numeric systems were invented all over the world in different ages and that the need for numbers expanded throughout all layers of society.

Most means were invented out of necessity, sometime by accident some times because they were needed. (11) The Universal computer boots up with a Big Bang, everything that was has now become or will be. However, every time scientists discover new phenomena or get new instruments and new mathematical knowledge the age of the universe will again be in dispute. 300,000BC In the beginning, mankind may not have had any idea of numerical units. Possessions had to be portable, since they had to be carried around. Everything that could not be carried, was left behind. People had to be quick in movement and reaction; being slow meant instant death. Animals were not the stuffy types we keep in zoos nowadays. They were bigger, fast as lightning and regarded a human just as another piece of juicy meat. And there were no gates or anything to keep them back. Reasons for humans tended not to carry too much around for their own safety. One could safely say that the need to count or calculate was not present since possessions were scarce and little. (2) on this stamp an Egyptian is shown counting with his fingers But when mankind started to settle they began gathering possessions.

They surely could tell you that there were less or more objects of, let's say, apples when apples were added or taken away. Could one presume that they were visualizing the form (pile of apples) and estimated the size, to have an idea of quantities? Was their way to tell something was missing or added through observing that the form of the pile had changed? When the pile of apples had become bigger, some apples were added. The bigger the image they had in memory the more they had. Or at least this seems to be a logical explanation of humans interfacing with their environment. As time progressed, people migrated from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle into a domestic lifestyle. Occupied pieces of land and started farming. Hunting still took place but out from a permanent camp site. The number of humans grew and they specialized in professions: shoemakers, farmers, blacksmiths. In time wealth and other things started to accumulate and volumes became larger. Methods of visualizing quantities are of course very subjective, the need for better means of telling quantities and at the same time keeping track of them, increased. And as always the means were invented or improved upon when needed.

50,000BC to 20,000 BC The first tools used for calculation aids were almost certainly man's own fingers, and it is no coincidence that the Latin word "digit" is used to refer to a finger (or toe) as well as a numerical quantity. As the needed to represent larger numbers grows, early man employed readily available materials for the purpose. Small stones or pebbles were used to represent larger numbers than fingers and toes, that had the added advantage of easily storing intermediate results for later use. Thus, it is no coincidence that the word "calculate" was derived from the Latin word for pebble: calculus. Carving Notches Into Bones app. 30.000BC (12) bones carved app 25.000 (pictures taken by THOCF 2003 at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany) the carving areas are digitally enhanced see also: tally sticks The oldest known objects used to represent numbers were bones with notches carved into them, see picture above.

These bones, which were discovered in western Europe, date from the Aurignacian period 20,000 to 30,000 years ago and correspond to the first appearance of Cro-Magnon man. (Named "Cro-Magnon" after the caves of the same name in Southern France, in which the first skeletons of this race was found in 1868.). Of special interest is a wolf's jawbone more than 20,000 years old with fifty-five notches in groups of five, which was discovered in Czechoslovakia in 1937. This is the first evidence of the tally system, which is still used occasionally to the present day and could therefore qualify as one of the most enduring of human inventions. 8500BC Also of interest was a piece of bone dating from around 8,500 BC, discovered in Africa, that appeared to have notches representing the prime numbers 11, 13, 17, and 19. Prime numbers are those numbers that are only wholly divisible by the number one and themselves, so it is not surprising that early man would have attributed them with a special significance.

Surprising was that someone of that era had the mathematical sophistication to recognize this quite advanced concept and took the trouble to write it down -- not the least because prime numbers had little relevance to everyday problems of gathering food and staying alive. Many artifacts are found that support the idea that mankind used very different means to keep track of numerical data, amounts, numbers and possessions. These artifacts are sometimes tens of thousands of years old. Napier bones More details can be found in the various sections; just click the hyperlink and use the back button of your browser to return here. So far for the artifacts. Yes, they were helpful. But as the quality of life improved, in different parts of the world people started to question themselves and wondered if there was more behind the clouds. And the need for knowledge grew. Scientists of all breeds and colors stepped forward and came with many new findings, inventions and facts of life. 6000 BC In the Indian Vedah compiled at least before 6000 BC a verse (Richa) mentions the numerals of 12 (dwawash), 2 (treemi), and 300 (trishat). (4) That was one of the earliest recordings of a decimal numeral system.

The use of the zero also proved that a 10 based positional numeric system was in use at that time. It is open to speculation how long before this date the decimal system, inclusive the zero, was invented. And, it still leaves us with the question: "who or what people invented the zero?". Also note: around 600AD the first recorded instance of calculations with a zero appeared. Ishango bone type of tally stick in use. (19) picture courtesy mathworld.wolfram.com Mathematics in Egypt is based on the fractional system. A fine illustration of this is found in the eye of Horus. An egyptian deity of this time. The fractional units were used to represent the fractions of hekat (appr. 4.8 liters), the unit measure of capacity for grains. ( 17 )( 18 ) see for a great explanation on this form of mathematics. See also below at 1850 BC for a riddle in this type of calculus 5000 BC The Abax (latin), or Abaq (Sumeric), giving the general idea of an Algorithmic Unit (1) (ALU) of a computer, is coming in use in the far east.

Abaq or Abax stands for dust. Thus using the Abax or Abaq meant writing in dust. The Abax serves as a means to calculate, it is a flat stone or wooden tabletop in which are carved straight lines. Calculations are done using little pebbles, and it is assumed that the various pebbles represent different values. In much later times (approximately 800 AD), the Abax showed up in Europe. 4000 B.C. Inhabitants of the first known civilization in Sumer keep records of commercial transactions on clay tablets. (20) 3200 BC The first human to actually record numbers in a storage medium may have been a Sumerian accountant. He lived somewhere in the lower Mesopotamian river valley about 3200 BC using the sexagesimal numbering system based on the numbers 6 and 10. The discovery of arithmetic brought the Sumerian tangible benefits including the ability to numerically model the products of their economy, and their commerce grew making Mesopotamia the creator of Western civilization. (3) Positional number system used in Mesopotamia.

(5) Early form of beads on wires, used in China (13) The Abacus is described for the first time in Babylon . An improved version is coming into use around 1300 BC and is still in use now on the Balkan and Asia. Just to show how well the abacus is keeping up: in app. 1950 AD, a contest between man and machine took place and a well trained human still beat the fastest electronic computer of that day by doing arithmetic on his Abacus. In 3000BC the Hindus culture flourished and large numbers were used (inscriptions). (22) 2500 BC The Egyptians came up with the idea of a thinking machine. Citizens went to the " Oracles ": statues in which priests were hidden who communicated via orifices with the people putting questions to the oracles. This idea was copied in the 18th century when a smart designer hid a chess player in a so-called "automatic chess playing machine". do you want to know ? Stonehenge is still a mystery today. Was it a calendar or "just" a place for spiritual events? Do you want to know more?

(7) In the Rhind (8) Papyrus written by, or copied as he states himself, the Egyptian scribe Ahmes stated that p = 256/81 app. 3.160 (5) The scroll was purchased in Egypt by the Egyptologist Rhind in 1858 and is now in the British museum of Art. This scroll contained more than a definition of PI. The Ahmes papyrus contained a set of 84 mathematical problems and their solutions. Although no hint is given how these solutions were arrived at, it gave us an insight into the mathematical knowledge of the early Egyptians. (9) The Rhind papyrus showed that early Egyptian mathematics was largely based on puzzle type problems. For example the papyrus contained the following puzzle. Seven houses contain seven cats. Each cat kills seven mice. Each mouse had eaten seven ears of grain. Each ear of grain would have produced seven hekats of wheat. What is the total of all of these?

(7) with the information above at 5500BC you should be able to calculate this A well developed additive number system is now in use in Egypt (5) 1438 BC The first Water clock known is possibly constructed in Egypt. One of the oldest was found in the tomb of Amenhotep I, buried around 1500 B.C. Others were built in China (1086 by Su Sung, a working model can be seen in action in Manor Museum UK), Korea (architect: Chang Yeong Shil, 1438, can still be seen at Kyeong Bok Gung.), and in Syria (700 BC). Greece (ca. 5th century BC ) Some examples are shown below. Replica of water clock by Su Sung ca. 1086 (courtesy Manor House) Chinese water clock by Su Sung Clepsydra. A unique example of the terra-cotta water clocks used for counting time of speeches in the public law courts. Dated to the 5th century BC Time and tracking time was something that intrigued people and would inspire many inventors throughout the centuries into creating all kinds of clocks.

In the 17th century a water driven clock, the first with hands and all, was constructed. And in 1989 a modern water clock was created by French physicist and artist Bernard Gitton and placed in the children's museum (14) . Water clocks are now mainly used for exploratoria in museums and other than time keeping purposes. In the first place it was the clock technology would be used to make calculators of many different shapes. These kind of calculators were made until far into the 20th century. Secondly clocks were used to time the celestial bodies and promoted the use of algebra and geometry, in other words mathematics. Both factors contributed to the development of science as we know it today. ~1350 The Chinese use of a precision of one decimal is registered. In that the Chinese were calculating beyond the precision of whole numbers and started to divide the numbers in parts e.g. fractions.( 15 ) ~1300 Direct evidence exists as to the Chinese using a positional number system. (19) I-Chin exhibits binary properties.

(5) 600 BC In this century Pythagoras rediscovered the theorem: the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle equals the square of the hypotenuse. The so-called Pythagorean triples were already known in Babylonian times (2) Abacus used in Greece (5) Major developments start to take place in Chinese arithmetic. (19) 550 BC Pythagoras is credited for a theorem known to the Chinese a thousand years earlier. When his student Hippasus rediscovered irrational numbers, Pythagoras, believing the universe to be strictly rational, acts contrarily and has the student drowned for heresy. (5) (6) ~ 500 BC The first known description of a binary numeral system was made by Pingala He is the author of the chandah-shastra, the sanskrit book on meters, or long syllables. While Pingala's system uses the symbols 1 and 2, Leibnitz (17th c.) uses 0 and 1, like the modern binary numeral system. ~300 BC Buddhist inscriptions from around 300 B.C.

use symbols that will become the 1, 4 and 6 as in use since the 16th century. One century later, their use of the symbols which will be 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9 will be recorded. The numerals migrate through Persia, now known as Iraq, to Egypt and Italy. Only to be generally accepted late in the 8th beginning of 9th century in de Middle East region. In Europe it takes a little longer. Only when Fibonacci uses the Arab numerals in his treatise acceptance begins. Not before the 16th century the new numerals will be generally accepted in the West. pictures and main text for this entry courtesy wikipedia (21) This Babylonian Salamis tablet, the oldest surviving counting board, wil be discovered in 1846 on the island of Salamis near Greece. Salamis calculating board appr 300 BC The gaming boards used by cultures like the Babylonians and Romans are seen as the "prototypes" of the Abacus. As most counting boards during this period of time, this Salamis board may most likely have been used for other activities than accounting, e.g. gaming.

The board is ~150 x ~75 x ~4.5 cm (1 inch = 2.54 cm) and made of marble. Parallel grooves and Greek symbols are carved into it; with just four grooves it is possible to add and subtract to 10,000. The counting method used here is bi-quinary. (24) ~250 BC Ctesibius (285 - 222 BC) invents an automata to represent a whistling clock, a variant on the clepsydra with pneumatics as the power source. Due to a fire burning down the library of Alexandria all his designs and record will be lost. There is little left of Ctesibius' work, apart from a mysterious tower in Greece. It will take mechanical engineers (e.g. Cristiaan Huygens) over 1800 years to surpass Ctesibius' precision with this water clock.

Last Updated on March 24, 2010 For suggestions please mail the editors Archaeology - Archaeological and Prehistoric Discoveries - Official presentation of the researcher and inventor Veljko Milkovic ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND PREHISTORIC DISCOVERIES Here you can download the new hypothesis of Veljko Milkoviďż˝ called "EON" (described in his latest publication " New tourist potentials ") based on research and archaelogical findings described on this page: INTRODUCTION During public appearances in previous years, Veljko Milkoviďż˝ announced major archaeological discoveries from Palaeolithic age at the location of Petrovaradin fortress and in the central Danube basin (Serbia). Experienced archaeologists stated that "it is beyond dreams" and that it was "absolutely unexpected"... But it happened and it was confirmed - by the latest archaeological discoveries from Palaeolithic age. In his numerous public appearances, Milkoviďż˝ claimed that the central Danube basin is a cradle of prehistoric period, which was confirmed by the recent discoveries by European scientists. He is also in possession of a unique and unusual archaeological collection. He also gathered numerous minerals and fossils, as well as remains of previous civilisations.

THE DANUBE KEEPS THE SECRET Picture 1. "The Colossus in the Danube"- according to legends, The Danube river bed contains the remains of previous civilisations It is supposed that murky waters of the Danube with a lot of detritus hide many secrets from the past is confirmed by the sinking of the island fortress - Inzelďż˝anc at the beginning of the 18th century. This fortress was the part of the present Petrovaradin fortress, which was built on the war island, but the surface could not hold it, so the whole construction sank somewhere between 1827 and 1832, when the Danube had high water level, and it was forgotten in time. Picture 2. The island fortress - Inzelďż˝anc, remains near the Officers' beach.The drawing shows the remains of the construction which divers come across. The event is interesting because something similar probably happened before that as well, and the murky waters of the Danube must hide some other secrets as well. The same cause in the past could have hidden much more interesting constructions in the past as well, for which there are no written traces.

After this digression, we should return to the prehistoric era, without presumptions. Major discoveries such as Lepenski vir are ahead... THE POSSIBILITY OF GATHERING THE OLDEST REMAINS Since natural and artificial disasters destroyed numerous remains of the cultural development of human kind - it is time to save the remaining i.e. the remains starting from prehistoric time - tools made by humans. At first glance, it is complicated, problematic etc. but, in fact, it is very simple - without digging, but just gathering from the surface, because the remains from the surface are in most danger, because of the lack of knowledge. One only needs to be able to recognise and also to use archaeological literature and visit museums. WHY IS THE FOCUS ON THE PREHISTORIC TIME? The remains of the newer date are easy to define, but the tools from prehistoric times usually look like "ordinary stones". In that way, they either get damaged or end up as an aggregate in concrete. Life of ancient men was usually connected to the river, so that the bank and the earth dug out by the excavators is interesting for inspection.

Microlithes, the smallest tools of the prehistoric era, are fragile like glass and made from the finest stone in the surrounding area. Quality edge, sharp as a razor, can not be made by dressing a porous stone, but only from quality stone such as: flint-stone, agate, onyx, chalcedony, opal. Small knives, cutters, spears and other microlithes were made by skilful breaking of the precious stones. By gathering the tools from prehistoric era we can find out many things about our ancestors and save the tools from mechanical damage made by ignorant and irresponsible people. "The missing link" is maybe in the central Danube basin. Therefore Fruďż˝ka Gora massif is also interesting, since it must be keeping many secretes... Further explorations of these parts can contribute the demystification of the past, which makes comprehension of the present and the future easier... Picture 3. The waves of the Pannonian Sea probably bypassed sharp edges of the Palaeolithic tools - Photo by S.

Nikoliďż˝ - From the private collection of Veljko Milkoviďż˝ DILLEMAS ABOUT THE OLDEST FINDINGS According to previous findings, the earliest tools originate from Tanzania (1,400,000 - 1,700,000 years old). Luis Leakey (1903-1972) discovered them in 1931. These tools were very well preserved. According to that theory, the area of Europe was 1,000,000 years late with the making of tools. However, during the last decades, some hundred tools with rounded edges and surface metamorphosis were found in the Danube basin. They could lead to the conclusion that they are older than the "oldest" tools from Tanzania. It seems that cultural beginnings in Europe were not in the shadow of Africa and Asia. New findings and arguments are provoking sceptics, so that heated arguments can occur just like more than 400 years ago ("Theory of thunders"). Prehistoric archaeology is definitely not over, so that new artefacts deserve to be examined. Picture 4.

Flint-stone tools of the Neolithic man from the area of Petrovaradin - Photo by S. Nikoliďż˝ - From the private collection of Veljko Milkoviďż˝ THROWING VALUABLES INTO THE WATER Almost all nations have a custom to throw certain objects into the water (river, lake, well...) from earliest times. Sacrificing valuables or in the dispute between two sides concerning the possession of the certain object would be usually be solved in nobody's favour - be the object being thrown into the deep water. HOW TO SEE INTO THE DEPTHS? Gravitational force is inevitable, so that many remains are hidden by the deep, murky water. In addition to diving, modern devices, such as sonar, give an interesting insight into the river bed. However, diving in murky waters and expensive equipment pose a serious problem, so many ideas came into consideration: using a boat, since vertical view from the boat is better than the one from the bank, various catching devices, big spoons, periscopes with lights etc. EXHIBITION FROM THE RIVER BED It is interesting that a road to the simplest and most useful idea is sometimes very long or impossible.

After several years of searching for an appropriate solution of how to see the murky depths of the Danube, a simple solution presented itself - excavator. For the purpose of widening the rive bed or because of the sand, gravel, excavators dug out material from the depths. So that you can, without any equipment, just like on the exhibition see what the depths of the Danube and other rivers and lakes are hiding... The experience showed that the stone is the most resilient. Therefore, the previous pages contain short but valuable information on how to recognise precious stones. When searching the heaps of sand or gravel, the researcher must be aware of possible slides and soft surface in which one could get stuck. FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF VELJKO MILKOVIďż˝ Picture 5. Engravings in the river pebble are most probably made by microlithes. Origins of a writing system are to be further examined, but it could be supposed that that human kind always wanted to leave something behind. This time it was successful, since the trace in the stone remains despite fire or water. Picture 6. Unusual stone tools from the central Danube basin question the real state of the oldest cultures.

Rounded edges and surface metamorphosis indicate to a very old age. Picture 7. Reconstruction of the double jasper spike - V. Milkoviďż˝ and S. Brajdiďż˝ Picture 8. Present state: The time took its toll - the tool is rounded on all sides (18.5 x 6.5 cm) Picture 9. Reconstruction of the chalcedony spike - V. Milkoviďż˝ and S. Brajdiďż˝ Picture 10. Long period of time caused rounding on all sides.Present dimension of the chalcedony tool are 7.5 x 3 cm. Picture 11. Unusual meteorite from the Danube ďż˝ The unusual element ďż˝ there is an outline of ellipsoid shape. Is it a fossil of alien origin, artificial ellipsoid or just a coincidence? Timeline of human evolution and prehistoric inventions - Eupedia Eupedia Home > History > Timeline of prehistoric inventions Timeline of human evolution and prehistoric inventions Here is a list of the oldest evidence known to archaeology for things that humans did for the first time in prehistory.

The purpose is to give a overview of the timeline of technological developments across prehistoric times. Lower Paleolithic (2.5 million to 300,000 years ago) Australopithecus made stone tools at least 2.6 million years ago in Ethiopia ( source ). Modern and ancient chimps have been known to make and use stone tools for multiple purposes too ( source ), so the use of tools may date from well before the split between the two species some 6 million years ago. Homo erectus started making stone-tipped spears at least 500,000 years ago in South Africa ( source ) and 400,000 to 500,000 years ago in northern Europe ( source ). Middle Paleolithic (from 300,000 years ago) : Neanderthals in Europe Archaic humans cooked food in a hearth at least 300,000 years ago in Israel ( source ).

The earliest evidence of religion come in the form of totemism or animal worship (like bear cult) practised by Neanderthals, some time between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago. Neanderthals started burying their dead possibly as 300,000 years ago in southern Europe, and indisputably since 130,000 years ago ( source ). Anatomically modern humans appear in Ethiopia circa 160,000 years ago The first signs of jewellery appear circa 100,000-years ago in the form of shell beads recovered in Israel and Algeria ( source ). More elaborate jewellery dating from 75,000 years ago has also been found at the Blombos Cave in South Africa ( source ). Neanderthals made string/rope at least 90,000 years ago in France ( source ). Homo sapiens made paint from red ochre at least 75,000 years agoin South Africa ( source ). Homo sapiens may have made bow and arrows as early as 64,000 years ago in South Africa ( source ).

Homo sapiens made needles at least 61,000 years ago in South Africa ( source ) Upper Paleolithic (from c. 60~50,000 years ago) : Homo sapiens sapiens appear Humans started making fish hooks at least 42,000 years ago in Indonesia ( source ). Humans made the first cave paintings at least 40,000 years ago in Spain ( source ). The oldest known musical instrument is a flute from Germany dating from 35,000 years ago ( source ). Humans first domesticated dogs around 32,000 years ago in Belgium ( source ) and in the Altai mountains ( source ). Humans started to make ceramic at least 25,000 to 29,000 years ago in Central Europe ( source ). The first pottery vessels appear at least 20,000 years ago in Northeast Asia ( source ). Holocene (from c. 12,000 years ago) : end of the Last Glacial period The cultivation of cereals appear to have started at least 12,000 years ago in the Levant ( source ), and perhaps earlier in Northeast Africa.

Humans started building stone structures, including temples, at Gï¿½bekli Tepe in Anatolia about 11,000 years ago ( source ). The use of calendars dates from at least from 10,000 years ago in Scotland ( source ). The world's first bricks were made in the Near East at least 9,500 years ago ( source ). Metallurgy may have started in the Balkans with copper working (c. 7500 years ago, source ), followed by gold (7000 ybp), bronze (6500 ybp) and silver (6000 ybp). The oldest evidence of writing date from 7300 years ago in central Romania ( source ) and northern Greece ( source ). The world's first cities appeared in southern Mesopotamia some 6,500 years ago ( source ). The first potter's wheel appears in the Near East between 6,500 and 5,200 years ago, during the Ubaid period ( source ).

The earliest evidence of horse domestication, and perhaps also horse riding, dates from 6,000 to 5,500 years ago in the Eurasian Steppe ( source ). The oldest trace of glassmaking comes from the Near East circa 5,500 years ago ( source ). Humans started making swords and bronze weapons in the Maykop culture in the northwest Caucasus c. 5500 to 5000 years ago. The world's oldest known wheel is approximately 5,200 years old and was found in Slovenia ( source ). The oldest known horse-drawn chariots date from the Sintashta and Petrovka cultures in the Eurasian Steppe, c. 4,000 years ago ( source ). Shoes only show up in the archeological record from 5,500 years ago in Armenia ( source ). ï¿½tzi the Iceman, the oldest natural human mummy, who died in the Alps 5300 years ago also wore leather shoes.

Question: Which invention brought to an end the 'Prehistoric Era'?
Answer: WRITING