The study of human history relies on insights from academic disciplines includinghistory,archaeology,anthropology,linguistics, andgenetics. To provide an accessible overview, researchers divide human history by a variety of periodizations.
The genusHomo evolved fromAustralopithecus.[7] The earliest record ofHomo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimenLD 350-1 from Ethiopia,[8] and the earliest named species isHomo habilis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago.[9] The most important difference betweenHomo habilis andAustralopithecus was a 50% increase in brain size.[10]H. erectus[b] evolved about 2 million years ago[11][c] and was the first hominin species toleave Africa and disperse across Eurasia.[13] Perhaps as early as 1.5 million years ago, but certainly by 250,000 years ago, homininsbegan to use fire for heat and cooking.[14]
Beginning about 500,000 years ago,Homo diversified into many new species ofarchaic humans such as theNeanderthals in Europe, theDenisovans inSiberia, and the diminutiveH. floresiensis inIndonesia.[15] Human evolution was not a simple linear or branched progression but involvedinterbreeding between related species.[16] Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution.[17]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 theirgenome to present-day non-sub-Saharan African humans.[18]
Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago[d] from the speciesHomo heidelbergensis.[e][20] Humans continued to develop over the succeeding millennia, and by 100,000 years ago, were using jewelry andocher to adorn the body.[21] By 50,000 years ago, they buried their dead, used projectile weapons, and engaged in seafaring.[22] One of the most important changes (the date of which is unknown) was thedevelopment of syntactic language, which dramatically improved the human ability to communicate.[23] Signs of early artistic expression can be found in the form ofcave paintings and sculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, implying a form of spirituality generally interpreted asanimism[24] orshamanism.[25] The earliest known musical instruments besides the human voice arebone flutes from theSwabian Jura in Germany, dated around 40,000 years old.[26] Paleolithic humans lived ashunter-gatherers and were generallynomadic.[27]
Anatomically modern humansmigrated out of Africa in multiple waves beginning 194,000–177,000 years ago.[28][f] Thedominant view among scholars 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.[32][g]H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving inAustralia 65,000 years ago,[34]Europe 45,000 years ago,[35] and theAmericas 21,000 years ago.[36] These migrations occurred during themost recent Ice Age, when various temperate regions of today were inhospitable.[37] Nevertheless, by the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, humans had colonized nearly all ice-free parts of the globe.[38] Human expansion coincided with both theQuaternary extinction event and theNeanderthal extinction.[39] These extinctions were probably caused by climate change, human activity, or a combination of the two.[40]
Beginning around 10,000 BCE, theNeolithic Revolution marked the development ofagriculture, which fundamentally changed the human lifestyle.[41] Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe,[42] and included a diverse range oftaxa, in at least 11 separatecenters of origin.[43]Cereal crop cultivation andanimal domestication had occurred inMesopotamia by at least 8500 BCE in the form of wheat,barley, sheep, and goats.[44] TheYangtze River Valley in China domesticated rice around 8000–7000 BCE; theYellow River Valley may have cultivatedmillet by 7000 BCE.[45] Pigs were the most important domesticated animal in early China.[46] People in Africa'sSahara cultivatedsorghum and several other crops between 8000 and 5000 BCE,[h] while other agricultural centers arose in theEthiopian Highlands and the West African rainforests.[48] In theIndus River Valley, crops were cultivated by 7000 BCE and cattle were domesticated by 6500 BCE.[49] In the Americas,squash was cultivated by at least 8500 BCE in South America, and domesticatedarrowroot appeared in Central America by 7800 BCE.[50] Potatoes were first cultivated in theAndes of South America, where thellama was also domesticated.[51] It is likely that women played a central role in plant domestication throughout these developments.[52]
Various explanations of the causes of the Neolithic Revolution have been proposed.[53] Some theories identify population growth as 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.[54] Further suggested factors include climate change, resource scarcity, and ideology.[55] The transition to agriculture created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production,[56] permitting far denser populations and the creation of the first cities andstates.[57]
Cities were centers oftrade,manufacturing, andpolitical power.[58] They developed mutually beneficial relationships with the inhabitants of the surroundingcountrysides, receiving agricultural products and providing manufactured goods and varying degrees of political control in return.[59]Pastoral societies based on nomadic animal herding also developed, mostly in dry areas unsuited to plant cultivation, such as theEurasian Steppe and the AfricanSahel.[60] Conflict between nomadic herders andsedentary agriculturalists was frequent and became a recurring theme in world history.[61]
Metalworking was first used in the creation of copper tools and ornaments around 6400 BCE.[48] Gold and silver soon followed, primarily for use in ornaments.[48] The first signs ofbronze, an alloy of copper andtin, date to around 4500 BCE,[62] but the alloy was not widely used until the 3rd millennium BCE.[63]
These societies developed a number of shared characteristics, including a central government, a complex economy and social structure, and systems for keeping records.[72] These cultures variously invented thewheel,[73]mathematics,[74] bronze-working,[75] sailing boats,[76] thepotter's wheel,[75]woven cloth,[77] construction of monumental buildings,[77] and writing.[78]Polytheistic religions developed, centered on temples wherepriests and priestesses performedsacrificial rites.[79]
Writing facilitated the administration of cities, the expression of ideas, and the preservation of information.[80] It may have independently developed in at least four ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (3300 BCE),[81] Egypt (around 3250 BCE),[82] China (1200 BCE),[83] and lowlandMesoamerica (by 650 BCE).[84] The earliest system of writing[j] was the Mesopotamiancuneiform script, which began as a system ofpictographs, whose pictorial representations eventually became simplified and more abstract.[86][k] Other influential early writing systems includeEgyptian hieroglyphs and theIndus script.[88] In China, writing was first used during theShang dynasty (1766–1045 BCE).[89]
Transport was facilitated by waterways, including rivers and seas, which fostered the projection of military power and the exchange of goods, ideas, and inventions.[90] The Bronze Age also saw new land technologies, such as horse-basedcavalry andchariots, that allowedarmies to move faster.[91] Trade became increasingly important as urban societies exchanged manufactured goods for raw materials from distant lands, creating vast commercial networks and the beginnings ofarchaic globalization.[92] Bronze production in Southwest Asia, for example, required the import of tin from as far away as England.[93]
The growth of cities was often followed by the establishment of states and empires.[94] In Egypt, the initial division intoUpper and Lower Egypt was followed by the unification of the whole valley around 3100 BCE.[95] Around 2600 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization built major cities atHarappa andMohenjo-daro.[96] Mesopotamian history was characterized by frequent wars between city-states, leading to shifts inhegemony from one city to another.[97] In the 25th–21st centuries BCE, the empires ofAkkad and theNeo-Sumerians arose in this area.[98] In Crete, theMinoan civilization emerged by 2000 BCE and is regarded as the first civilization in Europe.[99]
Over the following millennia, civilizations developed across the world.[100] By 1600 BCE,Mycenaean Greece began to develop.[101] It flourished until theLate Bronze Age collapse that affected many Mediterranean civilizations between 1300 and 1000 BCE.[102] The foundations of many cultural aspects in India were laid in theVedic period (1750–600 BCE), including the emergence ofHinduism.[103][l] From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as theMahajanapadas were established across the subcontinent.[105]
Speakers of theBantu languages beganexpanding across Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa as early as 3000 BCE until 1000 CE.[106] Their expansion and encounters with other groups resulted in the displacement of thePygmy peoples and theKhoisan, and in the spread ofmixed farming andironworking throughout sub-Saharan Africa, laying the foundations for later states.[107]
In the Americas, the Norte Chico culture emerged in Peru around 3100 BCE.[67] The Norte Chico built public monumental architecture at the city ofCaral, dated 2627–1977 BCE.[109] The laterChavín polity is sometimes described as the firstAndean state,[110] centered on the religious site atChavín de Huantar.[111] Other important Andean cultures include theMoche, whose ceramics depict many aspects of daily life, and theNazca, who created animal-shaped designs in the desert calledNazca lines.[112] TheOlmecs of Mesoamerica developed by about 1200 BCE[113] and are known for thecolossal stone heads that they carved frombasalt.[114] They also devised theMesoamerican calendar that was used by later cultures such as theMaya andTeotihuacan.[115] Societies in North America were primarily egalitarian hunter-gatherers, supplementing their diet with the plants of theEastern Agricultural Complex.[116] They built earthworks such asWatson Brake (4000 BCE) andPoverty Point (3600 BCE), both in Louisiana.[117]
Axial Age ideas shaped subsequent intellectual and religious history. Confucianism was one of the three schools of thought that came to dominate Chinese thinking, along withTaoism andLegalism.[127] The Confucian tradition, which would become particularly influential, looked forpolitical morality not to the force of law but to the power and example of tradition.[128] Confucianism would later spread toKorea and Japan.[129] Buddhism reached China in about the 1st century CE[130] and spread widely, with 30,000 Buddhist temples in northern China alone by the 7th century CE.[131] Buddhism became the main religion in much of South, Southeast, and East Asia.[132] The Greek philosophical tradition[133] diffused throughout the Mediterranean world and as far as India, starting in the 4th century BCE after the conquests ofAlexander the Great ofMacedon.[134] BothChristianity andIslam developed from the beliefs ofJudaism.[135]
Regional empires
The millennium from 500 BCE to 500 CE saw 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.[136]International trade also expanded, most notably the massive trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea, themaritime trade web in the Indian Ocean, and theSilk Road.[137]
Two major empires began in modern-dayGreece. In the late 5th century BCE, several Greekcity states checked the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through theGreco-Persian Wars. These wars were followed by theGolden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations ofWestern civilization, including thefirst theatrical performances.[143] The wars led to the creation of theDelian League, founded in 477 BCE,[144] and eventually theAthenian Empire (454–404 BCE), which was defeated by a Spartan-led coalition during thePeloponnesian War.[145]Philip of Macedon unified the Greek city-states into theHellenic League and his son Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) founded an empire extending from present-day Greece to India.[146] The empire divided into severalsuccessor states shortly after his death, resulting in the founding of many cities and the spread of Greek culture throughout conquered regions, a process referred to asHellenization.[147] TheHellenistic period lasted from the death of Alexander in 323 BCE until 31 BCE, whenPtolemaic Egypt fell to Rome.[148]
In Europe, theRoman Republic was founded in the 6th century BCE[149] and began expanding its territory in the 3rd century BCE.[150] Prior to this, theCarthaginian Empire had dominated the Mediterranean, however lostthree successive wars to the Romans. The Republic becamean empire and by the time ofAugustus (63 BCE – 14 CE), it had established dominion over most of the Mediterranean Sea.[151] The empire continued to grow and reached its peak underTrajan (53–117 CE), controlling much of the land from England to Mesopotamia.[152] The two centuries that followed are known as thePax Romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe.[153] Christianity waslegalized byConstantine I in 313 CE after three centuries ofimperial persecution. It became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 CE while the emperorTheodosius outlawedpagan religions in 391–392 CE.[154]
In South Asia,Chandragupta Maurya founded theMaurya Empire (320–185 BCE), which flourished underAshoka the Great.[155] From the 4th to 6th centuries CE, theGupta Empire oversaw the period referred to as ancient India's golden age.[156] 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.[157] InSouth India, three prominentDravidian kingdoms emerged: theCheras,Cholas, andPandyas.[158]
In China,Qin Shi Huang put an end to the chaoticWarring States period by uniting all of China under theQin dynasty (221–206 BCE).[159] 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.[160] The harshness of the Qin dynasty led to rebellions and the dynasty's fall.[161] It was followed by theHan dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), which combined the Legalist bureaucratic system with Confucian ideals.[162] The Han dynasty was comparable in power and influence to the Roman Empire that lay at the other end of the Silk Road.[163] As economic prosperity fueled their military expansion, the Han conquered parts of Mongolia, Central Asia,Manchuria, Korea, and northern Vietnam.[164] As with other empires during the classical period, Han China advanced significantly in the areas of government, education, science, and technology.[165] The Han invented thecompass, one of China'sFour Great Inventions.[166]
In Africa, theKingdom of Kush prospered through its interactions with both Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa.[167] It ruled Egypt as theTwenty-fifth Dynasty from 712 to 650 BCE, then continued as an agricultural and trading state based in the city ofMeroë until the fourth century CE.[168] TheKingdom of Aksum, centered in present-day Ethiopia, established itself by the 1st century CE as a major trading empire, dominating its neighbors inSouth Arabia and Kush and controlling theRed Sea trade.[169] It minted its own currency and carved enormous monolithicstelae to mark its emperors' graves.[170]
Successful regional empires were also established in the Americas, arising from cultures established as early as 2500 BCE.[171] In Mesoamerica, vastpre-Columbian societies were built, the most notable being theZapotec civilization (700 BCE – 1521 CE),[172] and the Maya civilization, which reached its highest state of development during the Mesoamerican classic period (c. 250–900 CE),[173] but continued throughout the post-classic period.[174] The great Mayacity-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout theYucatán and surrounding areas.[175] The Maya developeda writing system and used theconcept of zero in their mathematics.[176] West of the Maya area, in central Mexico, the city ofTeotihuacan prospered due to its control of theobsidian trade.[177] Its power peaked around 450 CE, when its 125,000–150,000 inhabitants made it one of the world's largest cities.[178]
Technology developed sporadically in the ancient world.[179] There were periods of rapid technological progress, such as the Greco-Roman era in the Mediterranean region.[180]Greek science,technology, andmathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period, typified by devices such as theAntikythera mechanism.[181] There were also periods of technological decay, such as the Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuing early medieval period.[182] Two of the most important innovations were paper (China, 1st and 2nd centuries CE)[183] and thestirrup (India, 2nd century BCE and Central Asia, 1st century CE),[184] both of which diffused widely throughout the world. The Chinese learned to make silk and built massive engineering projects such as theGreat Wall of China and theGrand Canal.[185] The Romans were also accomplished builders, inventingconcrete, perfecting the use ofarches in construction, and creatingaqueducts to transport water over long distances to urban centers.[186]
Most ancient societies practicedslavery,[187] which was particularly prevalent inAthens andRome, where slaves made up a large proportion of the population and were foundational to the economy.[188]Patriarchy was also common, with men controlling more political and economic power than women.[189]
Declines, falls, and resurgence
European migrations by mostlyGermanic peoples, 2nd–6th centuries
The ancient empires faced common problems associated with maintaining huge armies and supporting a centralbureaucracy.[190] In Rome and Han China, the state began to decline, andbarbarian pressure on the frontiers hastened internal dissolution.[190] The Han dynasty fell into civil war in 220 CE, beginning theThree Kingdoms period, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralized and divided about the same time in what is known as theCrisis of the Third Century.[191] From the Eurasian steppe,horse-based nomads dominated a large part of the continent.[192] The development of the stirrup and the use ofhorse archers made the nomads a constant threat to sedentary civilizations.[193]
In the 4th century CE, the Roman Empire split into western and eastern regions, with usually separate emperors.[194] TheWestern Roman Empirefell in 476 CE to German influence underOdoacer in theMigration Period of theGermanic peoples.[194] The Eastern Roman Empire, known as theByzantine Empire, was more long-lasting.[195] In China,dynasties rose and fell, but, in sharp contrast to the Mediterranean-European world, political unity was always eventually restored.[196] After the fall of theEastern Han dynasty and the demise of the Three Kingdoms, nomadic tribes from the north began to invade, causing many Chinese people to flee southward.[197]
Portrait ofAlfraganus in theCompilatio astronomica, 1493.Islamic astronomers began just before the 9th century to collect and translateIndian,Persian andGreek astronomical texts, adding their own astronomy and enabling later, particularly European astronomy to build on.[198] Symbolic for the post-classical period, a period of an increasing trans-regional literary culture, particularly in the sciences, spreading and building on methods of science.
The post-classical period, dated roughly from 500 to 1500 CE,[m] was characterized by the rise and spread of major religions while civilization expanded to new parts of the world and trade between societies intensified.[200] From the 10th to 13th centuries, theMedieval Warm Period in the northern hemisphere aided agriculture and led to population growth in parts of Europe and Asia.[201] It was followed by theLittle Ice Age, which, along with the plagues of the 14th century, put downward pressure on the population of Eurasia.[201] Major inventions of the period weregunpowder, guns, and printing, all of which originated in China.[202]
In West Africa, theMali andSonghai Empires rose.[205] On the southeast coast of Africa, Arabic ports were established where gold,spices, and other commodities were traded. This allowed Africa to join the Southeast Asia trading system, bringing it contact with Asia; this resulted in theSwahili culture.[206]
China experienced the relatively successive Sui, Tang,Song,Yuan, and earlyMing dynasties.[207] Middle Eastern trade routes along the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through theGobi Desert, provided limited economic and cultural contact between Asian and European civilizations.[179] During the same period, civilizations in the Americas, such as theMississippians,[208]Aztecs,[209] Maya,[210] andInca reached their zenith.[211]
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.[212] This was also a cultural battle, with ByzantineChristian culture competing against Persian Zoroastrian traditions.[213] Thebirth of Islam created a new contender that quickly surpassed both of these empires.[214]
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, initiated theearly Muslim conquests in the 7th century.[215] He established a new unified polity inArabia that expanded rapidly under theRashidun Caliphate and theUmayyad Caliphate, culminating in the establishment of Muslim rule on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) by 750 CE.[216] The subsequentAbbasid Caliphate oversaw the Islamic Golden Age, an era of learning, science, and invention during whichphilosophy,art, andliterature flourished.[217][n] Scholars preserved and synthesized knowledge and skills of ancient Greece and Persia,[219] the manufacture of paper from China,[220] and thedecimal positional numbering system from India.[221] At the same time, they made significant original contributions in various fields, such asAl-Khwarizmi's development ofalgebra andAvicenna's comprehensive philosophical system.[222] Islamic civilization expanded both by conquest and based on its merchant economy.[223] Merchants brought goods and their Islamic faith toChina,India,Southeast Asia, andAfrica.[224]
Arab domination of the Middle East ended in the mid-11th century with the arrival of theSeljuk Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands.[225] The Seljuks were challenged by Europe during theCrusades, a series of religious wars aimed at rolling back Muslim territory and regaining control of theHoly Land.[226] The Crusades were ultimately unsuccessful and served more to weaken the Byzantine Empire, especially with thesack of Constantinople in 1204.[227] In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, theMongols, swept through the region but were eventually eclipsed by the Turks and the founding of the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey around 1299.[228]
The Caucasus was fought over in aseries of wars between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. However, the two opposing powers became exhausted due to continuous conflict. Hence, the Rashidun Caliphate was able to freely expand into the region during the early Muslim conquests.[234] The Seljuk Turks later subjugatedArmenia andGeorgia in the 11th century. The Mongols subsequently invaded the Caucasus in the 13th century.[235]
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.[236] China expanded into Central Asia during theSui dynasty (581–618).[237] The Chinese were confronted byTurkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in the region.[238] Originally the relationship was largely cooperative but in 630, theTang dynasty began an offensive against the Turks by capturing areas of theOrdos Desert.[239] In the 8th century, Islam began to penetrate the region and soon became the sole faith of most of the population, though Buddhism remained strong in the east.[240] From the 9th to 13th centuries, Central Asia was divided among several powerful states, including theSamanid,[241]Seljuk,[242] andKhwarazmian Empires. These states were succeeded by the Mongols in the 13th century.[243] In 1370,Timur conquered most of the region and founded theTimurid Empire,[244] which collapsed soon after his death.[245] His descendants retained control of a core area in Central Asia and Iran,[246] overseeing theTimurid Renaissance of art and architecture.[247]
Since at least the 4th century, Christianity has played aprominent role in shaping the culture, values, and institutions of Western civilization, primarily through Catholicism and later alsoProtestantism.[248] Europe during theEarly Middle Ages was characterized by depopulation,deurbanization, and barbarian invasions, all of which had begun inlate antiquity.[249] The barbarian invaders formed their own new kingdoms in the remains of the Western Roman Empire.[250] Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, most of the new kingdoms incorporated existing Roman institutions.[251] Christianity expanded in Western Europe, and monasteries were founded.[252] In the 7th and 8th centuries, theFranks under theCarolingian dynasty established an empire covering much of Western Europe;[253] it lasted until the 9th century, when it succumbed to pressure from new invaders—theVikings,Magyars, and Arabs.[254] It split intoWest Francia andEast Francia, which became medievalFrance and theHoly Roman Empire respectively. During the Carolingian era, churches developed a form of musical notation calledneume which became the basis for the modern notation system.[255]Kievan Rus' expanded from its capital inKiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988,Vladimir the Great adoptedOrthodox Christianity as the state religion.[256]
13th-century Frenchhistoriated initial with the three classes of medieval society: those who prayed (theclergy), those who fought (theknights), and those who worked (thepeasantry)
During theHigh 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.[257] The establishment of thefeudal system affected the structure of medieval society. It includedmanorialism, the organization of peasants into villages that owed rents and labor service to nobles, andvassalage, a political structure wherebyknights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rents from lands and manors.[258] Kingdoms became more centralized after the decentralizing effects of the breakup of theCarolingian Empire.[259] In 1054, theGreat Schism between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches led to the prominent cultural differences between Western and Eastern Europe.[260] TheCrusades were 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 someCrusader states in theLevant.[261] Italian merchants imported slaves to work in households or in sugar processing.[262] Intellectual life was marked byscholasticism and the founding of universities, while the building ofGothic cathedrals and churches was one of the outstanding artistic achievements of the age.[263] The Middle Ages witnessed the first sustainedurbanization of Northern and Western Europe and lasted until the beginning of theearly modern period in the 16th century.[264]
TheMongols reached Europe in 1236 andconquered Kievan Rus', along with briefly invadingPoland andHungary.[265]Lithuania cooperated with the Mongols but remained independent and in the late 14th century formed apersonal union with Poland.[266] TheLate Middle Ages were marked by difficulties and calamities.[267] Famine, plague, and war devastated the population of Western Europe.[268] TheBlack Death alone killed approximately 75 to 200 million people between 1347 and 1350.[269] It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Starting in Asia, the disease reached the Mediterranean and Western Europe during the late 1340s,[270] and killed tens of millions of Europeans in six years; between a quarter and a third of the population perished.[271]
Sub-Saharan Africa was home to many different civilizations. InNubia, theKingdom of Kush was succeeded by the Christian kingdoms ofMakuria,Alodia, andNobatia. In the 7th century, Makuria conquered Nobatia to become the dominant power in the region andresisted Muslim expansion.[272] They later entered a severe decline following civil war andArab migrations to the Sudan and had disintegrated by the 15th century, giving rise to theFunj Sultanate.[273]
In theSahel region of West Africa, theGhana Empire formed from between the 2nd and 8th centuries, while from the 7th century theGao Empire ruled to its east.[280][281] Almoravid capture of royalAoudaghost led to Ghana's conversion to Islam in the 11th century,[282] and climatic changes led to Ghana's conquest by its vassalSosso in the 13th century.[283] Sosso was quickly overthrown by theMali Empire who conquered Gao and dominated thetrans-Saharan trade.[284] TheMossi Kingdoms were established to its south.[285] To the east, theKanem–Bornu Empire ruled from the 6th century, and projected power over theHausa Kingdoms.[286][287] The 15th century saw the crumbling of the Mali Empire, with the dominant power in the region becoming theSonghai Empire centered onGao.[288]
After the fall of the Gupta Empire in 550 CE,North India was divided into a complex and fluid network of smaller kingdoms.[302] EarlyMuslim incursions began in the northwest in 711 CE, when the Arab Umayyad Caliphateconquered much of present-day Pakistan.[216] The Arab military advance was largely halted at that point, but Islam still spread in India, largely due to the influence of Arab merchants along the western coast.[206] The 9th century saw theTripartite Struggle for control of North India between thePratihara,Pala, andRashtrakuta Empires.[303]
Post-classical dynasties in South India included those of theChalukyas,Hoysalas, and Cholas.[304] Literature, architecture, sculpture, and painting flourished under the patronage of these kings.[305] Some of the other important states that emerged in South India during this time included theBahmani Sultanate and theVijayanagara Empire.[306]
After a period of relative disunity,China was reunified by the Sui dynasty in 589.[307] Under the succeeding Tang dynasty (618–907), China entered a golden age during which political stability and economic prosperity were accompanied by literary and artistic accomplishment, like thepoetry ofLi Bai andDu Fu.[308][309] The Sui and Tang instituted the long-lastingimperial examination system, under which administrative positions were open only to those who passed an arduous test on Confucian thought and theChinese classics.[310] China competed withTibet (618–842) for control of areas in Inner Asia.[311] However, the Tang dynasty eventually splintered. Afterhalf a century of turmoil, the Song dynasty reunified much of China.[312] Pressure from nomadic empires to the north became increasingly urgent.[313] By 1127, northern China had been lost to theJurchens in theJin–Song Wars, and the Mongolsconquered all of China in 1279.[314] After about a century of Mongol Yuan dynasty rule, the ethnic Chinese reasserted control with the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368.[313]
InJapan, the imperial lineage was established during the 3rd century CE, and a centralized state developed during theYamato period (c. 300–710).[315] Buddhism was introduced, and there was an emphasis on the adoption of elements of Chinese culture and Confucianism.[316] TheNara period (710–794) was characterized by the appearance of a nascentliterary culture, as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired artwork andarchitecture.[317] TheHeian period (794–1185) saw the peak of imperial power, followed by the rise of militarized clans and thesamurai.[318] It was during the Heian period thatMurasaki Shikibu pennedThe Tale of Genji, sometimes considered the world's first novel.[319] From 1185 to 1868, Japan was dominated by powerful regional lords (daimyos) and the military rule of warlords (shoguns) such as theAshikaga andTokugawa shogunates.[320] The emperor remained but did not wield significant influence.[321] Meanwhile, the power of merchants grew.[322] An influential art style known asukiyo-e arose during the Tokugawa years, consisting ofwoodblock prints which originally depicted famouscourtesans.[323]
Post-classicalKorea saw the end of theThree Kingdoms era, in which the kingdoms ofGoguryeo,Baekje, andSilla had competed for hegemony.[324] This period ended when Silla conquered Baekje in 660 and Goguryeo in 668,[325] marking the beginning of theNorthern and Southern States period, withUnified Silla in the south andBalhae, a successor state to Goguryeo, in the north.[326] In 892 CE, this arrangement reverted to theLater Three Kingdoms, with Goguryeo[o] emerging as dominant, unifying the entire peninsula by 936.[327] The founding Goryeo dynasty ruled until 1392, succeeded by theJoseon dynasty,[328] which ruled for approximately 500 years.[329]
Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia, early 12th century
The Southeast Asian polity ofFunan, which had originated in the 2nd century CE, went into decline in the 6th century as Chinese trade routes shifted away from its ports. It was replaced by theKhmer Empire in 802 CE.[334] The capital city of theKhmers atAngkor was the most extensive city in the world before the industrial age and containedAngkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument.[335] TheSukhothai (mid-13th century) andAyutthaya Kingdoms (1351) were major powers of theThais, who were influenced by the Khmers.[336]
In North America, this period saw the rise of theMississippian culture in the modern-day United Statesc. 950 CE,[359] marked by the extensive 11th-century urban complex atCahokia.[360] TheAncestral Puebloans and their predecessors (9th–13th centuries) built extensive permanent settlements, including stone structures that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century.[361]
In South America, the 15th century saw the rise of the Inca.[211] TheInca Empire, with its capital atCusco, spanned the entireAndes, making it the most extensivepre-Columbian civilization.[364] The Inca were prosperous and advanced, known for an excellentroad system and elegant stonework.[365]
The early modern period is the era following the European Middle Ages until 1789 or 1800.[q] A common break with the medieval period is placed between 1450 and 1500 which includes a number of significant events: the fall ofConstantinople to theOttoman Empire, the spread ofprinting and European voyages of discovery to America and along the African coast.[367] The nature of warfare evolved as the size and organization of military forces on land and sea increased, alongside the wider propagation of gunpowder.[368] The early modern period is significant for the start ofproto-globalization,[369] increasingly centralized bureaucratic states[370] and early forms ofcapitalism.[366] European powers also began colonizing large parts of the world through maritime empires: first thePortuguese andSpanish Empires, then theFrench,English, andDutch Empires.[371] Historians still debate the causes of Europe's rise, which is known as theGreat Divergence.[372]
Japanese depiction of a Portuguesecarrack, a result of globalizing maritime trade
Capitalist economies emerged, initially in thenorthern Italian republics and some Asian port cities.[373] European states practicedmercantilism by implementing one-sided trade policies designed to benefit the mother country at the expense of its colonies.[374] Starting at the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese establishedtrading posts across Africa, Asia, and Brazil, for commodities like gold and spices while also practicing slavery.[375] In the 17th century, privatechartered companies were established, such as theEnglish East India Company in 1600 – often described as the firstmultinational corporation – and theDutch East India Company in 1602.[376] Meanwhile, in much of the European sphere, serfdom declined and eventually disappeared while the power of the Catholic Church waned.[377]
TheAge of Discovery was the first period in which theOld World engaged in substantial cultural, material, and biological exchange with theNew World. It began in the late 15th century, whenPortugal andCastile sent the first exploratory voyages to the Americas, whereChristopher Columbus first arrived in 1492. Global integration continued asEuropean colonization of the Americas initiated theColumbian exchange: the exchange of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves),communicable diseases, and culture between theEastern andWestern Hemispheres.[378] It was one of history's most important global events, involving ecology and agriculture.[379] New crops brought from the Americas by 16th-century European seafarers substantially contributed to world population growth.[380]
West and Central Asia
The Ottoman Empire quickly came to dominate the Middle East after conquering Constantinople in 1453, which marked the end of the Byzantine Empire.[381] Persia came under the rule of theSafavids in 1501,[382] succeeded by theAfshars in 1736, theZands in 1751, and theQajars in 1794.[383] The SafavidsestablishedShia Islam as Persia's official religion, thus giving Persia a separate identity from itsSunni neighbors.[384] Along with theMughals in India, the Ottomans and Safavids are known as thegunpowder empires because of their early adoption of firearms.[385] Throughout the 16th century the Ottomans conquered all of North Africa save for Morocco, which came under the rule of theSaadi dynasty at the same time, and then theAlawi dynasty in the 17th century.[386][387][388] At the end of the 18th century, theRussian Empire began itsconquest of the Caucasus.[389] TheUzbeks replaced theTimurids as the preeminent power in Central Asia.[390]
The early modern period in Europe was an era of intense intellectual ferment. TheRenaissance – the "rebirth" of classical culture, beginningin Italy in the 14th century and extending into the 16th[r] – comprised the rediscovery of theclassical world's cultural, scientific, and technological achievements, and the economic and social rise of Europe.[392] This period is also celebrated for its artistic and literary attainments.[393]Petrarch's poetry,Giovanni Boccaccio'sDecameron, and the paintings and sculptures ofLeonardo da Vinci andAlbrecht Dürer, as part of theNorthern Renaissance, are some of the great works of the age.[393] After the Renaissance came theReformation, an anti-clerical theological and social movement started in Germany byMartin Luther that resulted in the creation ofProtestant Christianity.[394]
The Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitiveness which ultimately led tohumanism[395] and theScientific Revolution, an effort to understand the natural world through direct observation and experiment.[396] The success of the new scientific techniques inspired attempts to apply them to political and social affairs, known as theEnlightenment, by thinkers such asJohn Locke andImmanuel Kant.[397] This development was accompanied bysecularization as a continued decline of the influence of religious beliefs and authorities in the public and private spheres.[398]Johannes Gutenberg's invention ofmovable type printing in 1440[s] helped spread the ideas of the new intellectual movements.[400]
In addition to changes wrought by incipient capitalism and colonialism, early modern Europeans experienced an increase in the power of the state.[401]Absolute monarchs inFrance,Russia, theHabsburg lands, andPrussia produced powerful centralized states, with strong armies and efficient bureaucracies, all under the control of the king.[402] In Russia,Ivan the Terrible was crowned in 1547 as the firsttsar of Russia, and by annexing the Turkic khanates in the east, transformed Russia into a regional power, eventuallyreplacing thePolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a major power in Eastern Europe.[403] The countries of Western Europe, while expanding prodigiously through technological advances and colonial conquest, competed with each other economically and militarily in a state of almost constant war.[404] Wars of particular note included theThirty Years' War, theWar of the Spanish Succession, theSeven Years' War, and theFrench Revolutionary Wars.[405] TheFrench Revolution, starting in 1789, laid the groundwork of liberal democracy by overthrowing monarchy. It led to the rise ofNapoleon Bonaparte and the subsequentNapoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.[406]
In theIndian subcontinent, theMughal Empire was established underBabur in 1526 and lasted for two centuries.[427] Starting in the northwest, it brought the entire subcontinent under Muslim rule by the late 17th century,[428] except for the southernmost Indian provinces, which remained independent.[429] To resist the Muslim rulers, the HinduMaratha Empire was founded byShivaji on the western coast in 1674.[430] The Marathas gradually gained territory from the Mughals over several decades, particularly in theMughal–Maratha Wars (1680–1707).[431]
In 1644, the Mingwere supplanted by theQing,[434] the last Chinese imperial dynasty, which ruled until 1912.[435] Japan experienced itsAzuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1600), followed by theEdo period (1600–1868).[436] The Korean Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) ruled throughout this period, repelling invasions from Japan and China in the 16th and 17th centuries.[437] Expanded maritime trade with Europe significantly affected China and Japan during this period, particularly through the Portuguese inMacau and the Dutch inNagasaki.[438] However, China and Japan later pursuedisolationist policies[t] designed to eliminate foreign influences.[439]
Southeast Asia
In 1511, the Portuguese overthrew theMalacca Sultanate in present-day Malaysia and IndonesianSumatra.[440] The Portuguese held this important trading territory (and the valuable associated navigational strait) until overthrown by the Dutch in 1641.[376] TheJohor Sultanate, centered on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, became the dominant trading power in the region.[441]
Several European powers colonized the Americas, largely displacing the native populations and conquering the advanced civilizations of the Aztecs and Inca.[447]Diseases introduced by Europeans devastated American societies, killing 60–90 million people by 1600 and reducing the population by 90–95%.[448] In some cases, colonial policies included the deliberategenocide of indigenous peoples.[449] Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France all made extensive territorial claims, and undertooklarge-scale settlement, including the importation of large numbers of African slaves.[450] One side-effect of the slave trade was cultural exchange through which various African traditions found their way to the Americas, including cuisine, music, and dance.[451][v] Portugal claimedBrazil, while Spain seized the rest of South America, Mesoamerica, and southern North America.[452] The Spaniards mined and exported prodigious amounts of gold and silver, leading to a surge in inflation known as thePrice Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries in Western Europe.[453]
Thelong nineteenth century traditionally starts with theFrench Revolution in 1789,[w] and lasts until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.[461] It saw the global spread of the Industrial Revolution, the greatest transformation of the world economy since the Neolithic Revolution.[462] The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain around 1770 and used new modes of production—the factory,mass production, andmechanization—to manufacture a wide array of goods faster while using less labor than previously required.[463]
Industrialization raised the globalstandard of living but caused upheaval as factory owners and workers clashed over wages and working conditions.[464] Along with industrialization came modernglobalization, the increasing interconnection of world regions in the economic, political, and cultural spheres.[465] Globalization began in the early 19th century and was enabled by improved transportation technologies such as railroads andsteamships.[466]
Empires of the world in 1898
European empireslost territories in Latin America, whichwon independence by the 1820s through military campaigns,[467] but expanded elsewhere as their industrial economies gave them an advantage over the rest of the world.[468] Britain gained control of the Indian subcontinent, Burma, Malaya, North Borneo,Hong Kong, andAden; the French took Indochina; and the Dutch cemented their rule over Indonesia.[469] The British also colonized Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa with large numbers of British colonists emigrating to these colonies.[470]
Russia colonized large pre-agricultural areas of Siberia.[471] The United States completed itswestward expansion, establishing control over the territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.[472]
Within Europe, economic and military competition fostered the creation and consolidation of nation-states, and other ethno-cultural communities began to identify themselves as distinctive nations with aspirations for their own cultural and political autonomy.[476] Thisnationalism became important to peoples across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.[477] In thefirst wave of democratization, between 1828 and 1926, democratic institutions were established in 33 countries worldwide.[478]
Most of the worldabolished slavery and serfdom in the 19th century.[479] Over several decades, beginning in the late 19th century and continuing throughout the 20th,[480] in many countries thewomen's suffrage movement won women the right to vote,[481] and women began to enjoy greater access to education and to professions beyond domestic employment.[482]
The first airplane, theWright Flyer, flew on 17 December 1903.
In response to encroachment by European powers, several countries undertook programs of industrialization and political reform along Western lines.[483] TheMeiji Restoration inJapan led to the establishment of acolonial empire, while thetanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire did little to slow the Ottoman decline.[484] China achieved some success with itsSelf-Strengthening Movement but was devastated by theTaiping Rebellion, history's bloodiest civil war, which between 1850 and 1864 killed 20–30 million people.[485]
The 20th century opened with Europe at an apex of wealth and power.[491] Much of the world was under its direct colonial control or its indirect influence through heavily Europeanized nations like the United States and Japan.[492] As the century unfolded, however, the global system dominated by rival powers experienced severe strains and ultimately yielded to a more fluid structure of independentnation states.[493]
This transformation was catalyzed by wars of unparalleled scope and devastation.World War I was a global conflict from 1914 to 1918 betweenthe Allies, led by France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, and theCentral Powers, led by Germany,Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. It had an estimated death toll ranging from 10 to 22.5 million and resulted in the collapse of four empires – theAustro-Hungarian,German, Ottoman, and Russian Empires.[494] Its new emphasis on industrial technology had made traditional military tactics obsolete.[495]
TheArmenian,Assyrian, andGreek genocides saw the systematic destruction, mass murder, and expulsion of those populations in the Ottoman Empire.[496] From 1918 to 1920, theSpanish flu caused the deaths of at least 25 million people.[497]
Themilitaristic governments of Germany and Japan pursued an ultimately doomed course ofimperialistexpansionism. In the course of doing so, Germanyorchestrated thegenocide of 6 million Jews inthe Holocaust, and of millions of non-Jews acrossGerman-occupied Europe,[506] while Japanmurdered millions of Chinese.[507] The war also saw the introduction and use ofnuclear weapons, which brought unprecedented destruction and ultimately led to Japan's surrender.[508] Estimates of the war's total casualties range from 55 to 80 million.[509]
World War II had opened the way for the advance of communism into Eastern and Central Europe, China,North Korea,North Vietnam, andCuba.[514] Tocontain this advance, the United States established a global network of alliances.[515] The largest,NATO, was established in 1949 and eventuallygrew to include 32 member states.[516] In response, in 1955 the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies formed theWarsaw Pact mutual-defense treaty.[517]
The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the primary global powers in the aftermath of World War II.[518] Both nations harbored deep suspicions and fears about the global spread of the other's political-economic system — capitalism for the United States and communism for the Soviet Union.[519] This mutual distrust sparked theCold War, a 45-year stand-off andarms race between the two nations and their allies.[520]
Cold War preparations to deter or fight athird world war accelerated advances in technologies that, though conceptualized before World War II, had been implemented for that war's exigencies, such asjet aircraft,[525]rocketry,[526] and computers.[527] In the decades after World War II, these advances led to jet travel;[525]artificial satellites with innumerable applications,[528] includingGPS;[529] and theInternet,[528] which in the 1990s began to gain traction as a form of communication.[530] These inventions revolutionized the movement of people, ideas, and information.[531]
These technical innovations had far-reaching effects.[540] During the 20th century the world's population quadrupled to six billion, while world economic output increased by a factor of 20.[541] Toward the end of the 20th century, the rate ofpopulation growth started to decline, in part because of increased awareness offamily planning and better access tocontraceptives.[542] Parts of the world now havesub-replacement fertility rates.[543]
Public health measures and advances inmedical science contributed to a sharp increase in globallife expectancy at birth from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000.[544][y] In 1820, 75% of humanity lived on less than one dollar a day, while in 2001 only about 20% did.[546] At the same time, economic inequality increased both within individual countries and between rich and poor countries.[547] The importance of public education had already begun to increase in the 18th and 19th centuries[z] but it was not until the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century that compulsory free education was provided tomost children worldwide.[549][aa]
In China, theMaoist government implemented industrialization andcollectivization policies as part of theGreat Leap Forward (1958–1962), leading to thestarvation deaths (1959–1961) of 30–40 million people.[551] After these policies were rescinded, China entered a period ofeconomic liberalization and rapid growth, with the economy expanding by 6.6% per year from 1978 to 2003.[552]
Shanghai. China urbanized rapidly in the 21st century.
In the postwar decades, in a process ofdecolonization, theAfrican,Asian, andOceanian colonies of European empires won their formal independence.[553] Postcolonial states in Africa struggled to grow their economies, facing structural barriers such as reliance on the export ofcommodities rather than manufactured goods.[554] Sub-Saharan Africa was the world region hit hardest by theHIV/AIDS pandemic of the late 20th century.[555] Moreover, Africa experienced high levels of violence, as in theSecond Congo War (1998–2003), the deadliest conflict since World War II.[556]
The early 21st century was marked by growingeconomic globalization andintegration,[560] which brought both benefits and risks to interlinked economies, as exemplified by theGreat Recession of the late 2000s and early 2010s.[561] Communications expanded, withsmartphones andsocial media becoming ubiquitous worldwide by the mid-2010s. By the early 2020s,artificial intelligence systems improved to the point of outperforming humans at many circumscribed tasks.[562]
The influence of religion continued to decline in many Western countries, while some parts of the Muslim world saw the rise offundamentalist movements.[563] In 2020, theCOVID-19 pandemic substantially disrupted global trading, caused recessions in the global economy, and spurred culturalparadigm shifts.[564]
The study of human history has a long tradition and early precursors were already practiced in the ancient period as attempts to provide comprehensive accounts of the history of the world.[ab] Most research before the 20th century focused on histories of individual communities and societies after the prehistoric period. This changed in the late 20th century, when attempts to integrate the diverse narratives into a common context reaching back to the emergence of the first humans became a central research topic.[568] This transition to a widened perspective was accompanied by questioningEurocentrism and the Western-focused perspective that had previously dominated academic history.[569]
Like in other historical disciplines, themethodology of analyzing textual sources to construct narratives and interpretations of past events plays a central role in the study of human history. The scope of its topic poses the unique challenge of synthesizing a coherent and comprehensive narrative spanning different cultures, regions, and time periods while taking diverse individual perspectives into account. This is also reflected in itsinterdisciplinary approach by integrating insights from fields belonging to thehumanities and thesocial, biological, andphysical sciences, such as otherhistorical disciplines,archaeology,anthropology,linguistics,genetics,paleontology, andgeology. The interdisciplinary approach is of particular importance to the study of human history before the invention of writing.[570]
Periodization
To provide an accessible overview, historians divide human history into different periods organized around key themes, events, or developments that have shaped human societies over time. The number of periods and their time frames depend on the chosen topics, and the transitions between periods are often more fluid than static periodization schemes suggest.[571]
A traditionally influential periodization in European scholarship distinguishes between the ancient, medieval, and modern periods[572] organized around historical events responsible for major shifts in political, economic, and cultural structures to mark the transitions between the periods: first the fall of the Western Roman Empire and later the emergence of the Renaissance.[573] Another periodization divides human history into three periods based on the way humans engage with nature to produce goods. The first transition happened with the emergence of agriculture and husbandry to replace hunting and gathering as the main means of food production. The Industrial Revolution constitutes the second transition.[574]A further approach uses the relations between societies to divide the history of the world into the periods of Middle Eastern dominance before 500 BCE, Eurasian cultural balance until 1500 CE, and Western dominance afterwards.[575] The invention of writing is often used to demark prehistory from the ancient period while another approach divides early history based on the type of tools used in the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.[576] Historians focusing on religion and culture identify the Axial Age as a key turning point that laid the spiritual and philosophical foundations of many of the world's major civilizations. Some historians draw on elements from different approaches to arrive at a more nuanced periodization.[577]
References
Explanatory notes
^This date comes from the 2015 discovery of stone tools at theLomekwi site in Kenya.[3] Some paleontologists propose an earlier date of 3.39 million years ago based on bones found with butchery marks on them inDikika, Ethiopia,[4] while others dispute both the Dikika and Lomekwi findings.[5]
^the African variant is sometimes calledH. ergaster
^Or perhaps earlier; the 2018 discovery of stone tools from 2.1 million years ago inShangchen, China predates the earliest knownH. erectus fossils.[12]
^Some authors suggest a later date at around 200,000 years ago.[19]
^These dates come from a 2018 study of an upper jawbone fromMisliya Cave, Israel.[29] Researchers studying a fossil skull fromApidima Cave, Greece in 2019 proposed an earlier date of 210,000 years ago.[30] The Apidima Cave study has been challenged by other scholars.[31]
^Other scholars argue in favor of a northern dispersal of humans through Central Asia into China, or a multiple dispersal model with several different routes of migration.[33]
^This occurred during theAfrican humid period, when the Sahara was much wetter than it is today.[47]
^This is the traditional date for the founding of theXia dynasty and has not been confirmed by archaeology.[69] Chinese civilization had its origins in the earlierYangshao andLongshan cultures (4000–2000 BCE),[70] but theShang is the first dynasty that can be archeologically verified (1750 BCE).[71]
^Various forms ofproto-writing existed earlier but they did not constitute fully developed writing system.[85]
^TheVedas contain the earliest references to India'scaste system, which divided society into four hereditary classes: priests, warriors, farmers and traders, and laborers.[104]
^The exact dates are disputed and some periodizations use 1450 as the end point.[199]
^Goguryeo was calledTaebong at that time and eventually namedGoryeo.
^They traveled the open ocean in double-hulled canoes up to 37 metres (121 ft) long, each canoe carrying as many as 50 people and their livestock.[352]
^The time span varies depending on the type of history studied:literary studies can define it as short as about 1500–1700 while some general historians extend its span from 1300–1800.[366]
^Some scholars date the period later, to the 15th and 16th centuries.[391]
^The Chinese invented movable type centuries earlier, but it was better suited to the alphabetical writing systems of European languages.[399]
^They are known ashaijin in China andsakoku in Japan.
^One of the main factors responsible for this was the reduction ofinfant mortality.[545]
^The Aztec civilization is an exception, having established compulsory formal education for children as early as the 14th century.[548]
^According to one estimate, about 90% of the global population aged 15–64 was uneducated in 1870. This number had dropped to 10% by 2010.[550]
^Some historian use the termsworld history andglobal history to refer to all these attempts while others understand world history and global history in a more narrow sense as one among several competing approaches to study the development of the world on a global scale.[567]
Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 1, "Human beings evolved over several million years from primates in Africa."
Christian 2011, p. 150, "But it turned out that humans and chimps differed from each other only by about 10 percent as much as the differences between major groups of mammals, which suggested that they had diverged from each other approximately 5 to 7 million years ago."
Dunbar 2016, p. 8, "Conventionally, taxonomists now refer to the great ape family (including humans) ashominids, while all members of the lineage leading to modern humans that arose after the split with the [Homo-Pan] LCA are referred to ashominins. The older literature used the terms hominoids and hominids respectively."
Dunbar 2016, pp. 8, 10, "What has come to define our lineage – bipedalism – was adopted early on after we parted company with the chimpanzees, presumably in order to facilitate travel on the ground in more open habitats where large forest trees were less common....The australopithecines did not differ from the modern chimpanzees in terms of brain size."
Stutz 2018, pp. 1–9, "The Paleolithic era encompasses the bulk of the human archaeological record. Its onset is defined by the oldest known stone tools, now dated to 3.3 Ma, found at the Lomekwi site in Kenya."
^Strait 2010, p. 341, "However, Homo is almost certainly descended from an australopith ancestor, so at least one or some australopiths belong directly to the human lineage."
^Spoor et al. 2015, pp. 83–86, "The latter is morphologically more derived than OH 7 but 500,000 years older, suggesting that theH. habilis lineage originated before 2.3 million years ago, thus marking deep-rooted species diversity in the genusHomo."
^Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 5, "What most distinguishedHomo habilis from the australopithecines was a brain that was nearly 50 percent larger."
^Zhu et al. 2018, "Fourth, and most importantly, the oldest artefact age of approximately 2.12 Ma at Shangchen implies that hominins had left Africa before the date suggested by the earliest evidence from Dmanisi (about 1.85 Ma). This makes it necessary to reconsider the timing of initial dispersal of early hominins in the Old World."
Gowlett 2016, p. 20150164, "We know that burning evidence occurs on numbers of archaeological sites from about 1.5 Ma onwards (there is evidence of actual hearths from around 0.7 to 0.4 Ma); that more elaborate technologies existed from around half a million years ago, and that these came to employ adhesives that require preparation by fire."
Christian 2015, p. 316, "Dispersal over an unprecedented swath of the globe...coincided with an Ice Age that...spread ice in the northern hemisphere as far south as the present lower courses of the Missouri and Ohio rivers in North America and deep into what are now the British Isles. Ice covered what is today Scandinavia. Most of the rest of what is now Europe was tundra or taiga. In central Eurasia, tundra reached almost to the present latitudes of the Black Sea. Steppe licked the shores of the Mediterranean. In the New World, tundra and taiga extended to where Virginia is today."
^Christian 2015, p. 400, "In any case, by the end of the era of climatic fluctuation, humans occupied almost all the habitats their descendants occupy today, with the exception of relatively remote parts of the Pacific, accessible only by high-seas navigation and unsettled, as far as we know, for many millennia more."
^Barker & Goucher 2015, pp. 325, 336, "More recent improvements in archaeobotanical recovery have indicated that rice domestication was underway durin...the Hemudu cultural phase in the lower Yangtze valley...This points to a start of cultivation in this region of c. 10,000–9,000 years ago; in the middle Yangtze valley it could have begun someone earlier but may represent a parallel process to the lower Yangtze...it has been suggested on the basis of phytolith and starch residue evidence that broomcorn and foxtail millet were already in use in northern China prior to 7000 BCE. Nonetheless, the most abundant macrofossil evidence of broomcorn and foxtail millet is found in association with the early Neolithic sites post-7000 BCE."
^Barker & Goucher 2015, p. 518, "Arrowroot was the earliest domesticate [in Panama], dating to 7800 BC at the Cueva de los Vampiros site and 5800 BCE at Aguadulce...Plant domestication began before 8500 BCE in southwest coastal Ecuador. Squash phytoliths were recovered from terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene strata at Vegas sites. Phytoliths recovered from the earliest levels are from wild squash, with domesticated size squash phytoliths directly dated to 9840–8555 BCE."
Graeber & Wengrow 2021, "Seen this way, the 'origins of farming' start to look less like an economic transition and more like a media revolution, which was also a social revolution, encompassing everything from horticulture to architecture, mathematics to thermodynamics, and from religion to the remodelling of gender roles. And while we can't know exactly who was doing what in this brave new world, it's abundantly clear that women's work and knowledge were central to its creation; that the whole process was a fairly leisurely, even playful one, not forced by any environmental catastrophe or demographic tipping point and unmarked by major violent conflict. What's more, it was all carried out in ways that made radical inequality an extremely unlikely outcome"
^Lewin 2009, p. 247, "The date of 12,000 years before present (BP) is usually given as the beginning of what has been called the Agricultural (or Neolithic) Revolution...The tremendous changes wrought during the Neolithic can be seen as a prelude to the emergence of cities and city states and, of course, to a further rise in population."
^Graeber & Wengrow 2021, p. 362, "There is no doubt that, in most of the areas that saw the rise of cities, powerful kingdoms and empires also eventually emerged."
Kulke & Rothermund 1990, pp. 61, 71, "At any rate Chandragupta seems to have usurped the throne of Magadha in 320 BC...the last ruler of the Maurya dynasty, Brihadratha, was assassinated by his general, Pushyamitra Shunga, during a parade of his troops in the year 185 BC."
^Benjamin 2015, p. 134, "But the impression that no significant technological advances occurred in ancient civilization is misleading. In fact, between the 8th century BCE and the 5th century CE, the Mediterranean world witnessed a series of innovations that would influence the development of civilization."
^Headrick 2009, p. 59, "Toe stirrups were known in India in the second century BCE, and foot stirrups appeared in northern Afghanistan in the first century CE."
^Kent 2020, p. 6, "Ancient societies ruled themselves according to a system known as patriarchy, or the rule of the father, in which male heads of households and states claimed nearly absolute power over women."
^Hourani 1991, pp. 5, 11, "In the early seventh century a religious movement appeared on the margins of the great empires, those of the Byzantines and Sasanians, which dominated the western half of the world....The Byzantine and Sasanian empires were engaged in long wars, which lasted with intervals from 540 to 629."
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^Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 355, "Despite the political infighting and progressively unstable political situation, Shah Rukh in Herat and Ulugh Beg in Samarkand fostered a cultural and artistic renaissance in the Timurid domains."
Hayas 1953, p. 2, "...that certain distinctive features of our Western civilization—the civilization of western Europe and of America—have been shaped chiefly by Judaeo–Christianity, Catholic and Protestant."
Woods & Canizares 2012, p. 1, "Western civilization owes far more to Catholic Church than most people—Catholic included—often realize. The Church in fact built Western civilization."
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^Benjamin 2015, p. 426, "After China was reunified in 589 by the Sui dynasty (581–618) and suddenly became a looming regional superpower, Silla began exploring even more active ties with China."
Evans et al. 2007, p. 14279, "The 'boundary' of the urban complex of Angkor, as it can be loosely defined from the infrastructural network, encloses ~900–1,000 km2 compared with the ~100–150 km2 of Tikal, the next largest preindustrial low-density city for which we have an overall survey. Mirador, a Pre-Classic Maya urban complex, and Calakmul, a Classic site near Tikal, may be more extensive, but as yet we do not have comprehensive overall surveys for these sites; it is nonetheless clear that no site in the Maya world approaches Angkor in terms of extent."
^Coedès 1968, p. 225, "However that may be, various texts agree that the solemn coronation of Fa Ngum, which marks the founding of the kingdom of Lan Chang, took place in 1353; this date has most probably been transmitted correctly."
^Lieberman 2003, p. 125, "In the heart of the dry zone, near the juncture of the Irrawaddy with the famed granary of Kyaukse, Ava was founded in 1365."
Ricklefs 2001, p. 4, "The first evidence of Indonesian Muslims concerns the northern part of Sumatra. In the graveyard of Lamreh is found the gravestone of Sultan Suleiman bin Abdullah bin al-Basir, who died in AH 608/AD 1211. This is the first evidence of the existence of an Islamic kingdom in Indonesia."
Flenley & Bahn 2003, p. 109, "From the islanders' testimony and other Polynesian ethnography it is virtually certain that the statues represented high-ranking ancestors, often served as their funerary monument, and kept their memory alive–like the simple upright slabs in front of platforms in the Society Islands, which represented clan ancestors, or the statues dominating the terraces of sanctuaries in the Marquesas, which were famous old chiefs or priests."
^Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 192, "The Italian city-states developed business procedures that have been described as early capitalism, although this was already business as usual in Asian port-cities such as Cambay, Calicut and Zayton."
^Christian 2011, p. 383, "Because such crops flourished where more familiar staples grew less well, American crops effectively increased the area under cultivation and thereby made possible population growth in many parts of Afro-Eurasia from the 16th century onward."
^Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 469, "Having determined to build a distinctive Iranian, Shi'a identity for their empire, the Safavids forced the conversion of all Muslims in their territory to Shi'ism."
^Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 456, "In the Middle East, Central Asia and India, the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires adopted firearms so enthusiastically that they are often referred to as 'gunpowder empires.'"
^Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 626, "In the region of the Caucasus Mountains, the third area of southward expansion, Russia first took over Christian Georgia (1786), Muslim Azerbaijan (1801), and Christian Armenia (1813) before gobbling up the many small principalities in the heart of the mountains."
^Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 358, "Political and military instability, succession disputes and conflicts with the Türkmen and Uzbeks vitiated these remarkable economic achievements, weakening the Timurids and making them vulnerable to the previously nomadic Uzbeks, who became the dominant force in Central Asia from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century."
^Carter & Butt 2005, p. 4, "Historians of different kinds will often make some choice between a long Renaissance (say, 1300–1600), a short one (1453–1527), or somewhere in between (the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as is commonly adopted in music histories)."
Keay 2000, pp. 410–411, 420, "This brought the British into potential conflict with Ranjit Singh, a young Sikh leader who had been prominent in repulsing Afghan attacks by Ahmed Shah Abdali's successors and who, since occupying Lahore in 1799, had been pursuing a policy of conquest and alliance that mirrored that of the British...over the next 30 years the Raja of Lahore, comparatively free of British interference, would blossom into the Maharaja of the Panjab, creator of the most formidable non-colonial state in India...Ranjit had by 1830 created a kingdom, nay an 'empire', rated by one visitor 'the most wonderful object in the whole world'."
^Yoffee 2015, p. 74, "When the Portuguese admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque conquered the sultanate of Melaka (Malacca) on August 24, 1511, he brought under Portuguese control a Southeast Asian polity whose reach stretched across the Malay peninsula."
McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 430, "That said, and ever since the initial Eastern seaboard settler wars against the Tsenacommacahs and Pequots in the 1620s and early 1630s, systematic genocidal massacre was a core component of native destruction throughout three centuries of largely 'Anglo' expansion across continental North America."
Blackhawk et al. 2023, p. 38, "With these works, a near consensus emerged. By most scholarly definitions and consistent with the UN Convention, these scholars all asserted that genocide against at least some Indigenous peoples had occurred in North America following colonisation, perpetuated first by colonial empires and then by independent nation-states"
Kiernan, Lemos & Taylor 2023, p. 622, "These mass killings represent turning points in the history of the Spanish Atlantic conquest and share important characteristics. Each targeted Amerindian communities. Each was entirely or partially planned and executed by European actors, namely Spanish military entrepreneurs under the leadership of friar Nicolás de Ovando, Hernán Cortés and Pedro de Alvarado respectively. Each event can be described as a 'genocidal massacre' targeting a specific community because of its membership of a larger group"
Wheeler 1971, p. 441, "This view overlooks the fact that, in the forty years since Shelikhov had founded the first permanent settlement on Kodiak Island in 1784, only eight additional settlements had been established, none of which was south of 57° north latitude."
^Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 562, "Manchester's rise as a large, industrial city was a result of what historians call the Industrial Revolution, the most profound transformation in human life since the beginnings of agriculture."
^Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 563, "The first countries to industrialize grew rich and powerful, facilitating a second great wave of European imperialism in the 19th century."
^Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 206, "The half-century preceding the outbreak of World War I stands out as an era of European economic, political, and cultural dominance never achieved before and impossible to sustain at the end of the war."
^McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, pp. 507–508, "Indeed, Japan's China war between 1931 and 1945 exacted the heaviest toll in lives of all colonial wars – between 10 and 30 million Chinese deaths being the best estimates available in the absence of official or authoritative statistics."
^Christian 2011, pp. 456–457, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was, as Mikhail Gorbachev understood, a failure to compete economically and technologically."
McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 609, "But the crisis beginning in 2007, with the eddying effects of the subprime lending-induced financial crash, demonstrated how vital the health of the American economy remained for global growth and stability. Events and processes outside the United States continued to affect the internal politics and economics, and vice versa. The United States and the rest of the world were interconnected, and disengagement was impossible."
Kolbert 2023, "[T]he world's phosphorus problem [arising from the element's exorbitant use in agriculture] resembles its carbon-dioxide problem, its plastics problem, its groundwater-use problem, its soil-erosion problem, and its nitrogen problem. The path humanity is on may lead to ruin, but, as of yet, no one has found a workable way back."
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