7th millennium BC

Updated on Dec 05, 2023

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During the 7th millennium BC, agriculture spreads from Anatolia to the Balkans.

World population was essentially stable at around 5 million people living, mostly scattered around the globe in small hunter-gatherer bands. In the agricultural communities of the Middle East, the cow was domesticated and use of pottery became common, spreading to Europe and South Asia, and the first metal (gold and copper) ornaments were made.

Cultures

c. 7000 BC: Beginning of the Peiligang culture in China

c. 7000 BC: Agriculture and neolithic settlement at Mehrgarh, in current-day Baluchistan, Pakistan

c. 7000 BC: Agriculture among the Papuan peoples of New Guinea

c. 7000 BC – 6000 BC: Elam

c. 7000 BC: Elam becomes farming region

c. 7000 BC – 6000 BC: Figure from Ain Ghazal, Jordan, was made; it is now in the National Museum, Amman

c. 6850 BC – 4800 BC: Advanced agriculture and a very early use of pottery by the Sesclo culture in Thessaly, Greece

c. 6800 BC – 4800 BC: The earliest domesticated pigs in Europe, which many archaeologists believed to be descended from European wild boar, were introduced from the Middle East by Stone Age farmers

c. 6500 BC: Paleolithic period ended; Neolithic period started in China

c. 6500 BC: Beginning of the Houli culture in China

c. 6500 BC – 5500 BC: Çatalhöyük, Turkey; Inhabitants traded obsidian; c. 5000 inhabitants

c. 6400 BC: Cardium Pottery begins its move to west along the northern Mediterranean coast, beginning at Seskio, Thessaly

c. 6400 BC: Yarmukian Culture begins at Sha'ar HaGolan, Israel

c. 6200 BC: Firm date of move of the first farmers from Turkey across the Aegean Sea and up the Danube into Romania and Serbia

c. 6200 BC: Beginning of the Xinglongwa culture in China

c. 6100 BC: Beginning of Halaf culture, south-eastern Turkey, Syria, and northern Iraq

c. 6000 BC: Beginning of the Cishan culture in China

c. 6000 BC: First traces of habitation of the Svarthola cave in Norway

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

c. 7000 BC: Mesolithic site Lepenski Vir emerges in today's Serbia

c. 7000 BC: Earliest pottery in Ancient Near East

c. 7000 BC: Elam became farming region

c. 7000 BC: Chinese domestication of rice, millet, soy beans, and yams (1990 Rand McNally Atlas)

c. 7000 BC: Red pepper, bottle gourd, avocados, and squash cultivated on Pacific coast of Guatemala (Bailey 1973)

c. 7000 BC – 6000 BC: The transition to farming begins in Mesoamerica

c. 7000 BC: Neolithic economy was established on the island of Crete (domesticated sheep or goats, pigs and cattle together with grains of cultivated bread wheat)

c. 7000 BC Sweden: Large-scale fish processing operation established at Blekinge

c. 6500 BC: Naalebinding, a form of knitting, used in Judean Desert (modern day Israel)

c. 6500 BC: Two breeds of non-wolf dogs in Scandinavia; domestic hogs in Jarmo and cattle in Turkey

c. 6200 BC: Mural painting or map from Çatalhöyük, an early civilized city that prospered by trading obsidian, Anatolia—modern Turkey

6000 BC: Ban Po settlement in China

Agriculture appears around in the Balkans, see Old European Culture

Beekeeping is first recorded; rock paintings on cave walls in Africa and eastern Spain show people gathering honey from trees or rock crevices while bees fly around them—cave drawings in Spain, near Valencia

Middle East: Domestication of the cow

Archaic pottery making, burial mound construction, and garden technology (North America)

North America: Indigenous peoples of the Americas begin using stone to grind food and to hunt American Bison and smaller animals

North America: Deciduous plants make their appearance on Long Island

Mexico—Incipient agriculture begins (North America)

Peru, Guitarrero Cave, plant fibers are twisted, knotted, and looped into baskets, mats (South America)

Eastern Mediterranean, forms of pottery become decoration

Animal figures of Estuarine-period rock painting in Australia include saltwater fish and crocodiles

Environmental changes

c. 7000 BC: Wild horse populations drop in mainland Europe; horse disappears from the island of Great Britain, but was never found in Ireland (Horse & Man, Clutton-Brock) Extinction probably caused by climatic shift, leading to excessively rich spring feed and mass lameness from founder, making them easy prey (Bolich & Ingraham)

c. 7000 BC: English Channel formed

c. 7000 BC: Neolithic Subpluvial begins in northern Africa

c. 6600 BC; Great Thjórsá Lava Field in Iceland SW of Vatnajökull forms covering 900 km² of land

6440±25 BC: Kurile volcano on Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula has VEI 7 eruption, one of the largest of the Holocene epoch

6250 BC: Eruptions occur in the Indian Heaven Volcanic field in central Washington State

c. 6200 BC: The 8.2 kiloyear event was a sharp decrease in global temperatures that lasted for 200–400 years, possibly caused by an influx of glacial meltwater into the North Atlantic Ocean

c. 6100 BC: The Storegga Slide, causing a megatsunami in the Norwegian Sea

c. 6000 BC: Rising sea levels form the Torres Strait, separating Australia from New Guinea

c. 6000 BC: Between 12,000 BC and 5000 BC it appears that massive inland flooding was taking place in several regions of the world, making for subsequent sea level rises which could be relatively abrupt in many places worldwide

References

7th millennium BC Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

Contents

Cultures

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

Environmental changes

References