During the
early modern period, spanning from 1500 to 1800 CE,
European powers explored and
colonized regions worldwide, intensifying cultural and economic exchange. This era saw substantial intellectual, cultural, and technological advances driven by the
Renaissance, the
Scientific Revolution, and the
Enlightenment. By the 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology had reached a
critical mass that brought about the
Industrial Revolution and began the
late modern period starting around 1800 CE. The growth in productive power further increased
international trade and
colonization, linking the different civilizations in the process of
globalization. Over the last quarter-millennium, despite the devastating effects of two
world wars, there has been a great acceleration in the rates of growth of many domains, including
human population, agriculture, industry, commerce, scientific knowledge, technology, communications, military capabilities, and
environmental degradation.
Humans evolved in Africa from
great apes through the lineage of
hominins, which arose 7–5 million years ago.[2] The
ability to walk on two legs emerged after the split from
chimpanzees in early hominins, such as Australopithecus, as an adaptation possibly associated with a shift from forest to savanna habitats.[3] Hominins began to use rudimentary stone tools
c. 3.3 million years ago,[a] marking the advent of the
Paleolithic era.[7]
The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus.[8] The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen
LD 350-1 from Ethiopia,[9] and the earliest named species is Homo habilis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago.[10] The most important difference between Homo habilis and Australopithecus was a 50% increase in brain size.[11]H. erectus[b] evolved by 2 million years ago[12][c] and was the first hominin species to
leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia.[14] Perhaps as early as 1.5 million years ago, but certainly by 250,000 years ago, hominins
began to use fire for heat and cooking.[15]
Beginning about 500,000 years ago, Homo diversified into many new species of
archaic humans such as the
Neanderthals in Europe, the
Denisovans in
Siberia, and the diminutive H. floresiensis in
Indonesia.[16] Human evolution was not a simple linear or branched progression but involved
interbreeding between related species.[17] Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution.[18]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 their
genome to present-day non-sub-Saharan African humans.[19]
Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago[d] from the species Homo heidelbergensis.[e][21] Humans continued to develop over the succeeding millennia, and by 100,000 years ago, were using jewelry and
ocher to adorn the body.[22] By 50,000 years ago, they buried their dead, used projectile weapons, and engaged in seafaring.[23] One of the most important changes (the date of which is unknown) was the
development of syntactic language, which dramatically improved the human ability to communicate.[24] Signs of early artistic expression can be found in the form of
cave paintings and sculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, implying a form of spirituality generally interpreted as
animism[25] or
shamanism.[26] The earliest known musical instruments besides the human voice are
bone flutes from the
Swabian Jura in Germany, dated around 40,000 years old.[27] Paleolithic humans lived as
hunter-gatherers and were generally
nomadic.[28]
The migration of anatomically modern humans
out of Africa took place in multiple waves beginning 194,000–177,000 years ago.[29][f] The
dominant 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.[33][g] They rely on evidence that humans may have reached China H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in
Australia 65,000 years ago,[35]Europe 45,000 years ago,[36] and the
Americas 21,000 years ago.[37] These migrations occurred during the
most recent Ice Age, when various temperate regions of today were inhospitable.[38] Nevertheless, by the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, humans had colonized nearly all ice-free parts of the globe.[39] Human expansion coincided with both the
Quaternary extinction event and the
Neanderthal extinction.[40] These extinctions were probably caused by climate change, human activity, or a combination of the two.[41]
Beginning around 10,000 BCE, the
Neolithic Revolution marked the development of
agriculture, which fundamentally changed the human lifestyle.[42] Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe,[43] and included a diverse range of
taxa, in at least 11 separate
centers of origin.[44]Cereal crop cultivation and
animal domestication had occurred in
Mesopotamia by at least 8500 BCE in the form of wheat,
barley, sheep, and goats.[45] The
Yangtze River Valley in China domesticated rice around 8000 BCE; the
Yellow River Valley may have cultivated
millet by 7000 BCE.[46] Pigs were the most important domesticated animal in early China.[47] People in Africa's
Sahara cultivated
sorghum and several other crops between 8000 and 5000 BCE,[h] while other agricultural centers arose in the
Ethiopian Highlands and the West African rainforests.[49] In the
Indus River Valley, crops were cultivated by 7000 BCE and cattle were domesticated by 6500 BCE.[50] In the Americas,
squash was cultivated by at least 8500 BCE in South America, and domesticated
arrowroot appeared in Central America by 7800 BCE.[51] Potatoes were first cultivated in the
Andes of South America, where the
llama was also domesticated.[52] It is likely that women played a central role in plant domestication throughout these developments.[53]
Various explanations of the causes of the Neolithic Revolution have been proposed.[54] 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.[55] Further suggested factors include climate change, resource scarcity, and ideology.[56] The transition to agriculture created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production,[57] permitting far denser populations and the creation of the first cities and
states.[58]
Cities were centers of
trade,
manufacturing, and
political power.[59] They developed mutually beneficial relationships with their surrounding
countrysides, receiving agricultural products and providing manufactured goods and varying degrees of political control in return.[60] Early
proto-cities appeared at
Çatalhöyük and
Jericho, possibly as early as the 10th and 9th millenia BCE.[61][i]Pastoral societies based on nomadic animal herding also developed, mostly in dry areas unsuited for plant cultivation such as the
Eurasian Steppe or the African
Sahel.[63] Conflict between nomadic herders and
sedentary agriculturalists was frequent and became a recurring theme in world history.[64] Neolithic societies usually worshiped ancestors, sacred places, or
anthropomorphicdeities.[65] The vast complex of
Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, dated 9500–8000 BCE,[66] is an example of a Neolithic religious or civic site.[67]
Metalworking was first used in the creation of copper tools and ornaments around 6400 BCE.[68] Gold and silver soon followed, primarily for use in ornaments.[69] The first signs of
bronze, an alloy of copper and
tin, date to around 4500 BCE,[70] but the alloy did not become widely used until the third millennium BCE.[71]
These societies developed a number of shared characteristics, including a central government, a complex economy and social structure, systems for keeping records, and distinct cultures and religions.[80] These cultures variously invented the wheel,[81] mathematics,[82] bronze-working,[83] sailing boats,[84] the
potter's wheel,[85]woven cloth,[86] construction of monumental buildings,[87] and writing.[88]Polytheistic religions developed, centered on temples where
priests and priestesses performed
sacrificial rites.[89]
Writing facilitated the administration of cities, the expression of ideas, and the preservation of information.[90] It may have independently developed in at least four ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (3300 BCE),[91] Egypt (around 3250 BCE),[92] China (1200 BCE),[93] and lowland
Mesoamerica (by 650 BCE).[94] The earliest system of writing[k] was the Mesopotamian
cuneiform script, which began as a system of
pictographs, whose pictorial representations eventually became simplified and more abstract.[96][l] Other influential early writing systems include
Egyptian hieroglyphs and the
Indus script.[98] In China, writing was first used during the
Shang dynasty (1766–1045 BCE).[99]
Transport was facilitated by waterways, including rivers and seas, which fostered the projection of military power and the exchange of goods, ideas, and inventions.[100] This era also saw new land technologies, such as horse-based
cavalry and
chariots, that allowed
armies to move faster.[101] Trade became increasingly important as urban societies exchanged manufactured goods for raw materials from distant lands, creating vast commercial networks and the beginnings of
archaic globalization.[102] Bronze production in Southwest Asia, for example, required the import of tin from as far away as England.[103]
The growth of cities was often followed by the establishment of states and empires.[104] Mesopotamian history was characterized by frequent wars between city-states as
hegemony shifted from one city to another.[105] In the 25th–21st centuries BCE, the empires of
Akkad and the
Neo-Sumerians arose in this area.[106] In Egypt, the initial division into
Upper and Lower Egypt was followed by the unification of the whole valley around 3100 BCE.[107] Around 2600 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization built major cities at
Harappa and
Mohenjo-daro.[108] In Crete, the
Minoan civilization emerged by 2000 BCE and is regarded as the first civilization in Europe.[109]
Over the following millennia, civilizations developed across the world.[110] By 1600 BCE,
Mycenaean Greece began to develop.[111] It flourished until the
Late Bronze Age collapse that affected many Mediterranean civilizations between 1300 and 1000 BCE.[112] In India, this era was the
Vedic period (1750–600 BCE), which laid the foundations of
Hinduism and other cultural aspects of early Indian society.[113][m] From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the
Mahajanapadas were established across the subcontinent.[115]
In the Americas, the
Norte Chico culture emerged in coastal
Peru around 3100 BCE.[119] The Norte Chico built public monumental architecture at the city of
Caral, dated 2627–1977 BCE.[120] The later
Chavín polity is sometimes described as the first
Andean state.[121] It centered on the religious site at
Chavín de Huantar, a place of pilgrimage and consumption of
psychoactive substances.[122] Other important Andean cultures include the
Moche, whose ceramics depict many aspects of daily life, and the
Nazca, who created animal-shaped designs in the desert called
Nazca lines.[123] The
Olmecs of Mesoamerica developed by about 1200 BCE[124] and are known for the
colossal stone heads that they carved from
basalt.[125] They also devised the
Mesoamerican calendar that was used by later cultures such as the
Maya and
Teotihuacan.[126] Societies in North America were primarily egalitarian hunter-gatherers, supplementing their diet with the plants of the
Eastern Agricultural Complex.[127] They built earthworks such as
Watson Brake (4000 BCE) and
Poverty Point (3600 BCE), both in Louisiana.[128]
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 with
Taoism and
Legalism.[138] The Confucian tradition, which would become particularly influential, looked for
political morality not to the force of law but to the power and example of tradition.[139] Confucianism would later spread to
Korea and Japan.[140] Buddhism reached China during the Han dynasty and spread widely, with 30,000 Buddhist temples in northern China alone by the 7th century CE.[141] Buddhism became the main religion in much of South, Southeast, and East Asia.[142] The Greek philosophical tradition[143] diffused throughout the Mediterranean world and as far as India, starting in the 4th century BCE after the conquests of
Alexander the Great of
Macedon.[144] Both
Christianity and
Islam developed from the beliefs of
Judaism.[145]
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.[146]International trade also expanded, most notably the massive trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea, the
maritime trade web in the Indian Ocean, and the
Silk Road.[147]
There were a number of regional empires during this period. The kingdom of the
Medes helped to destroy the
Assyrian Empire in tandem with the nomadic
Scythians and the
Babylonians.[148]Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was sacked by the Medes in 612 BCE.[149] The Median Empire gave way to successive
Iranian states, including the Achaemenid (550–330 BCE),[150]Parthian (247 BCE–224 CE),[151] and
Sasanian Empires (224–651 CE).[152]
Several empires began in modern-day
Greece. In the late 5th century BCE, several Greek
city states checked the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the
Greco-Persian Wars, considered a pivotal moment in world history. It was followed by the
Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of
Western civilization, including the
first theatrical performances.[153] The wars led to the creation of the
Delian League, founded in 477 BCE,[154] and eventually the
Athenian Empire (454–404 BCE), which was defeated by a Spartan-led coalition during the
Peloponnesian War.[155]Philip of Macedon unified the Greek city-states into the
Hellenic League and his son Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) founded an empire extending from present-day Greece to India.[156] The empire divided into several
successor 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 as
Hellenization.[157] The
Hellenistic period lasted from the death of Alexander in 323 BCE to 31 BCE when
Ptolemaic Egypt fell to Rome.[158]
In South Asia,
Chandragupta Maurya founded the
Maurya Empire (320–185 BCE), which flourished under
Ashoka the Great.[159] From the 4th to 6th centuries CE, the
Gupta Empire oversaw the period referred to as ancient India's golden age.[160] 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.[161] In
South India, three prominent
Dravidian kingdoms emerged: the
Cheras,
Cholas, and
Pandyas.[162]
In Europe, the
Roman Republic was founded in the 6th century BCE[163] and began expanding its territory in the 3rd century BCE.[164] The Republic became
an empire and by the time of
Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), it had established dominion over most of the Mediterranean Sea.[165] The empire continued to grow and reached its peak under
Trajan (53–117 CE), controlling much of the land from England to Mesopotamia.[166] The two centuries that followed are known as the Pax Romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe.[167] Christianity was
legalized by
Constantine I in 313 CE after three centuries of
imperial persecution. It became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 CE while the emperor
Theodosius outlawed pagan religions in 391–392 CE.[168]
In China,
Qin Shi Huang put an end to the chaotic
Warring States period by uniting all of China under the
Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE).[169] 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.[170] The harshness of the Qin dynasty led to rebellions and the dynasty's fall.[171] It was followed by the
Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), which combined the Legalist bureacratic system with Confucian ideals.[172] The Han dynasty was comparable in power and influence to the Roman Empire that lay at the other end of the Silk Road.[173] As economic prosperity fueled their military expansion, the Han conquered parts of Mongolia, Central Asia,
Manchuria, Korea, and northern Vietnam.[174] As with other empires during the classical period, Han China advanced significantly in the areas of government, education, science, and technology.[175] The Han invented the
compass, one of the
Four Great Inventions of ancient China.[176]
In Africa, the
Kingdom of Kush prospered through its interactions with both Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa.[177] It ruled Egypt as the
Twenty-fifth Dynasty from 712 to 650 BCE, then continued as an agricultural and trading state based in the city of
Meroë until the fourth century CE.[178] The
Kingdom of Aksum, centered in present-day Ethiopia, established itself by the 1st century CE as a major trading empire, dominating its neighbors in
South Arabia and Kush and controlling the
Red Sea trade.[179] It minted its own currency and carved enormous monolithic
stelae to mark its emperors' graves.[180]
Successful regional empires were also established in the Americas, arising from cultures established as early as 2500 BCE.[181] In Mesoamerica, vast
pre-Columbian societies were built, the most notable being the
Zapotec civilization (700 BCE–1521 CE),[182] and the Maya civilization, which reached its highest state of development during the Mesoamerican classic period (c. 250–900 CE),[183] but continued throughout the post-classic period.[184] The great Maya
city-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout the
Yucatán and surrounding areas.[185] The Maya developed
a writing system and used the concept of zero in their mathematics.[186] West of the Maya area, in central Mexico, the city of Teotihuacan prospered due to its control of the
obsidian trade.[187] Its power peaked around 450 CE, when its 125,000–150,000 inhabitants made it one of the world's largest cities.[188]
The ancient empires faced common problems associated with maintaining huge armies and supporting a central
bureaucracy.[189] In Rome and Han China, the state began to decline, and
barbarian pressure on the frontiers hastened internal dissolution.[190] The Han dynasty fell into civil war in 220 CE, beginning the
Three Kingdoms period, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralized and divided about the same time in what is known as the
Crisis 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 of
horse archers made the nomads a constant threat to sedentary civilizations.[193]
In China,
dynasties rose and fell, but, in sharp contrast to the Mediterranean-European world, political unity was always eventually restored.[197] After the fall of the
Eastern Han dynasty and the demise of the Three Kingdoms, nomadic tribes from the north began to invade, causing many Chinese people to flee southward.[198] The
Sui dynasty successfully reunified China in 589[199] and laid the foundations for a
golden age under the
Tang dynasty (618–907),[200] during which political stability and economic prosperity were accompanied by literary and artistic accomplishment, like the
poetry of
Li Bai and
Du Fu.[201]
Technology developed sporadically in the ancient world.[202] There were periods of rapid
technological progress, such as the Greco-Roman era in the Mediterranean region.[203]Greek science,
technology, and
mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period, typified by devices such as the
Antikythera mechanism.[204] There were also periods of technological decay, such as the Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuing early medieval period.[205] Two of the most important innovations were paper (China, 1st and 2nd centuries CE)[206] and the
stirrup (India, 2nd century BCE and Central Asia, 1st century CE),[207] both of which diffused widely throughout the world. The Chinese learned to make silk and built massive engineering projects such as the
Great Wall of China and the
Grand Canal.[208] The Romans were also accomplished builders, inventing
concrete, perfecting the use of
arches in construction, and creating
aqueducts to transport water over long distances to urban centers.[209]
Most ancient societies practiced
slavery,[210] which was particularly prevalent in
Athens and
Rome, where slaves made up a large proportion of the population and were foundational to the economy.[211]Patriarchy was also common, with men controlling more political and economic power than women.[212]
The post-classical period, dated from 500 to 1500 CE, was characterized by the rise and spread of major religions while civilization expanded to new parts of the world and trade between societies intensified.[213]
From the 10th to 13th centuries, the
Medieval Warm Period in the northern hemisphere aided agriculture and led to population growth in parts of Europe and Asia.[214] It was followed by the
Little Ice Age, which, along with the plagues of the 14th century, put downward pressure on the population of Eurasia.[215] Two of the major inventions of the period were
gunpowder and printing, which both originated in China.[216]
In West Africa, the
Mali and
Songhai Empires rose.[219] 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 the
Swahili culture.[220]
China experienced the relatively successive Sui, Tang,
Song,
Yuan, and early
Ming dynasties.[221] Middle Eastern trade routes along the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through the
Gobi Desert, provided limited economic and cultural contact between Asian and European civilizations.[222] During the same period, civilizations in the Americas, such as the
Mississippians,[223]Aztecs,[224] Maya,[225] and
Inca reached their zenith.[226]
Before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the Middle East was dominated by the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) and Sasanian (Persian) Empires, which frequently fought each other for control of several disputed regions.[227] This was also a cultural battle, with Byzantine
Christian culture competing against Persian Zoroastrian traditions.[228] The
birth of Islam created a new contender that quickly surpassed both of these empires.[229] The new religion greatly affected the history of the
Old World, especially the Middle East.[230]
From their center in the
Arabian Peninsula, Muslims began their expansion during the 7th century.[231] By 750 CE, they came to conquer most of the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Europe,[232] ushering in the Islamic Golden Age, an era of learning, science, and invention during which
philosophy,
art, and
literature flourished.[233][n] Scholars preserved and synthesized knowledge and skills of ancient Greece and Persia[235] the manufacture of paper from China[236] and the
decimal positional numbering system from India.[237] At the same time, they made significant original contributions in various fields, such as
Al-Khwarizmi's development of
algebra and
Avicenna's comprehensive philosophical system.[238] Islamic civilization expanded both by conquest and based on its merchant economy.[239] Merchants brought goods and their Islamic faith to
China,
India,
Southeast Asia, and
Africa.[240]
The
crusading movement was a religiously motivated European effort to roll back Muslim territory and regain control of the
Holy Land.[241] It was ultimately unsuccessful and served more to weaken the Byzantine Empire, especially with the
sack of Constantinople in 1204.[242] Arab domination of the region ended in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the
Seljuk Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands.[243] In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the
Mongols, swept through the region but were eventually eclipsed by the Turks and the founding of the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey around 1299.[244]
The
Caucasus was fought over in a
series 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.[245] The Seljuk Turks later subjugated
Armenia and
Georgia in the 11th century. The Mongols subsequently invaded the Caucasus in the 13th century.[246]
Central Asia faced incursions from both the Arabs and the Chinese. China expanded into Central Asia during the Sui dynasty (581–618).[247] They were confronted by
Turkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in Central Asia.[248] Originally the relationship was largely cooperative but in 630, the Tang dynasty began an offensive against the Turks by capturing areas of the
Ordos Desert.[249] 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.[250] The desert nomads of Arabia could militarily match the nomads of the steppe, and the
Umayyad Caliphate gained control over parts of Central Asia.[251] The
Hephthalites were the most powerful of the nomad groups in the 5th and 6th centuries, and controlled much of the region.[252] From the 9th to 13th centuries, the region was divided among several powerful states, including the
Samanid,[253]Seljuk,[254] and
Khwarazmian Empires. In 1370,
Timur, a Turkic leader in the Mongol military tradition, conquered most of the region and founded the
Timurid Empire.[255] Timur's large empire collapsed soon after his death,[256] but his descendants retained control of a core area in Central Asia and Iran.[257] They oversaw the
Timurid Renaissance of art and architecture.[258]
Since at least the 4th century, Christianity has played a
prominent role in the
shaping of Western civilization, primarily through Catholicism and later also
Protestantism.[259] Europe during the
Early Middle Ages was characterized by depopulation,
deurbanization, and barbarian invasions, all of which had begun in
late antiquity.[260] The barbarian invaders formed their own new kingdoms in the remains of the Western Roman Empire.[261] Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, most of the new kingdoms incorporated existing Roman institutions.[262] Christianity expanded in Western Europe, and monasteries were founded.[263] In the 7th and 8th centuries, the
Franks under the
Carolingian dynasty established an empire covering much of Western Europe;[264] it lasted until the 9th century, when it succumbed to pressure from new invaders—the
Vikings,
Magyars, and Arabs.[265] During the Carolingian era, churches developed a form of musical notation called
neume which became the basis for the modern notation system.[266]Kievan Rus' expanded from its capital in
Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988,
Vladimir the Great adopted
Orthodox Christianity as the state religion.[267]
During the
High 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.[268] The establishment of the
feudal system affected the structure of medieval society. It included
manorialism, the organization of peasants into villages that owed rents and labor service to nobles, and
vassalage, a political structure whereby
knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rents from lands and manors.[269] Kingdoms became more centralized after the decentralizing effects of the breakup of the
Carolingian Empire.[270] In 1054, the
Great Schism between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches led to the prominent cultural differences between Western and Eastern Europe.[271] The
Crusades 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 some
Crusader states in the
Levant.[272] Italian merchants imported slaves to work in households or in sugar processing.[273] Intellectual life was marked by
scholasticism and the founding of universities, while the building of
Gothic cathedrals and churches was one of the outstanding artistic achievements of the age.[274] The Middle Ages witnessed the first sustained
urbanization of Northern and Western Europe and lasted until the beginning of the
early modern period in the 16th century.[275]
The
Mongols reached Europe in 1236 and
conquered Kievan Rus', along with briefly
invadingPolandandHungary.[276]Lithuania cooperated with the Mongols but remained independent and in the late 14th century formed a
personal union with Poland.[277] The
Late Middle Ages were marked by difficulties and calamities.[278] Famine, plague, and war devastated the population of Western Europe.[279] The
Black Death alone killed approximately 75 to 200 million people between 1347 and 1350.[280] 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,[281] and killed tens of millions of Europeans in six years; between a quarter and a third of the population perished.[282]
Medieval Africa was home to many different civilizations. North Africa saw the rise of polities established by the
Berbers, such as the
Marinid Sultanate in Morocco, the
Zayyanid Kingdom in Algeria, and the
Hafsid dynasty in Tunisia.[283] The coastal region was known to Europeans as the
Barbary Coast. Pirates based in North African ports conducted operations that included capturing merchant ships and raiding coastal settlements.[284] Thousands of European captives were sold in North African markets that were part of the
Barbary slave trade.[285]
In the
Horn of Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum declined in the 7th century.[286] The
Zagwe dynasty that later emerged was famed for its rock cut architecture at
Lalibela.[287] It fell to the
Solomonic dynasty who claimed descent from the Aksumite emperors[288] and ruled the country well into the 20th century.[289]
In the West African Sahel region, many Islamic empires rose, such as the
Ghana, Mali, Songhai, and
Kanem–Bornu Empires.[290] They controlled the
trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, and slaves.[291] West Africa became the world's largest gold exporter by the 14th century.[292]
Central Africa saw the formation of several states, including the
Kingdom of Kongo.[298] In what is now modern Southern Africa, native Africans created various kingdoms such as the
Kingdom of Mutapa (Monomotapa).[299] They flourished through trade with the
Swahili on the East African coast.[300] They built large defensive stone structures without mortar such as
Great Zimbabwe, capital of the
Kingdom of Zimbabwe,[301] and
Khami, capital of the
Kingdom of Butua.[302] The Swahili inhabited the East African coast from Kenya to Mozambique and traded extensively with Arabs, who introduced them to Islam.[303] They built many port cities such as
Mombasa,
Mogadishu, and
Kilwa.[304] Seafarers from Southeast Asia colonized
Madagascar sometime between the 4th and 9th centuries.[305]
After the fall of the Gupta Empire in 550 CE,
North India was divided into a complex and fluid network of smaller kingdoms.[306] Early
Muslim incursions began in the northwest in 711 CE, when the Arab Umayyad Caliphate
conquered much of present-day Pakistan.[307] 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.[308] The 9th century saw the
Tripartite Struggle for control of North India between the
Pratihara,
Pala, and
Rashtrakuta Empires.[309]
Post-classical dynasties in South India included those of the
Chalukyas,
Hoysalas, and Cholas.[310] Literature, architecture, sculpture, and painting flourished under the patronage of these kings.[311] Some of the other important states that emerged in South India during this time included the
Bahmani Sultanate and the
Vijayanagara Empire.[312]
After a period of relative disunity,
China was reunified by the Sui dynasty in 589[313] and under the succeeding Tang dynasty (618–907) China entered a golden age.[314] The Sui and Tang instituted the long-lasting
imperial examination system, under which administrative positions were open only to those who passed an arduous test on Confucian thought and the
Chinese classics.[315] China competed with
Tibet (618–842) for control of areas in Inner Asia.[316] However, the Tang dynasty eventually splintered. After
half a century of turmoil, the Song dynasty reunified much of China.[317] Pressure from nomadic empires to the north became increasingly urgent.[318] By 1127, northern China had been lost to the
Jurchens in the
Jin–Song Wars, and the Mongols
conquered all of China in 1279.[319] After about a century of Mongol Yuan dynasty rule, the ethnic Chinese reasserted control with the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368.[320]
In
Japan, the imperial lineage was established during the 3rd century CE, and a centralized state developed during the
Yamato period (c. 300–710).[321] Buddhism was introduced, and there was an emphasis on the adoption of elements of Chinese culture and Confucianism.[322] The
Nara period (710–794) was characterized by the appearance of a nascent
literary culture, as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired artwork and
architecture.[323] The
Heian period (794–1185) saw the peak of imperial power, followed by the rise of militarized clans and the
samurai.[324] It was during the Heian period that
Murasaki Shikibu penned The Tale of Genji, sometimes considered the world's first novel.[325] From 1185 to 1868, Japan was dominated by powerful regional lords (
daimyos) and the military rule of warlords (
shoguns) such as the
Ashikaga and
Tokugawa shogunates.[326] The emperor remained but did not wield significant influence.[327] Meanwhile, the power of merchants grew.[328] An influential art style known as ukiyo-e arose during the Tokugawa years, consisting of
woodblock prints which originally depicted famous
courtesans.[329]
Postclassical
Korea saw the end of the
Three Kingdoms era, in which the kingdoms of
Goguryeo,
Baekje, and
Silla had competed for hegemony.[330] This period ended when Silla conquered Baekje in 660 and Goguryeo in 668,[331] marking the beginning of the
Northern and Southern States period, with
Unified Silla in the south and
Balhae, a successor state to Goguryeo, in the north.[332] In 892 CE, this arrangement reverted to the
Later Three Kingdoms, with Goguryeo[o] emerging as dominant, unifying the entire peninsula by 936.[333] The founding Goryeo dynasty ruled until 1392, succeeded by the
Joseon dynasty,[334] which ruled for approximately 500 years.[335]
The Southeast Asian polity of
Funan, which had originated in the 2nd century CE, went into decline in the 6th century as Chinese trade routes shifted away from its ports.[340] It was replaced by the
Khmer Empire in 802 CE.[341] The
Khmers' capital city,
Angkor, was the most extensive city in the world before the industrial age and contained
Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument.[342] The
Sukhothai (mid-13th century CE) and
Ayutthaya Kingdoms (1351 CE) were major powers of the
Thais, who were influenced by the Khmers.[343]
The
Polynesians, descendants of the Lapita peoples, colonized vast reaches of
Remote Oceania beginning around 1000 CE.[358][p] Their voyages resulted in the colonization of hundreds of islands including the
Marquesas, Hawaii,
Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and New Zealand.[360]
The
Tuʻi Tonga Empire was founded in the 10th century CE and expanded between 1250 and 1500.[361] Tongan culture, language, and hegemony spread widely throughout eastern
Melanesia,
Micronesia, and central
Polynesia during this period.[362] They influenced east 'Uvea, Rotuma, Futuna, Samoa, and Niue, as well as specific islands and parts of Micronesia, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia.[363] In Northern Australia, there is evidence that
Aboriginal Australians regularly
traded with Makassan trepangers from Indonesia before the arrival of Europeans.[364]
In North America, this period saw the rise of the Mississippian culture in the modern-day United States c. 950 CE,[365] marked by the extensive 11th-century urban complex at
Cahokia.[366] The
Ancestral 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.[367]
In Mesoamerica, the Teotihuacan civilization fell and the
classic Maya collapse occurred.[368] The Aztec Empire came to dominate much of Mesoamerica in the 14th and 15th centuries.[369]
In South America, the 15th century saw the rise of the Inca.[370] The Inca Empire, with its capital at
Cusco, spanned the entire
Andes, making it the most extensive pre-Columbian civilization.[371] The Inca were prosperous and advanced, known for an excellent
road system and elegant stonework.[372]
Capitalist economies emerged, initially in the
northern Italian republics and some Asian port cities.[377] European states practiced
mercantilism by implementing one-sided trade policies designed to benefit the mother country at the expense of its colonies. In much of the European sphere,
serfdom declined and eventually disappeared while the power of the Catholic Church waned.[378] Shortly before the turn of the 16th century, the Portuguese started establishing
trading posts across Africa, Asia, and Brazil, for local commodities ranging from slaves to gold, spices, and sugar.[379] In the 17th century, private
chartered companies were established, such as the
English East India Company in 1600 – often described as the first
multinational corporation – and the
Dutch East India Company in 1602.[380]
The
Age of Discovery was the first period in which Eurasia and Africa engaged in substantial cultural, material, and biological exchange with the
New World. It began in the late 15th century, when
Portugal and
Castile sent the first exploratory voyages to the Americas, where
Christopher Columbus first arrived in 1492.[381] Global integration continued as
European colonization of the Americas initiated the
Columbian exchange: the exchange of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves),
communicable diseases, and culture between the
Eastern and
Western Hemispheres.[382] It was one of history's most important global events, involving ecology and agriculture.[383] New crops brought from the Americas by 16th-century European seafarers substantially contributed to world population growth.[384]
West and Central Asia
After conquering Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire quickly came to dominate the Middle East.[385] Persia came under the rule of the
Safavids in 1501,[386] succeeded by the
Afshars in 1736, the
Zands in 1751, and the
Qajars in 1794.[387] The Safavids
establishedShia Islam as Persia's official religion, thus giving Persia a separate identity from its
Sunni neighbors.[388] Along with the
Mughals in India, the Ottomans and Safavids are known as the
gunpowder empires because of their early adoption of firearms.[389] At the end of the 18th century, the
Russian Empire began its
conquest of the Caucasus.[390] The
Uzbeks replaced the Timurids as the preeminent power in Central Asia.[391]
In addition to the changes wrought by incipient capitalism and colonialism, early modern Europeans also experienced an increase in the power of the state.[392]Absolute monarchs in
France,
Russia, the
Habsburg lands, and
Prussia produced powerful centralized states, with strong armies and efficient bureaucracies, all under the control of the king.[393] In Russia,
Ivan the Terrible was crowned in 1547 as the first
tsar of Russia, and by annexing the Turkic khanates in the east, transformed Russia into a regional power, eventually
replacing the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a major power in Eastern Europe.[394] 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.[395] Wars of particular note included the
Thirty Years' War, the
War of the Spanish Succession, the
Seven Years' War, and the
French Revolutionary Wars.[396]Napoleon Bonapartebecame First Consul of France in 1799, concluding the
French Revolution. Bonaparte's rise to power led to the
Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.[397]
These political developments were accompanied by a period of intense intellectual ferment. The Renaissance – the "rebirth" of classical culture, beginning
in Italy in the 14th century and extending into the 16th[q] – comprised the rediscovery of the
classical world's cultural, scientific, and technological achievements, and the economic and social rise of Europe.[399] This period is also celebrated for its artistic and literary attainments.[400]Petrarch's poetry,
Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, and the paintings and sculptures of
Leonardo da Vinci and
Michelangelo are some of the great works of the age.[401] After the Renaissance came the Reformation, an anti-clerical theological and social movement that resulted in the creation of Protestant Christianity.[402] The Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitiveness which ultimately led to
humanism[403] and the
Scientific Revolution, an effort to understand the natural world through direct observation and experiment.[404] The success of the new scientific techniques inspired attempts to apply them to political and social affairs, known as the
Enlightenment, by thinkers such as
John Locke and
Immanuel Kant.[405] This development was accompanied by
secularization as a continued decline of the influence of religious beliefs and authorities in the public and private spheres.[406]Johannes Gutenberg's invention of
movable type printing in 1440[r] helped spread the ideas of the new intellectual movements.[408]
Africa
Many African civilizations declined in the early modern period while others advanced. Between 1515 and 1800, Africa lost eight million people to the
Atlantic slave trade, and two million to the Arab slave trade.[409] The Atlantic trade was the transport of enslaved Africans to the Americas, while the Arab trade consisted of the
trans-Saharan and
Indian Ocean slave trades.[410] The
Swahili Coast was influenced by trade with the Portuguese and later the
Omanis.[411] In West Africa, the Songhai Empire fell after an
invasion by the Moroccans.[412]Bonoman gave birth to numerous Akan states such as
Akwamu,
Akyem,
Fante, and
Adansi, among others.[413] The Kingdom of Zimbabwe gave way to smaller kingdoms such as Mutapa,[414] Butua,[415] and
Rozvi.[416]
In North Africa, the Berbers remained in control of independent states until the 16th century.[417] In the Horn of Africa, the
Ajuran Sultanate declined in the 18th century and was succeeded by the
Geledi Sultanate.[418] The
Ethiopian Empire suffered from the 1531 invasion by the neighboring Muslim
Adal Sultanate,[419] and in 1769 entered the
Zemene Mesafint (Age of Princes) during which the Emperor became a figurehead and the country was ruled by warlords, though the royal line later recovered under Emperor
Tewodros II.[420] Other civilizations in Africa advanced during this period. The Oyo Empire experienced its golden age, as did the Kingdom of Benin.[421] The
Ashanti Empire rose to power in modern-day
Ghana in the late 17th century.[422] The Kingdom of Kongo also thrived during this period.[423]
South Asia
In the
Indian subcontinent, the
Mughal Empire began under
Babur in 1526 and lasted for two centuries.[424] Starting in the northwest, the Mughal Empire came to rule the entire subcontinent by the late 17th century,[425] except for the southernmost Indian provinces, which remained independent.[426] Against the Muslim Mughal Empire, the Hindu
Maratha Empire was founded by
Shivaji on the western coast in 1674.[427] The Marathas gradually gained territory from the Mughals over several decades, particularly in the
Mughal–Maratha Wars (1680–1707).[428]
In 1644, the Ming
were supplanted by the
Qing,[431] the last Chinese imperial dynasty, which ruled until 1912.[432] Japan experienced its
Azuchi–Momoyama period (1568–1600), followed by the
Edo period (1600–1868).[433] The Korean Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) ruled throughout this period, repelling invasions from Japan and China in the 16th and 17th centuries.[434] Expanded maritime trade with Europe significantly affected China and Japan during this period, particularly through the Portuguese in
Macau and the Dutch in
Nagasaki.[435] However, China and Japan later pursued
isolationist policies[s] designed to eliminate foreign influences.[436]
Southeast Asia
In 1511, the Portuguese overthrew the Malacca Sultanate in present-day Malaysia and Indonesian
Sumatra.[437] The Portuguese held this important trading territory (and the valuable associated navigational strait) until overthrown by the Dutch in 1641.[438] The
Johor Sultanate, centered on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, became the dominant trading power in the region.[439]
Several European powers colonized the Americas, largely displacing the native populations and conquering the advanced civilizations of the Aztecs and Inca.[448]Diseases introduced by Europeans devastated American societies, killing 60–90 million people by 1600 and reducing the population by 90–95%.[449] In some cases, colonial policies included the deliberate
genocide of indigenous peoples.[450] Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France all made extensive territorial claims, and undertook large-scale settlement, including the importation of large numbers of African slaves.[451] 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.[452][u] Portugal claimed
Brazil,[454] while Spain seized the rest of South America, Mesoamerica, and southern North America.[455] The Spanish mined and exported prodigious amounts of gold and silver,[456] leading to a surge in inflation known as the
Price Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries in Western Europe.[457]
The
long nineteenth century started at the end of the 18th century[v] and lasted until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.[465] It saw the global spread of the Industrial Revolution, the greatest transformation of the world economy since the Neolithic Revolution.[466] The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain around 1770 and used new modes of production—the factory,
mass production, and
mechanization—to manufacture a wide array of goods faster while using less labor than previously required.[467] Industrialization raised the global
standard of living but caused upheaval as factory owners and workers clashed over wages and working conditions.[468] Along with industrialization came modern
globalization, the increasing interconnection of world regions in the economic, political, and cultural spheres.[469] Globalization began in the early 19th century and was enabled by improved transportation technologies such as railroads and
steamships.[470]
European empires
lost territories in Latin America, which
won independence by the 1820s through military campaigns,[471] but expanded elsewhere as their industrial economies gave them an advantage over the rest of the world.[472] Britain gained control of the Indian subcontinent, Burma, Malaya, North Borneo,
Hong Kong, and
Aden; the French took Indochina; and the Dutch cemented their rule over Indonesia.[473] The British also colonized Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa with large numbers of British colonists emigrating to these colonies.[474] Russia colonized large pre-agricultural areas of Siberia.[475] In the late 19th century, the European powers
divided the remaining areas of Africa.[476] Only Ethiopia and
Liberia remained independent.[477] Imperial rule in Africa involved many atrocities such as
those in the Congo Free State and the
Herero and Nama genocide.[478]
Within Europe, economic and military challenges created a system of nation states, and ethno-cultural groupings began to identify themselves as distinctive nations with aspirations for cultural and political autonomy.[479] This
nationalism became important to peoples across the world in the 20th century.[480] The
first wave of democratization took place between 1828 and 1926: Democratic institutions take root in 33 countries around the world.[481] In a remarkable instance of
moral progress, most of the world
abolished slavery in the 19th century.[482]
In response to the encroachment by European powers, several countries undertook programs of industrialization and political reform along Western lines.[483] The
Meiji Restoration in
Japan was successful and led to the establishment of a
colonial empire, while the tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire did little to slow the Ottoman decline.[484] China achieved some success with its
Self-Strengthening Movement, but was devastated by the
Taiping Rebellion, history's bloodiest civil war, which killed 20–30 million people between 1850 and 1864.[485]
The 20th century opened with Europe at an apex of wealth and power.[490] Much of the world was under its direct colonial control or its indirect influence through heavily Europeanized nations like the United States and Japan.[491] As the century unfolded, however, the global system dominated by rival powers was subjected to severe strains, and ultimately yielded to a more fluid structure of independent nation states.[492]
This transformation was catalyzed by wars of unparalleled scope and devastation.
World War I led to the collapse of four empires – the
Austro-Hungarian,
German, Ottoman, and Russian Empires[493] – and showed that industrial technology had made traditional military tactics obsolete.[494] The
Armenian,
Assyrian, and
Greek genocides saw the systematic destruction, mass murder, and expulsion of those populations in the Ottoman Empire.[495] From 1918 to 1920, the
Spanish flu caused the deaths of at least 25 million people.[496]
In the war's aftermath, powerful ideologies rose to prominence. The
Russian Revolution of 1917 created the first
communist state,[497] while the 1920s and 1930s saw
fascist political parties gain control in
Italy and
Germany.[498][x] The
women's suffrage movement won women the right to vote in numerous countries, ranging from New Zealand in 1893 to Portugal in 1976.[500] Women fought to expand their civil rights[501] and began to enjoy greater access to education and the workforce.[502]
Ongoing national rivalries, exacerbated by the economic turmoil of the
Great Depression, helped precipitate
World War II.[503] In that war, the vast majority of the world's countries, including all the
great powers, fought as part of two opposing
military alliances: the
Allies and the
Axis. The leading Axis powers were Germany, Japan, and Italy;[504] while the United Kingdom, the United States, the
Soviet Union, and the
Republic of China were the "
Big Four" Allied powers.[505]
When World War II ended in 1945, the
United Nations was founded in the hope of preventing future wars,[510] as the
League of Nations had been formed following World War I.[511] The United Nations is associated with the
human rights movement and adopted the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.[512] Several European countries formed the
European Union, a political and economic community that eventually grew to include 27 member states.[513] World War II opened the way for the advance of communism into Eastern and Central Europe, China,
North Korea,
North Vietnam, and
Cuba.[514] To
contain the advance, the United States established a global network of alliances.[515] The largest of them,
NATO, was established in 1949 and eventually
grew to include 32 member states.[516] In response, the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies formed the
Warsaw Pact in 1955 as a 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 the
Cold War, a 45-year stand-off and
arms race between the two nations and their allies.[520]
Cold War preparations to deter or fight a
third world war accelerated advances in technologies that, though conceptualized before World War II, had been implemented for that war's exigencies, such as
jet aircraft,[525]rocketry,[526] and computers.[527] In the decades after World War II, these advances led to jet travel;[528]artificial satellites with innumerable applications,[529] including
GPS;[530] and the Internet,[531] which in the 1990s began to gain traction as a form of communication.[532] These inventions have revolutionized the movement of people, ideas, and information.[533]
These technical innovations had far-reaching effects.[543] The world's population quadrupled to six billion during the 20th century, while world economic output increased by a factor of 20.[544] The rate of
population growth started to decline towards the end of the 20th century, in part because of increased awareness of
family planning and better access to
contraceptives.[545] Parts of the world now have
low or very low fertility rates.[546] Advances in
medical science led to a sharp increase in global
life expectancy from about 31 years in 1900 to over 66 years in 2000.[547] In 1820, 75% of humanity lived on less than one dollar a day, while in 2001 only about 20% did.[548] At the same time, economic inequality increased both within individual countries and between rich and poor countries.[549] The importance of public education had already begun to increase in the 18th and 19th centuries[y] but it was not until the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries that compulsory and free education was provided to
most children worldwide.[551][z]
In China, the
Maoist government implemented industrialization and
collectivization policies as part of the
Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), leading to the
starvation deaths (1959–1961) of 30–40 million people.[553] After these policies were rescinded, China entered a period of
economic liberalization and rapid growth, with the economy expanding by 6.6% per year from 1978 to 2003.[554] In the postwar decades, the
African,
Asian, and
Oceanian colonies of European empires won their formal independence, a process known as
decolonization.[555] Postcolonial states in Africa struggled to grow their economies, facing structural barriers such as reliance on the export of
commodities rather than manufactured goods.[556] Sub-Saharan Africa was the world region hit hardest by the
HIV/AIDS pandemic of the late 20th century.[557] Moreover, Africa experienced high levels of violence, exemplified by the
Second Congo War (1998–2003), the deadliest conflict since World War II.[558] Latin America also faced economic problems and an over-reliance on commodity exports.[559] Development efforts in Latin America were hindered by political instability, some of which was caused by the United States as it
repeatedly intervened in the region.[560]
The main field of inquiry studying human history is called world history,[aa] but the two terms are also sometimes used as synonyms. While philosophers have engaged in world history for centuries, it only became an active field of academic inquiry in the late 20th century, with most earlier research focusing on the histories of individual communities and societies after the prehistoric period.[571] This transition to a widened perspective was accompanied by questioning the assumptions of the
Western-dominated outlook frequently found in earlier scholarship to arrive at a global understanding.[572]
Like in other historical disciplines, the
methodology of analyzing textual sources to construct narratives and interpretations of past events plays a central role in world 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 its
interdisciplinary approach by integrating insights from fields such as
archaeology,
geology, and
anthropology, which are of particular importance to discussions of human history before the invention of writing.[573]
To provide an accessible overview, world historians divide the field 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.[574]
A traditionally influential periodization in European scholarship distinguishes between the ancient, medieval, and modern periods[575] 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.[576] 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.[577]A further approach uses the relations between societies to divide world history into the periods of Middle Eastern dominance before 500 BCE, Eurasian cultural balance until 1500 CE, and Western dominance afterwards.[578] 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.[579] World 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.[580]
References
Explanatory notes
^This date comes from the 2015 discovery of stone tools at the
Lomekwi site in Kenya.[4] Some paleontologists propose an earlier date of 3.39 million years ago based on bones found with butchery marks on them in
Dikika, Ethiopia,[5] while others dispute both the Dikika and Lomekwi findings.[6]
^the African variant is sometimes called H. ergaster
^Or perhaps earlier; the 2018 discovery of stone tools from 2.1 million years ago in
Shangchen, China predates the earliest known H. erectus fossils.[13]
^Some authors suggest a later date at around 200,000 years ago.[20]
^These dates come from a 2018 study of an upper jawbone from
Misliya Cave, Israel.[30] Researchers studying a fossil skull from
Apidima Cave, Greece in 2019 proposed an earlier date of 210,000 years ago.[31] The Apidima Cave study has been challenged by other scholars.[32]
^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.[34]
^This occurred during the
African humid period, when the Sahara was much wetter than it is today.[48]
^This is the traditional date for the founding of the
Xia dynasty and has not been confirmed by archaeology.[77] Chinese civilization had its origins in the earlier
Yangshao and
Longshan cultures (4000–2000 BCE),[78] but the
Shang is the first dynasty that can be archeologically verified (1750 BCE).[79]
^Various froms of
proto-writing existed earlier but they did not constitute fully developed writing system.[95]
^The
Vedas contain the earliest references to India's
caste system, which divided society into four hereditary classes: priests, warriors, farmers and traders, and laborers.[114]
^Goguryeo was called
Taebong at that time and eventually named
Goryeo.
^They traveled the open ocean in double-hulled canoes up to 37 meters (121 ft) long, each canoe carrying as many as 50 people and their livestock.[359]
^Some scholars date the period later, to the 15th and 16th centuries.[398]
^The Chinese invented movable type centuries earlier, but it was better suited to the alphabetical writing systems of European languages.[407]
^They are known as haijin in China and sakoku in Japan.
^The Aztec civilization is an exception, having established compulsory formal education for children as early as the 14th century.[550]
^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.[552]
^Some historians use the term "world history" in a more narrow sense to refer to one among several alternative approaches to studying human history.[570]
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) as hominids, while all members of the lineage leading to modern humans that arose after the split with the [Homo-Pan] LCA are referred to as hominins. 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 the H. habilis lineage originated before 2.3 million years ago, thus marking deep-rooted species diversity in the genus Homo."
^Bulliet et al. 2015a, p. 5, "What most distinguished Homo 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. 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."
^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."
^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."
^Bentley, Subrahmanyam & Wiesner-Hanks 2015a, p. 60, "Then, in the 1340s, Mongol armies attacked the Black Sea port of Caffa in the Crimean region, and from that point on the infection spread into the Mediterranean, and then north into Europe, reaching Scandinavia within two years, and east and south into the Muslim societies of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa."
^Kedar & Wiesner-Hanks 2015, p. 245, "By the 14th century, and probably earlier, West Africa was producing and exporting more gold than anywhere else in the world."
^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."
^McNeill & Pomeranz 2015a, p. 529, "The French Revolution ended in the rule of Napoleon in 1799, and his attempts to conquer Europe began in 1803."
^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. 410–11, 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."
^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."
^Black 2004, p.
181, "The winter was spent preparing timbers and preparing the site, and Settlement Ross was founded in June 1812."
^Bulliet et al. 2015b, p. 482, "The peace agreement forced France to yield Canada to the English and cede Louisiana to Spain."
^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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