The Prehistoric Era

Gallery

Ice Age horse engraved on pelvis bone

Sketch of Cro Magnon engraving, may be lunar notation, c. 28,000 BCE

Clay tokens, Mesopotamia, 4th millennium BCE

Clay ball used to house clay tokems found at Uruk site, Mesopotamia (modern Iraq)

45,000: In what is now Hungary, a Neanderthal carves on a woolly mammoth tooth.
35,000: In what is now Swaziland, a bone with 29 notches, possibly a calendar.
30,000: In what is now Germany, someone carves a horse out of a pelvic bone.
30,000: In what is now France, Chauvet cave dwellers draw on walls.
25,000: Rock painting, female figurines.
23,000: In what is now Uganda, the Ishango bone, with complex math markings.
20,000: Spain’s Altamira caves have red and black drawings of bison and deer.
20,000: In the Koonalda Cave, Australia, finger drawings on clay walls.
10,000: Notches in bones in Near East presumed to be a lunar calendar.
10,000: Writing on skin. Tattooing instruments found in Europe.
9000: Mesopotamia hunter-gatherers settle down; it is the start of agriculture.
8000: In Sumer, clay tokens symbolize goods, like sheep, jars of oil.
6200: Oldest known map, a town plan from Catal Hyk, Turkey.
4800: In Egypt, evidence of astronomical calendar stones.
4004: Bishop Ussher’s date, accepted by early Protestants, of the creation of the world.
4000: Egyptian pharaohs listen to flutes and harps.
3800: Nile culture starts.
3760: Start of Hebrew calendar.
3700: In Sumer, tokens representing goods are placed in clay ball envelopes.