7th millennium BC

Millennia:	8th millennium BC 7th millennium BC 6th millennium BC
Centuries:	70th century BC 69th century BC 68th century BC 67th century BC 66th century BC 65th century BC 64th century BC 63rd century BC 62nd century BC 61st century BC

Jiahu symbols from 6600 BC, Henan, China

Millennia:	8th millennium BC 7th millennium BC 6th millennium BC
Centuries:	70th century BC 69th century BC 68th century BC 67th century BC 66th century BC 65th century BC 64th century BC 63rd century BC 62nd century BC 61st century BC

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

This stone mask from the pre-ceramic neolithic period dates to 7000 BC and is probably the oldest mask in the world (Musée de la bible et Terre Sainte )

Excavations at the South Area of Çatal Höyük

7th millennium BC clay and stone artefacts from the Middle East. On display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York

The Neolithic
↑ Mesolithic
Fertile Crescent Heavy Neolithic Shepherd Neolithic Trihedral Neolithic Pre-Pottery (A, B) Qaraoun culture Tahunian culture Yarmukian Culture Halaf culture Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period Ubaid culture Byblos Jericho Tell Aswad Çatalhöyük Jarmo Europe Arzachena culture Boian culture Butmir culture Cardium Pottery culture Cernavodă culture Coțofeni culture Cucuteni-Trypillian culture Dudeşti culture Gorneşti culture Gumelniţa–Karanovo culture Hamangia culture Khirokitia Linear Pottery culture Malta Temples Ozieri culture Petreşti culture Shulaveri-Shomu culture Sesklo culture Tisza culture Tiszapolgár culture Usatovo culture Varna culture Vinča culture Vučedol culture Neolithic Transylvania Neolithic Southeastern Europe China Peiligang culture Pengtoushan culture Beixin culture Cishan culture Dadiwan culture Houli culture Xinglongwa culture Xinle culture Zhaobaogou culture Hemudu culture Daxi culture Majiabang culture Yangshao culture Hongshan culture Dawenkou culture Songze culture Liangzhu culture Majiayao culture Qujialing culture Longshan culture Baodun culture Shijiahe culture Yueshi culture Tibet South Asia Mehrgarh Bhirrana Neolithic Philippines Jade culture
farming, animal husbandry pottery, metallurgy, wheel circular ditches, henges, megaliths Neolithic religion
↓ Chalcolithic

• 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^[1]
• 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^[2]
• 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^[3]
• 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)^[4]
• c. 7000 BC Sweden: Large-scale fish processing operation established at Blekinge^[5]
• 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^[6]
• 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

Holocene Epoch
↑ Pleistocene
Holocene
Preboreal (10.3–9 ka) Boreal (9–7.5 ka) Atlantic (7.5–5 ka) Subboreal (5–2.5 ka) Subatlantic (2.5 ka–present)

• 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^[7]
• 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

1. Encyclopædia Britannica, "Melanesian cultures"
2. "Ancient Pig DNA Study Sheds New Light On Colonization Of Europe By Early Farmers". ScienceDaily. 4 September 2007.
3. "Isotopic data show farming arrived in Europe with migrants". EurekAlert!. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 11 February 2013.
4. Barry Cunliffe (2008). Europe Between the Oceans. p. 94.
5. Maev Kennedy (9 February 2016). "Rotten luck: archaeologists hail 'unique' Mesolithic fermented fish find". The Guardian.
6. Perkins, Dexter (1969). "Fauna of Çatal Hüyük: Evidence for Early Cattle Domestication in Anatolia". Science. 164 (3876): 177–179.
7. Roberts, J (1994). History of the World. Penguin.