4th millennium BC: Encyclopedia - 4th millennium BC

4th millennium BC

(5th millennium BC – 4th millennium BC – 3rd millennium BC - other millennia)

4th millennium BC - Events

• Sumerian city of Ur in Mesopotamia (40th century BC); Sumerian hegemony in Mesopotamia, with the invention of writing, base-60 mathematics, astronomy and astrology, civil law, complex hydrology, the sailboat, the wheel, and the potter's wheel, 4000–2000 BCE.
• Naqada culture on the Nile, 4000–3000 BC.
• Epoch of the modern Hebrew Calendar occurred on 7 October 3761 BC.
• Jewish chronology dates Creation to 25 September or March 29 3760 BC.
• First to Fourth dynasty of Kish in Mesopotamia.
• "Kurgan" cultures: Sredny Stog culture and Maykop culture, likely candidates for the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the latter also a candidate for the origin of the Bronze Age
• Ötzi the Iceman dies near the present-day border between Austria and Italy c. 3300 BC, only to be discovered in 1991 buried in a glacier of the Ötztal Alps.
• New Stone Age people in Ireland build the 250,000 ton Newgrange solar observatory c. 3200 BC.
• The Maya calendar dates the Creation of the Earth to August 11 or August 13, 3114 BC (establishing that date as day zero of the Long Count 13.0.0.0.0).
• Crete: Rise of Minoan civilization
• Neolithic settlement built at Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands, Scotland
• 3000 BC – Menes unifies Upper and Lower Egypt, and a new capital is erected at Memphis.
• According to Hindu mythology, the Epoch of the Kali Yuga occurred at midnight (00:00) on 18 February 3102 BC, the traditional death of Krishna
• Discovery of silver.

4th millennium BC - Cultures

• Indian Subcontinent
  • Mehrgarh III–VI
• Mesopotamia in Asia
  • Sumer
  • Proto-Elamite
• Neolithic Europe
  • Yamna
  • Vinca culture
  • Minoan civilization
• Egypt in Africa
  • Naqada culture on the Nile

4th millennium BC - Environmental changes

Based on studies by glaciologist Lonnie Thompson (professor at Ohio State University and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center) [1] a number of indicators shows there were a global change in climate 5,200 years ago:

• The climate was altered suddenly with severe impacts.
• Plants buried in the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes demonstrate the climate had shifted suddenly and severely to capture the plants and preserve them until now.
• A man trapped in an Alpine glacier ("Oetzi") is frozen until his discovery in 1991.
• Tree rings from Ireland and England show this was their driest period.
• Ice core records showing the ratio of two oxygen isotopes retrieved from the ice fields atop Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro, a proxy for atmospheric temperature at the time snow fell.
• Major changes in plant pollen uncovered from lakebed cores in South America.
• Record lowest levels of methane retrieved from ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica.
• Beginning of desertification of Sahara (35th century BC). The shift by the Sahara Desert from a habitable region to a barren desert.

4th millennium BC - Significant persons

• Ötzi the Iceman lived c.3300 BC.
• predynastic pharaohs, Tiu, Thesh, Hsekiu, Wazner
• Early Dynastic Period pharaohs, Ro, Serket, Narmer

4th millennium BC - Inventions discoveries introductions

• Beginnings of urbanisation in Mesopotamia with the Sumerians.
• First cities in Egypt (35th century BC).
• First writings in the cities of Uruk and Susa (cuneiform writings). Hieroglyphs in Egypt.
• Kurgan culture of what is now southern Russia and Ukraine domesticates the horse and develops the chariot.
• Potter's wheel used in Middle East.
• Sails used in the Nile.
• Construction in England of the Sweet Track, the World's first known engineered roadway.
• Drainage and sewage system in India
• Dams, canals, stone sculptures using inclined plane and lever in Sumer
• Copper was in use, both as tools and weapons.
• Bronze was in use, specifically by the Maykop culture.
• Mastabas, the predecessors of the Egyptian pyramids
• the earliest phase of the Stonehenge monument (a circular earth bank and ditch) dates to ca. 3100 BC.
• The Céide Fields in Ireland, arguably the oldest field system in world, are developed.

4th millennium BC - Centuries

• 40th century BC
• 39th century BC
• 38th century BC
• 37th century BC
• 36th century BC
• 35th century BC
• 34th century BC
• 33rd century BC
• 32nd century BC
• 31st century BC

4th millennium BC - External references

• 3200 BC Climate Change

Categories: Millennia | 4th millennium BC

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "4th millennium BC", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki