10th millennium BC
The 10th millennium BC marks the beginning of the Mesolithic, or Epipaleolithic time period, which is the first part of the Holocene epoch. World population is likely below 5 million people, mostly hunting-gathering communities scattered over all continents, save for Antarctica, and with the proto-Lapita migration also reaching the islands of the Pacific. Pottery, and with pottery probably cooking, was developed independently in Japan and North Africa. Agriculture begins to develop in the Fertile Crescent, but will not be practiced widely or predominantly for another 2,000 years. The Würm glaciation ends, and the beginning interglacial, which endures to this day, allows the re-settlement of northern regions.
Events
- c. 9000 BC — Neolithic culture began in Ancient Near East.
- c. 9000 BC: Near East: First stone structures are built at Jericho.
- Bubalus Period in the Sahara.
- Australia: People migrate to the Australian continent and began nomadic hunting and herding, and they are the ancestors of the present day Australian Aborigines.
- Europe: Azilian (Painted Pebble Culture) people occupy Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Scotland.
- Europe: Magdalenian culture flourishes and creates cave paintings in France.
- Europe: Horse hunting begins at Solutré.
- Norway: First traces of population in Randaberg.
- Egypt: Early sickle blades & grinding disappear and are replaced by hunting, fishing and gathering peoples who use stone tools.
- Asia: Cave sites near the Caspian Sea are used for human habitation.
- Japan: The Jōmon people use pottery, fish, hunt and gather acorns, nuts and edible seeds. There are 10,000 known sites.
- Mesopotamia: Three or more linguistic groups, including Sumerian and Semitic peoples share a common political and cultural way of life.
- Mesopotamia: People begin to collect wild wheat and barley probably to make malt then beer.
- Korea: Pottery appears, probably associated with the beginning of single location agrarian life.
- North America: Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer societies live nomadically in the countryside.
- North America: Blackwater Draw forms in eastern New Mexico, evidencing human activity.
- North America: Folsom people flourish throughout the Southwestern United States.
- North America: Settlement at the Nanu site in the Haida Gwaii of modern day British Columbia begins, starting the longest continual occupation in territory now belonging to Canada.
- The dog is domesticated.
- Persia: The goat is domesticated.
- Colombia: First settlements near Bogotá at El Abra and Tibitó (Cundinamarca). First settlements at Remedios and Yondó (Antioquia).
- Azerbaijan: Gobustan Culture(Qobustan).
Environmental changes
Circa 10,000 BC:
- North America: Dire Wolf, Smilodon, Giant beaver, Ground sloth, Mammoth, and American lion all become extinct.
- Bering Sea: Bering land bridge from Siberia to North America covered in water.
- North America: Long Island becomes an island when waters break through on the western end to the interior lake.
- Europe: Permanent ecological change. The savannah-dwelling reindeer, bison, and Paleolithic hunters withdraw to the sub-Arctic, leaving the rest to forest animals like deer, auroch, and Mesolithic foragers. (1967 McEvedy)
- Homo floresiensis, the human's last known surviving close relative, becomes extinct.
- World: Allerod oscillation brings transient improvement in climate. Sea levels rise abruptly and massive inland flooding occurs due to glacier melt.
Circa 9700 BC: Lake Agassiz forms.
Circa 9600 BC: Younger Dryas cold period ends. Pleistocene ends and Holocene begins. Paleolithic ends and Mesolithic begins. Large amounts of previously glaciated land become habitable again.
Circa 9500 BC: Ancylus Lake, part of the modern-day Baltic Sea, forms.