ca. 18,000–ca. 3,000 B.C.E.: The fi rst
Americans migrate from Siberia over the
Bering Sea Land Bridge, now the Bering
Strait, into present-day Alaska, though
this date remains uncertain.
ca. 10,500 B.C.E.: Date assigned to
early Clovis points (stone tools such as
arrowheads, named after site in New
Mexico where the fi rst such points were
found) at Monte Verde site in Chile.
ca. 10,200 B.C.E.: Dogs domesticated by
earliest Americans.ca. 9,500 B.C.E.: Date assigned to the
fi rst-discovered Clovis points in New
Mexico; Clovis culture formed.
ca. 9200–ca. 8000 B.C.E.: Folsom
tradition spreads across North
America.
ca. 9000 B.C.E.: Bison herds cover the
Great Plains of North America; fi rst
civilizations develop in the Arctic
North.
ca. 8000 B.C.E.: First Americans arrive
in South America; Archaic Age begins in
North America, with dramatic changes
in the landscape cause by receding of
glaciers.
ca. 7000 B.C.E.: First cultivation of corn,
or maize; agriculture begins to develop in
the Americas.Chronology by Region
ca. 42,000 B.C.E.: The fi rst seafaring
colonists arrive in Australia from the
Asian mainland.
ca. 28,500 B.C.E.: Seafaring colonists
from Australia or the Asian mainland
arrive in New Guinea.
ca. 27,000 B.C.E.: The fi rst people arrive
on the islands of Japan over land bridges
or ice from the Asian mainland.
ca. 13,000–300 B.C.E.: Jo ̄mon Period of
Japan.ca. 9000 B.C.E.: By this date people in
Siberia and central Asia are using bones
and skins from animals such as mammoths
to build shelters.
ca. 7000 B.C.E.: Tropical horticulture begins
in New Guinea.
ca. 6500 B.C.E.: Farming starts on the
Indian subcontinent.
ca. 6400 B.C.E.: Pengtoushan in China is
the oldest-known site of rice cultivation in
Asia.
ca. 5500 B.C.E.: Beginning date for the earli-
est paintings in India, found on large stones
and rock faces, mostly in central India.
ca. 5400–ca. 5200 B.C.E.: The Yellow
River region in China provides the earliest
evidence for the domestication of chickens
in Asia.ASIA AND THE PACIFIC THE AMERICAS
ca. 1,000,000??–ca. 8,000 B.C.E.:
Paleolithic Period.
ca. 34,000 B.C.E.: Beginning of the
Aurignacian culture in the region of
present-day Bulgaria, Hungary, and
France.
ca. 25,000 B.C.E.: First human settlements
in what is now Spain.
ca. 24,000 B.C.E.: First evidence of cold
food storage and preservation, discovered
in eastern Europe.
ca. 10,500 B.C.E.: Würm Glacial Age ends;
ice withdraws so that humans can move
into northern Europe.ca. 9500 B.C.E.: Ice sheets start to melt in
Europe.
ca. 8000–ca. 4000 B.C.E.: Mesolithic
Period.
ca. 7200 B.C.E.: Sheep domesticated in
the area of present-day Greece.
ca. 7000–ca. 2000 B.C.E.: Neolithic Pe-
riod; emergence of agriculture, sometimes
called the Neolithic Revolution.
ca. 6500 B.C.E.: Ancestor of cattle fi rst
domesticated in the region of present-day
Yugoslavia.EUROPE
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