c. 4,500 BCE
Agriculture
Horn of Africa
Teff domestication in Ethiopia
Highland farmers selected a tiny, iron-rich grain uniquely suited to the Ethiopian plateau.
Why it mattered
Still the staple of injera and a model of local crop adaptation.
Stone Age
4,500 BCE
2 recorded milestones at this point in the record.
c. 4,500 BCE
Transportation
Northeast Africa
Donkey domestication
Nile pastoralists tamed wild asses as pack animals.
Why it mattered
Enabled overland trade before the camel and the wheel.
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Nearby in the record
c. 5,400 BCETechnology
Copper smelting at Belovode
Balkans
c. 5,000 BCESociety
Norte Chico monumental building
Andes
c. 5,000 BCESociety
Megalithic tomb building in Atlantic Europe
Western Europe
c. 4,000 BCETransportation
The wheel
Mesopotamia and Europe
c. 4,000 BCETransportation
Horse domestication on the steppe
Central Asia
c. 3,600 BCETechnology
Lost-wax casting
Indus and Levant