c. 8,000 BCE
Technology
Levant and Anatolia
Bricks and mudbrick architecture
Sun-dried moulded bricks at Jericho and Catalhoyuk.
Why it mattered
A modular building unit made anywhere there was mud, straw and sun.
Stone Age
8,000 BCE
3 recorded milestones at this point in the record.
c. 8,000 BCE
Agriculture
Mesoamerica
Maize domestication from teosinte
Farmers in the Balsas River valley began transforming a scraggly grass into maize.
Why it mattered
Became the agricultural backbone of every later civilisation in the Americas.
c. 8,000 BCE
Agriculture
Near East
Domestication of cattle
Aurochs were brought under human control in the Near East and, separately, in North Africa and South Asia.
Why it mattered
Supplied traction, milk and manure that multiplied the yield of farmland.
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Nearby in the record
c. 9,000 BCEAgriculture
Domestication of sheep and goats
Southwest Asia
c. 9,000 BCEAgriculture
Rice domestication in the Yangtze
China
c. 8,500 BCETechnology
Copper cold-working at Cayonu
Anatolia
c. 7,500 BCESociety
Catalhoyuk and dense town life
Anatolia
c. 7,000 BCEAgriculture
Irrigation canals
Mesopotamia
c. 7,000 BCEMedicine
Dentistry with flint drills
South Asia