Some friends of mine are putting together an album. In the liner notes they have a little of their own philosophy and they have a few things to say about the history of humankind.
However, they can’t finish the liner notes because they’ve gotten into an argument about how many years of history we have.
Can you settle it?
“History” usually refers to the period since the invention of writing, ~3,150 years B.C.
Using the definition that historians use, prehistory ends and history begins when someone starts leaving written records.
So, given that definition, there is no global boundary between the prehistoric and the historic (like one could say that the boundary between the Mesozoic and Cenozoic is 66.4 Ma, for instance). In Egypt and Mesopotamia, history begins ca. 4200 B.C. Britain doesn’t become historic until the Romans start jotting down notes about it. And so on.
I just want to know the first date of history of any culture.
We have two suppositions so far (3150 and 4200 b.c.), with the difference of about a thousand years. Any more ideas?
AFAIK it depends on what you count as “writing.” For example, in 4200BC you might have had an elaborate system of tally marks, and in 3150BC you might have had the first chronicle of a kings’ reign.
-Ben
As you might suppose, the date of the dawn of historical times is a moving target.
This site dates the beginning of civilization to 3200 B.C.
Here is another site, based on H. G. Wells’ Outline of History that will give you something to chew on.
This site is titled Ancient Man and is about “the world of ancient, prehistoric and early man!”
Let’s see…when do the Chinese mark the beginning of their earliest dynasty? 3500 BC?
The Sindhi people of India claim to date their history to back around 8000 BC, I believe, but I don’t know if they claim to have any documentation…
Sumerian civilization at the city of Ur dates back to at least 4000 BC.
However, the Sumerians had already been around a little while by the time Ur was a city, and cuneiform scholars place the origins of cuneiform writing as far back as 8000 BC.
The Altamira cave, the walls of which could be said to contain an historical record of sorts (certainly inscriptions that were deliberately placed there as representations of meaning) was inhabited no more recently than 9000 BC or thereabouts. You could make the case for these being written records.
If, however, you mean written records that were not lost but instead held onto and passed down, without interruption, as our historical legacy unto the present date, I think you can’t go back any farther than about 6000 years ago (and again either the Sumerians or the Chinese are your best bet)
hmm… still no definite answer. Maybe historians don’t see any signifigance in deciding the earliest date of history.
I might count cave paintings as recorded history (although I’m not familiar with the ones mentioned), but I’m not sure if a historian would.
What date would a history professor who’s kept up with the latest discoveries assign as the earliest recorded history?
http://www.sixdaycreation.com/qcreation.html#20
says this: According to the Bible and verified by the “Wall Chart of World History” published by Barnes & Noble, Adam was created in 4004 BC, the same week as the earth was created.
Don’t start flaming me. I am only providing the creationist’s version of prehistory as verified by the “Wall chart of World History”, obviously the last word on the subject.
For legal purposes, doesn’t British law assign a specific date to “since time immemorial”?
The first “writing” by the Sumerians ~3000BC was “symbolic accountancy” for the temple storehouses, consisting of a pictograph and a system of numerical notation. Probably as a result of trying to record proper names, Sumerians began to attribute phonetic values to pictographs. But it was only by 2500BC that writing had progressed/records have survived for us to have a reasonable idea of what was going on (the cities of Lagash and Umma were forming rival aliiances). After that point, the rest is history.
Why don’t they go with “ancient”? That’s anything before 476 AD.
*tcburnett: According to the Bible and verified by the “Wall Chart of World History” published by Barnes & Noble, Adam was created in 4004 BC, the same week as the earth was created. *
I’ve seen a version of this wall chart. It has a crude little map in the corner which is supposed to be a map of where the Garden of Eden was. Trouble is, it’s a map of the eastern US, with the Great Lakes in the upper left, except that Florida is an isthmus to a large landmass to the southeast.
Thanks for all the great input. I hope to get more.
But you guys are just making the argument worse!
We have differing definitions of history, and we can’t even seem to get a consensus on the beginnings of Ur.
Feel free to say what source your getting your info from (thanks tcburnett).
9:00 am, October 26, 4004 BC.
–Archbishop of Ussher (1664)
Well, decide what your definition of history is going to be and work from there. As already mentioned, technically it mean the start of written records, of which, I believe, the earliest probable example is from around 3500 BC at Harappa (however no one can read it, so we don’t know what it records). There is also writing found at Scorpion’s tomb in Egypt from 3200-ish (there were mesopotamian stamp-seals by 5000, but I wouln’t call this writing). Sumerian writing developed around 3100 or so.
The paintings at the caves at Altamira, et al, are generally not considered to be records of actual events. I’d go with mipsman’s 2500 date- the first known records of actual events-- that is what we call history, no?
If you want the start of urban civilzation (not the same thing as 'history) I think the most famous early example is still Catal Huyuk (there are earlier but smaller permanent settlements), which began around 7200 BC (I think there is pottery at Jericho that might be older?) Around 5000 the earliest mesopotamian cities began developing- Ur isn’t til a bit later.
Why don’t you do a web search of archaeology sites?
Deciding what “history is” is half of the argument I was hoping to get settled here. Personally, any kind of symbolic recording of events works for me. But is a historian going to study ancient cueniform or is an archeologist? There’s probably some overlap between their jobs, but it seems like there must be some point where the historians stop and say,“Let’s just leave that to the archeologists.”
History is probably one of my weaker areas from college. I was hoping someone with a history background could just rattle off the answer and save me the time of doing my own research. Apparently that’s happened a few times already. It’s just that I got different dates and different ideas of what history and writing are. That was essentially the problem my friends were having to begin with.
Maybe what I can garner from this is that historians don’t care too much what each other’s idea of the begining of history is, so long as they’re getting the facts straight.
In which case, we can settle on something so long as we can know what we’re referring to and why.