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While in Africa one can follow the very first traces of
man, it is in Asia that one finds the earliest highly
developed societies. From here are known the first
testimonies of agriculture and cattle breeding in the
world, the first use of metal and the oldest writing.
The development of culture went different ways in the
individual parts of the continent, whose varied nature
offers very different living conditions - from the
Arctic Sea in the north to the monsoon belt in the south
and from the deserts and steppe lands of Central Asia to
the rainforests of Southeast Asia.
The oldest finds
from Asia go approximately and million years back. Tools
from the Oldowan culture and from the older acheulé are
known from Ubaydiyya in Israel. The oldest
representatives of the species Homo erectus found in
China are the skull from Lantien, approximately 0.8
million years old and older than the Peking man from
Zhoukoudian, whose age is estimated at between 0.5 and
0.25 million. year. Javanese man is considered as old as
found from Lantien, ie. between 0.9 and 0.7 million.
year. In the older Paleolithic, various tool cultures
existed: the Acheulé with hand wedges in West Asia and
parts of India and a culture, Soan, that was based on
pebble tools in most of India and Southeast Asia.
From 200,000-90,000 years ago, finds from so-called
archaic Homo sapiens types from e.g. Dali in China, as
well as Zuttiyeh and Qafzeh in Israel, are known from
both East and West Asia. Visit
Countryaah for detailed information about East Asia,
West Asia, Central Asia and Southeast Asia. They herald
the transition to the Middle Paleolithic and thus to a
more developed culture, the moustérien. In this era,
approximately 200,000-40,000 BC, human physical
development went in different directions. Neanderthals
lived in Europe, West and Central Asia, where funerals
are taking place for the first time. In the other parts
of Asia, the evolution from Homo erectus went over early
Homo sapiens-types up to modern man. By the end of the
Middle Paleolithic, human settlement existed over large
parts of Asia. The lowering of sea levels during the
last ice age enabled immigration to Japan for
approximately 90,000 years ago.
In the Late Paleolithic, approximately 40,000-9,300
BC, the whole of Asia was populated by the living human
type. From for approximately 32,000 years ago, the
steppes of Siberia were inhabited by a people who hunted
mammoths, wild horses, reindeer and bison. At a
settlement near Malta near the river Angara, for
approximately 23,000 years ago made small female and
animal figures of mammoth tooth. The oldest Siberian
rock paintings with animal motifs are from the Late
Paleolithic. The sinking of the sea during the last ice
age enabled immigration from Siberia to North America
across the Bering Strait. In the warmer parts of Asia,
the population became more dependent on plant foods, and
some of the features that characterize later
agricultural societies came to fruition. In Japan,
sharpened stone axes from approximately 25,000 and
ceramics, the oldest in the world, from approximately
10,000 BC
At the end of the Late Paleolithic (epipalĉolitum),
approximately 12,000-10,000 BC, the Natuf culture was
widespread in the Near East. People lived in villages,
collecting wild grains and hunting wild sheep, goats and
gazelles. After approximately 9000 BC there were in the
Near East early Neolithic villages, whose residents
cultivated wheat and barley and kept domestic animals,
but not yet made pottery. Settlement mounds (teller)
testifies to permanent settlement from 9500 to 9000 BC,
such as Jericho in the Jordan Valley, Abu Hurayra in
Syria and Tepe Guran in Iran. From 8500 BC. there were
urban mounds in Asia Minor, such as Cayönü Tepesiand Can
Hassan, and 7000-5500 BC. created the first urban
communities that testify to developed social, economic
and religious organization, such as Çatal Hüyük in
southeastern Turkey. In the period 5500-3000 BC.
developed complex social systems in West Asia. Temple
cities characterize the Ubaid period, and in the
subsequent periods Uruk and Jemdet Nasr the first states
of Mesopotamia emerge. The oldest cuneiform is known
from Uruk approximately 3500 BC
While cold-hammered copper was known in the Near East
before 7000 BC, forged copper became common after
approximately 5000 BC and bronze from approximately 3500
BC Natural deposits of copper and tin were exploited in
other parts of Asia for the production of bronze
3000-2000 BC. The iron, first used by the Hittites in
Asia Minor, spread to the rest of Asia around 1000 BC.
In India and Pakistan, agriculture and cattle
breeding are known from 7000-5000 BC. A climax was
reached with the Indus culture, approximately 2500-1700
BC, whose cities were centers for handicrafts and trade
and for the cultivation of barley, wheat, rice, millet
and cotton. First approximately 700 BC arose around the
river Ganges a number of city-states, which like other
centers on the Indian peninsula were engulfed by the
Maurya dynasty 400-300 BC.
In Turkmenistan, agriculture began 7000-6000 BC. with
the Djeitun culture. On the steppes of Central Asia
lived from approximately 2500 BC a semi-nomadic people
who tamed horses and camels, buried their dead in burial
mounds and from the Andronovo culture approximately 1500
BC used bronze. From the steppes came the expansive
nomadic peoples who from 800-600 BC. is known as skyther
and sarmater. From Pazyryk in the Altai are known rich
princely tombs from 500-300 BC.
In northern China, the oldest Neolithic village
culture, Yangshao, which was based on millet cultivation
and pig farming, can be traced back to approximately
7000 BC During the Longshan culture, 2500-1800 BC, there
were larger fortified urban communities around the Huang
He (Hwang Ho) River and signs of the emergence of an
armed elite, pointing to the Shang Dynasty.
Rice cultivation began in southern China
approximately 6000-5000 BC and in Southeast Asia
approximately 2000 BC The use of metal was known in
Thailand and Vietnam from 2000-1500 BC, but first
developed markedly in the Dong Son culture with the use
of iron. From this time fortified cities emerged and a
centralization began. It continued AD when the first
temple cities were founded in the Mekong Delta, from
which trade with other kingdoms in West and East Asia
was conducted.
Both before and after the introduction of rice
cultivation on the river plains of Thailand, Vietnam and
Cambodia, hunters, gatherers and fishermen used simple
stone tools, the so-called Hoabinh culture, known from
kitchen manure along the coasts and from the highlands'
rock caves, where hunting was supplemented by collection
of plant food. In northern Thailand, Indonesia, and the
Philippines, some peoples lived to the Stone Age level
to the present day.
In Japan, thousands of kitchen manure are known to
date from the Iomon period, whose population lived by
fishing, gathering and hunting, until agriculture began
cultivating wheat and beans approximately 4000 BC Millet
was grown from approximately 1000 BC and rice from
around 300 BC. Bronze and iron first became widespread
in the Yayoi period, 300 BC-300 AD, as a result of
influences from the Han dynasty in China. |