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Q13. Activity: Choose one early civilisation and prepare a mini-scrapbook showing their innovations.
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| Mesopotamia | Egypt | China | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tools and technology | Dams and canals; mud and burnt bricks; the wheeled cart and sailboat | Ditches and reservoirs for Nile water; stone-working for pyramids | Bronze weapons and tools; later iron |
| Writing | Cuneiform on clay tablets, from 3200 BCE | Hieroglyphic on papyrus ; deciphered via the Rosetta Stone | Logographic characters; earliest records on oracle bones |
| Art | Decorated boxes of Sumerian life; the Hammurabi stele | Papyrus illustrations; painted pottery and woven goods | Jade dragons and pendants; bronze ritual vessels |
| Architecture | The ziggurat | The pyramids , from stacked mastabas | The Great Wall |
| Their big idea | The base-60 system - our 60-minute hour and 360-degree circle | The 365-day calendar , based on Sirius | Paper currency and civil service by examination |
Add: pictures, a short description under each, and one line on why it mattered . That last line is what the question really wants.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 3.3 million years ago | Earliest stone tools - the beginning of 'human behaviour' |
| 2-6 million years ago | Homo habilis in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania and Kenya |
| 2 million years ago | Homo erectus - first hominin to leave Africa; oldest settlement in the Indian subcontinent |
| 1.5-1.7 million years ago | Attirampakkam , Tamil Nadu |
| 1.2 million years ago | Isampur , Karnataka |
| 300,000 years ago | Homo sapiens evolve in Africa |
| 125,000 years ago | Homo sapiens move out of Africa |
| 50,000-12,000 years ago | Homo sapiens spread worldwide, including Australia and the Americas |
| 12,000 years ago | Climate warms - Mesolithic begins; first population explosion; farming begins in Mesopotamia |
| 7000 BCE | Mehrgarh - oldest Neolithic site in the subcontinent; Neolithic cultures in China |
| 5500 BCE | Chalcolithic marker on the Mesopotamian timeline |
| About 4500 BCE | Copper tools arrive in Mesopotamia |
| 4000 BCE | Mehrgarh people make copper objects - Chalcolithic in India |
| 3500 BCE | Basis laid for the Sindhu-Sarasvati civilisation; four Mesopotamian city-states begin |
| 3300 BCE | Bronze Age begins in India - Early Harappan |
| 3200 BCE | Sumerians are the first to write - cuneiform |
| 3100 BCE | Bronze Age begins in Egypt |
| 3000 BCE | Cuneiform used across Mesopotamia; city-states emerge in Egypt |
| 2686-2181 BCE | Old Kingdom , Egypt |
| 2600 BCE | Mature Harappan - the full Sindhu-Sarasvati civilisation |
| 2500 BCE | Most of the subcontinent occupied by Neolithic communities |
| 2334 BCE | Akkadians - the world's first dynastic empire |
| 2154 BCE | Assyrians rise |
| 2030-1650 BCE | Middle Kingdom , Egypt |
| 2000 BCE | Bronze Age begins in China; Sanganakallu in India |
| 1900 BCE | Late Harappan begins; Babylonians gain dominance |
| 1792 BCE | Hammurabi and his Code |
| 1600 BCE | Shang dynasty , China |
| 1570-1069 BCE | New Kingdom , Egypt |
| 1500 BCE | Chinese society becomes sharply divided into classes |
| 1400 BCE | Babylonians lose prominence |
| 1300 BCE | End of the Late Harappan |
| 1046 BCE | Zhou dynasty , China |
| 680 BCE | First walls of the Great Wall |
| 600 BCE | Iron Age begins in China |
| 400 BCE | Brahmi script in use in India |
| 3rd century BCE | Brahmi formalised by Ashoka ; Qin dynasty unifies China |
| 2nd century BCE | Silk Route flourishes under the Han |
| 206 BCE-220 CE | Han dynasty , China |
| 1799-1822 CE | Rosetta Stone found, then the Egyptian script deciphered |
