Neolithic communities in eastern Anatolia make implements of hammered copper - the first tentative step out of the Stone Age

Catal Huyuk, in Anatolia, is the most extensive surviving example of a neolithic town

The neolithic town of Catal Huyuk has rectangular rooms with windows, a design with lasting appeal

The neolithic town of Khirokitia in Cyprus has a paved public street with lanes leading off to courtyards of round tent-like houses

Pottery fragments of this date survive in the neolithic site of Catal Huyuk

Fragments of cloth, woven in Catal Huyuk, survive because they are carbonized in a fire

Squash and chili are the first plants to be cultivated in America, in the Tehuácan valley in modern Mexico

The Sahara, damp enough for the hippopotamus, supports neolithic communities until it begins to dry up in about 3000 BC

The first evidence of a loom comes from this period in Egypt, but some simple method of holding the warp must be as old as weaving

A small neolithic community builds a village at Skara Brae in the Orkneys, of stone houses with built-in stone furniture

Yarns of spun cotton survive at Mohenjo-daro, one of the two great cities of the Indus civilization

At Stonehenge, constructed and altered over many centuries, the largest stones are put in place

Clay tablets discovered at Ebla reveal a busy trading economy reinforced by aggressive military policies

Knossos, and other such palaces, are built for dynasties in Minoan Crete

The eruption of a volcano, on the island of Thera, entombs and preserves houses with frescoes in the Minoan city of Akrotiri

Texts written at Mycenae, in the script known as Linear B, are the earliest surviving version of Greek

The Amarna letters, an invaluable collection of cuneiform tablets, are written at the court of the pharaoh Akhenaten

The earliest known suit of armour, made of bronze, survives from a tomb in Mycenaean Greece

A Persian rug, woven with a knotted pile, is placed in the tomb of a Scythian chieftain and survives to this day

The citizens of Olynthus abandon their houses, with elaborate mosaic floors, when their city is attacked by Philip of Macedon

The Qin emperor, Shi Huangdi, is buried at Xi'an with a vast army of terracotta soldiers

The treasure of an Anglo-Saxon king (possibly Raedwald, who dies at this time) is buried in a 90-foot-long ship at Sutton Hoo

Leonardo argues that fossils in rocks far above the sea imply not the effects of the Flood but a change in the level of an ancient sea bed

Systematic digging begins near Vesuvius, in an area where ancient fragments are often unearthed - soon discovered to be Pompeii

Napoleon's soldiers discover a black basalt slab, the Rosetta Stone, near the village of Rashid in Egypt