5274 or 5047 - Taurus became the constellation that rose in the east just before the sun (rose heliacally) on March 21

Graves: "3800 BC" zodiac: waterman at winter solstice, fish, ram, bull at spring equinox, twins, crab, lion at summer solstice, virgin, scales, scorpion at fall equinox, bowman, goat (page 380-381) [actually 5200-3100]

(5500) - Indo-European starting its overlay, moving through central Europe and reaching Scandinavia by 4000 BC. (OB, 249)

5300-4100 Sumer Ubaid (the earlier phase) continues - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubaid_period
Ubaid - figures with slit eyes.

5000 - 3750 SE Asia sea-levels rise from 18 meters below present to present levels / cross present-day mark [ca 4000, then drop slightly] (OB, 158)
5000 - ASIA: Mundaic speakers split off from other Austro-Asiatic, but had words for copper, bronze.
5000 - Southeast Asians started long-distance sailing (boats).
5000 - 2500 - large scale Austronesian expansion began. First settlers landed in northern Luzon in the Philippines intermingling with Australo-Melanesians who had inhabited the islands since 21,000 BC - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_people
(5000–2600) Early Neolithic communities gradual trading networks across the Indus Valley region. (Met Museum)
>>> ? POSSIBLE TIES TO:
c. 5000 BC - Cyclades: Permanent settlements were established in the Late Neolithic period on Andros, Naxos, Antiparos, Amorgos, Thera and a few more islands. Those early settlements were small in size and their inhabitants depended on agriculture, animal-breeding and fishing for subsistence. http://www.cycladic.gr/frontoffice/portal.asp?cpage=NODE&cnode=36

A distinctive Neolithic culture amalgamating Anatolian and mainland Greek elements arose in the western Aegean before 4000 BC, based on emmer wheat and wild-type barley, sheep and goats, pigs, and tuna that were apparently speared from small boats (Rutter). Excavated sites include Saliagos and Kephala (on Keos), which showed signs of copper-working.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycladic_civilization

5000 - DUBAI — The oldest archaeological site in the UAE, discovered on the island of Marawah, 100km west of Abu Dhabi: 7,000 years old village in Marawah has the best-preserved and most-sophisticated stone buildings of Neolithic date in Eastern Arabia. An almost complete pottery vessel of a type not previously found in South Eastern Arabia from the Neolithic Ubaid civilisation in southern Mesopotamia also discovered. The most complete of its type and age ever found in the UAE, also probably 6,500 to 7,000 years old, provides evidence that the Neolithic inhabitants of Marawah were trading by sea with southern Mesopotamia. http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2005/February/theuae_February221.xml&section=theuae

4600 - 4300 late Halaf, early Ubaid: 6 of 13 skulls artificially deformed to lengthen cranium

The date of [the] transition, from Ubaid 4 to Early Uruk, is in dispute, but calibrated radiocarbon dates from Tell Awayli would place it as early as 4500 BC. http://www.skepticworld.com/ancient-world/sumeria.asp
Flood —a clean bed of pure water-borne silt nearly 12 feet in depth, lying between the Al Ubaid and Uruk cultural periods.
(Gold - Sutherland 1969)
By the time of the Uruk period (4500-3100 BC calibrated), the volume of trade goods transported along the canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the rise of many large temple-centered cities where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. http://www.skepticworld.com/ancient-world/sumeria.asp

4000 - Sumer: start of Uruk period - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk_period = Chalcolithic / Copper Age
fourth millennium - copper blade in grave Ur (Sumer)
Ur: the special interest of the Uruk culture is the introduction of the potter's wheel. (Gold - Sutherland 1969)

4500 - Byblos (Lebanon) (founded by Ouranus / Coelus) Phoenician (Gods of Eden) / 5000
4500 - Pulse of trading emanating from southern Mesopotamia. Southern pottery and other artefacts suddenly show up all over the region, as far a field as the Mediterranean and the Arabian peninsular. http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/chronology.html
4500 - As early as, pre-Phoenicians navigated Mediterranean Sea plus beyond Strait of Gibraltar (Gods of Eden)
4431 - large boat of cedar found off Hayling Island, near Portsmouth in Hampshire, England (Britain). The Independent, 7 May 1997, and Yorkshire Post, 7 May 1997. http://www.archaeology.org/9707/newsbriefs/hayling.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Northern Upper source river of the Euphrates, on the Khabur River:
Tell Brak Eye Temple - The earliest identified non-residential structure at Tell Brak is what must be an enormous building, even though only a small portion of the room has been excavated. This building has a massive entranceway with a basalt doorsill and towers on either side. The building has red mud brick walls which are 1.85 meters thick, and even today stand 1.5 meters tall. Radiocarbon dates have placed this structure securely between 4400 and 3900 BC. http://archaeology.about.com/od/bterms/qt/tell_brak.htm
4000 (pre) - The remains of a spectacularly large building, with walls a metre and a half thick and a huge doorway opening out into a courtyard, at the lower levels of Tell Brak, Nagar, [NE Syria]. http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/chronology.html
occupied from at least as early as 6000 BC - http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/projects/brak/homepage.htm

A house of ca 3700 BCE would have had a long narrow courtyard with a domed oven, large enough for a gathering that would have tightly packed the space. Skeletal remains show that the city was a source for donkey-onager mules used for drawing wheeled carts before the introduction of the horse, about 2300 BCE.[5] Most famous of the pre-Akkadian features is the 4th millennium "Eye Temple", which was excavated in 1937–38. The temple, built ca 3500–3300 BCE, was named for the hundreds of small alabaster "eye idol" figurines, which were incorporated into the mortar with which the mudbrick temple was constructed. The building's surfaces were richly decorated with clay cones, copper panels and gold work, in a style comparable to contemporary temples of Sumer. The most dramatic discoveries during recent excavations are two mass graves dating to c 3800 BC, which suggest that the process of urbanization was accompanied by warfare. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagar,_Syria

Until recently, the idea of urbanism in northern Mesopotamia was thought to be a southern Mesopotamian export which only became prevalent toward the end of the 3rd millennium BC (ca. 2600 BC). Excavation and intensive surface survey at Tell Brak now presents a challenge to this narrative. Urban growth at Brak began at the end of the 5th millennium BC (ca. 4300 BC). http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~anthro/ur/field_tellbrak.html

Until recently it had been thought that the first large cities in Mesopotamia, of which Uruk is the best-known example, had developed on the alluvial plain of Sumer during the 4th millennium BC. The discovery of a monumental building with a massive basalt threshold dating before the middle of the 4th millennium (Oates & Oates 1997) raised the question whether Brak might have been a city as large and complex as those of southern Mesopotamia. Subsequent topographic survey and a series of test pits has established that Brak was, at its largest, up to 100 ha in total area in the middle of the 4th millennium, well before any substantial southern influence at the site. Antiquity, December 1, 2002 Emberling, Geoff; McDonald, Helen.
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Kurgan I, Dnieper/Volga region, earlier half of the 4th millennium BC. Apparently evolving from cultures of the Volga basin, subgroups include the Samara and Seroglazovo cultures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_culture [Yamna = Kurgan]

4500-3500 BC - The Sredny Stog culture (first located: Ukrainian village of Serednyi Stih) was situated just north of the Sea of Azov between the Dnieper and the Don (including Dereivka site). It seems to have had contact with the agricultural Trypillian culture in the west, and was a contemporary of the Khvalynsk culture. The foremost expert on this culture (Dmytro Telegin) has divided Sredny Stog into two distinct phases. It was succeeded by the Yamna culture. [Yamna = Kurgan]
Inhumation was in a ground level pit, not yet capped by a tumulus (kurgan). The deceased was placed on his back with the legs flexed. Ochre was used. Phase II also knew corded ware pottery, which it may have originated, and stone battle-axes of the type later associated with expanding Indo-European cultures to the West. Most notably, it has perhaps the earliest evidence of horse domestication (in phase II, ca. 4000-3500 BC) with finds suggestive of cheek-pieces (psalia). (Copper Age)
(J. P. Mallory, "Sredny Stog Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, 1997) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sredny_Stog_culture
In the context of the modified Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, this pre-kurgan archaeological culture could represent the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language.
Paleolithic Continuity Theory [1], associates Pit Grave and Sredny Stog Kurgan cultures with Turkic peoples.

[Mysteries of the Past, 1977, page 57: In Belgium a flint mine of about 4300 B.C. - had to go through nearly 30 feet of unstable gravel and sand to reach the desired flint-bearing beds, where it fanned out into a web of galleries.]

Ceramic similarities between the Indus Civilization, southern Turkmenistan and northern Iran during 4300–3200 BC suggest considerable mobility and trade. Parpola, Asko (2005), “Study of the Indus script”, Transactions of the 50th International Conference of Eastern Studies, Tokyo: The Tôhô Gakkai, pp. pp. 28-66.
4300-3200 BC - Indus Valley: Chalcolithic cultures - http://archaeology.about.com/od/iterms/qt/indus.htm

Ancient Indians buried their dead, as did predynastic Egyptians, under round burial mounds shaped like the huts in common use.
Voyages of the Pyramid Builders (Schoch)

Spread along coast -
major movement.
Arrival in Britain
from Mediterranean
= use of boats


Two types of pottery spread through Europe with the Early Neolithic from the Near East:
1) Movement up coast
& into France

2) Movement up Danube

Britain: Sweet Track is the earliest known trackway--constructed footpath--in northern Europe. It was built, according to tree ring analysis of the wood, in the winter or early spring of 3807 or 3806 BC: this date supports earlier radiocarbon dates of the early 4th millennium BC. The trackway ran about 1800 meters across the peat marsh called Somerset Levels near the town of Glastonbury in England. http://archaeology.about.com/od/sterms/g/sweettrack.htm

3800 - 3200 - Britain: The first Neolithic cultural development happened in the west on the Atlantic side of the British Isles [from Spain].
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3800 - Megalithic portal tombs began to appear on the coast- lines of Ireland and Wales = dolmens. Continued to be built for 600 years (so to 3200). (OB, 252)
Contemporary with these, but outlasting them in fashion, was a more elaborate industrial type of megalithic grave suited to repeated communal burials: the passage tomb, lined with massive, flat slabs. Northern Ireland / cairns. Similar designs appeared at Antrim in western Scotland, Most simple, but Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange in the Boyne Valley, Ireland, monumental. (OB, 252)
3900 - 3000+ Britain: Passage graves (Gimbutas, 335)
4000 - Passage grave, Ile Longue in Brittany - Carbon 14 and the Prehistory of Europe by Colin Renfrew (Sci Am 1971)
5000-3000 Dissignac, Brittany megalith - SunGod / 5000-2000 Kercado, Brittany megalith - SunGod
4100 - 3900 Britain: Long Barrows (Gimbutas, 335)
Megalithic chamber tombs / Early Neolithic, from Corsica and Sardinia, along the south and west coasts of Iberia, through Brittany and Normandy to the south coast of England and the Atlantic fringe of the British Isles (OB, 252)
3600 - 3000+ Britain: Court tombs (Gimbutas, 335)
3750-3250 Gavrinis megalith, Brittany - SunGod
3600 - Discovery of the Azores islands, recorded at the Tumulus of Gavrinis, Brittany (SunGod)
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3700 - At Tell Hamoukar occupation mound in eastern Syria, 8 kilometres from the Iraqi border, archaeologist McGuire Gibson identified a town of 12 hectares enclosed by a defensive city wall. Inside the wall are remains of a large building containing a series of large mud brick ovens indicating that food was prepared on an industrial scale. http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/chronology.html

3700 to 3200 BCE - Oldest Wooden Statues and brewery found in the Nile Delta 22 March 2006: A Polish team found two wooden statues, believed to date from between 3700 to 3200 BCE in the northern Nile Delta region of Daqahliya. The statues, measuring 75cm and 40cm in height, represent two nude men, their eyes laid in with precious stone. The purpose or meaning of the statues is as yet unclear. The team also found warehouses and tombs in the same region, pointing to this area being inhabited during the Pre-dynastic era. Among the buildings that were unearthed, the remains of the largest Pre-dynastic brewery have been found. Beer, brewed from bread, was a highly nutritional drink that played an important part in the administration of Ancient Egypt. The mass-production beer often points to the existance of a central administration through which the ruling elite controlled the population. - http://www.ancient-egypt.org/index.html

3600 - chamber tombs appeared [on Europe mainland] as far north as Frisia, north-west Germany and Denmark coast.
3600 - 3200 BCE evolution from simple then polygonal dolmens, through passage graves, to complex chambered and gallery graves. (OB, 253)

3500 years BC - Greater Stonehenge Cursus – 500 years older than the circle. Antler pick used to dig the Cursus . . . was carbon dated between 3600 and 3300 BC. ScienceDaily (June 2008) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080610095001.htm

North-west European Dolmen burials may have evolved locally from earlier long barrows
which had, in turn, seeped into eastern England [Britain] during its earliest Neolithic phase. (OB, 253)

3500 BCE conventionally taken as the divide between the Middle Neolithic and Late Neolithic Periods (changing pottery).
Around 3500 BCE a new type of megalithic grave, the gallery grave (with elongated slab-lined chambers), took hold in Brittany and also farther east in Normandy and right up to Denmark. (OB, 255)
3500 BCE use of animals for traction and the first use of the plough in Western Europe. (OB, 255)

Ħaġar Qim megalithic temple, Malta, dating from the Ġgantija phase (3600-3200 BCE) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ħaġar_Qim

Uruk [Sumer] - by 3,500 BC had grown into a true city, covering 2.5 square kilometres and housing a population estimated at 50,000. The five miles of city walls were said to have enclosed areas of one third housing, one third orchards, and one third clay pits. World trade and shipping, together with superb social organization and administration. Schools taught not only language and writing, but also sciences of the day, botany, zoology, geography and mathematics. Literary works of the past were studied and copied. http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/chronology.html