5th millennium BC
From Freepedia
(6th millennium BC – 5th millennium BC – 4th millennium BC – other millennia)
Events
- 4860 BC - Mount Mazama in Oregon collapses, forming a caldera that later fills with water and becomes Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States.
- 4713 BC – The epoch (origin) of the Julian Period described by Joseph Justus Scaliger occurred on January 1, the astronomical Julian day number zero.
- 4004 BC – The universe is created at nightfall preceding October 23 according to the chronology of Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh.
According to Dr Margaret Murray in the journal Antiquity (XXXV, 137, March 1961), the universe was created at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 21st, 4004 B.C.
"The evidence for these dates is entirely documentary. The date of the year as calculated by Archbishop Ussher is obtained by taking the Jewish date of the Flood -- 2348 B.C. -- and adding to it in succession the age of each patriarch when he begat a son. The other items can be worked out from the data given in the first chapter of Genesis:
"Six p.m.: The periods of creation are divided into "days" and each "day" is said to consist of evening and morning, showing that the "day" began on what we should now call the evening before, e.g., Passover, Day of Atonement, Eve of St John, Eve of All Hallows, Ramadan, and in Palestine, Easter Eve.
"Wednesday: The earth was created on the fourth day of the week, and Wednesday is the fourth day of the week.
"March 21: As the length of days varies according to the season of the year, it is obvious that any calculation must have been made when day and night were equally balanced, i.e. one of the equinoxes. And as the vernal equinox has always been more important than the autumnal, we get March 21.
"Therefore: the full date, 6 p.m., Wednesday, March 21."
Cultures
- c. 4800 - 4600 BC; arrangements of circular ditches are built in Central Europe
- c. 4500 BC – Civilization of Susa and Kish in Mesopotamia and Khuzestan (see Sialk)
- Cucuteni culture
- the chalcolithic Sredny Stog, Samara and early Maykop cultures, candidates for the early Proto-Indo-Europeans
Periods
Inventions, discoveries, introductions
- from ca. 5000 BC: development of proto-writing systems, possibly ideographic: Vinca script, Tartaria tablets.
- ca. 4500 BC – Introduction of the plough in Europe
- Domestication of the Water Buffalo in China
- Development of beer-making
