Classical antiquity is a term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea. It primarily refers to the timeframe of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.[46] In the context of this list its use encompasses various other civilizations including, but not limited to, those of the Ancient Near East.
594 BC:Solon appointed Archon of Classical Athens and begins issuing citizenship and judicial reforms, giving Athenian citizens the right to participate in government.
c. 512 BC:Darius I (Darius the Great) of Persia, subjugates eastern Thrace, Macedonia submits voluntarily, and annexes the Libyan Kingdom, Persian Empire at largest extent.
The Eastern Hemisphere in 500 BC509 BC: Expulsion of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, founding of Roman Republic (traditional date).
305 BC: Chandragupta Maurya seizes the satrapies of Paropamisadae (Kabul), Aria (Herat), Arachosia (Qanadahar) and Gedrosia (Baluchistan) from Seleucus I Nicator, the Macedonian satrap of Babylonia, in return for 500 elephants.
216 BC:Battle of Cannae – Rome defeated in major battle in the second Punic War.
207 BC:Nanyue Kingdom extends from Guangzhou to North Việt Nam .
206 BC:Han dynasty established in China, after the death of Qin Shi Huang; China in this period officially becomes a Confucian state and opens trading connections with the West, i.e. the Silk Road.
149 – 146 BC:Third Punic War between Rome and Carthage. War ends with the complete destruction of Carthage, allowing Rome to conquer modern day Tunisia and Libya.
30 BC:Cleopatra ends her reign as the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Egypt.
27 BC: End of the Roman Republic and formation of the Roman Empire: Augustus is given titles of Princeps and Augustus by Roman Senate – beginning of Pax Romana. Formation of influential Praetorian Guard to provide security to Emperor.
380: Roman Emperor Theodosius I declares the Arian faith of Christianity heretical. Nicene (Catholic) Christianity is the official religion of the Roman Empire.
392: Theodosius I outlaws all religions other than Catholic Christianity and Judaism.
406: Romans are expelled from Britain.
407 – 409:Visigoths and other Germanic tribes cross into Roman-Gaul for the first time.
410: Visigoths sack Rome in 410 for the first time since 390 BC.
415: Germanic tribes enter Spain.
420: The general Liu Yu usurps the Jin in southern China, beginning the Liu Song dynasty.
The date used as the end of the ancient era is arbitrary. The transition period from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages is known as Late Antiquity. Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century (c. ACE 284) to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius. The Early Middle Ages are a period in the history of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from CE 500 to 1000. Not all historians agree on the ending dates of ancient history, which frequently falls somewhere in the 5th, 6th, or 7th century. Western scholars usually date the end of ancient history with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in CE 476, the death of the emperor Justinian I in CE 565, or the coming of Islam in CE 632 as the end of classical antiquity.
"Beginning in the pottery-phase of the Neolithic, clay tokens are widely attested as a system of counting and identifying specific amounts of specified livestock or commodities. The tokens, enclosed in clay envelopes after being impressed on their rounded surface, were gradually replaced by impressions on flat or plano-convex tablets, and these in turn by more or less conventionalized pictures of the tokens incised on the clay with a reed stylus. The transition to writing was complete W. Hallo; W. Simpson (1971). The Ancient Near East. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. p.25.
Augustin F. C. Holl. The Origins of African Metallurgies. Anthropology. Oxford research encyclopaedias. Published online 30 June 2020. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.63
Two fragmentary Akkadian versions survive, from the 15th century BCE and from the end of the second millennium BCE: "Its great antiquity and popularity is evidenced by the large number of manuscripts of it that have survived" (Beaulieu in Clifford 2007:4).
Anthony, David W. (2007). The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World. Princeton University Press.
Thapar, Romila; Witzel, Michael; Menon, Jaya; Friese, Kai; Khan, Razib (2019). Which of us are Aryans? rethinking the concept of our origins. New Delhi: Aleph. ISBN978-93-88292-38-2.
Ehret, Christopher (2001). "Bantu Expansions: Re-Envisioning a Central Problem of Early African History". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 34 (1): 5–41. doi:10.2307/3097285. ISSN0361-7882. JSTOR3097285.
Lane, Paul; Ashley, Ceri; Oteyo, Gilbert (2006). "New Dates for Kansyore and Urewe Wares from Northern Nyanza, Kenya". AZANIA: Journal of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. 41 (1): 123–138. doi:10.1080/00672700609480438.
Paul L. Maier "The Date of the Nativity and Chronology of Jesus" in Chronos, kairos, Christos: nativity and chronological studies by Jerry Vardaman, Edwin M. Yamauchi 1989 ISBN0-931464-50-1 pp. 113–129
Davies, W. D.; Sanders, E.P. (2008). "20. Jesus: From the Jewish Point of View". In Horbury, William; Davies, W.D.; Sturdy, John (eds.). The Cambridge History of Judaism. Volume 3: The Early Roman period. Cambridge Univiversity Press. p.621. ISBN9780521243773. The approximate period of his death (c. CE 30, plus or minus one or two years) is confirmed by the requirements of the chronology of Paul.
MacMullen, Ramsay (1966). Enemies of the Roman Order: Treason, Unrest and Alienation in the Empire. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
MacMullen, Ramsay (1993). Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN0-691-03601-2.