Editing 7th millennium BC

{{short description|Millennium between 7000 BC and 6001 BC}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Millenniumbox|-7}}
{{Holocene}}
{{Neolithic}}
The '''7th millennium BC''' spanned the years 7000 BC to 6001 BC (c. 9 ka to c. 8 ka). It is impossible to precisely date events around this millennium, and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis. 

Towards the end of this millennium, the islands of [[Great Britain]], and [[Ireland]] were severed from [[continental Europe]] by [[Marine transgression|rising seawater]].

==Communities==
[[File:7th millennium BC sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Neolithic stone figures, 7th millennium BC]]
===Population===
[[Neolithic]] culture and technology were established in the Near East by 7000 BC and there is increasing evidence through the millennium of its spread or introduction to Europe and the Far East. In most of the world, however, including north and western Europe, people still lived in scattered [[Palaeolithic]] [[hunting-gathering|hunter-gatherer]] communities. The [[Mehrgarh]] [[Chalcolithic]] civilization began around 7000 BC. The [[World population estimates|world population]] is believed to have been stable and slowly increasing. It has been estimated that there were perhaps ten million people worldwide at the end of this millennium, growing to forty million by 5000 BC and 100 million by 1600 BC, an average growth rate of 0.027% p.a. from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age.<ref name="JNB">Jean-Noël Biraben, "Essai sur l'évolution du nombre des hommes", ''Population'' 34-1 (1979), pp. 13–25.</ref>

===Europe===
Neolithic culture and technology reached modern Turkey and Greece c. 7000 BC; and Crete about the same time. The innovations, including the introduction of farming, spread from the Middle East through Turkey and Egypt. There is evidence of domesticated sheep or goats, pigs, and cattle, together with grains of cultivated bread wheat.<ref>{{cite book |title=Europe Between the Oceans |author=Barry Cunliffe |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2011 |page=94}}</ref> The domestication of pigs in Eastern Europe is believed to have begun c. 6800 BC. The pigs may have descended from European wild boar or were probably introduced by farmers migrating from the Middle East.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070903204822.htm |title=Ancient Pig DNA Study Sheds New Light on Colonization of Europe By Early Farmers |website=ScienceDaily |date=4 September 2007 |access-date=31 May 2019}}</ref> There is evidence, c. 6200 BC, of farmers from the Middle East reaching the Danube and moving into Romania and Serbia.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/uow-ids020813.php |title=Isotopic data show farming arrived in Europe with migrants |work=EurekAlert! |publisher=American Association for the Advancement of Science |date=11 February 2013 |access-date=31 May 2019}}</ref> Farming gradually spread westward and northward over the next four millennia, finally reaching Great Britain and Scandinavia c. 3000 BC to complete the transition of Europe from the [[Mesolithic]] to the Neolithic.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://library.eb.co.uk/levels/adult/article/Neolithic/55271 |title=Neolithic |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica |date=2019 |access-date=6 November 2019}}</ref>

===Near East===
The [[Ubaid period]] (c. 6500–3800 BC) began in [[Mesopotamia]], its name derived from [[Tell al-'Ubaid]] where the first significant excavation took place.<ref>Carter, Robert A. and Philip, Graham  ''[http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/saoc/saoc63.html Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, Number 63)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131115070526/http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/saoc/saoc63.html |date=15 November 2013 }}'' The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (2010) {{ISBN|978-1-885923-66-0}} p. 2; "Radiometric data suggest that the whole Southern Mesopotamian Ubaid period, including Ubaid 0 and 5, is of immense duration, spanning nearly three millennia from about 6500 to 3800 B.C."</ref><ref>Hall, Henry R. and Woolley, C. Leonard. 1927. ''Al-'Ubaid. Ur Excavations 1''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>

By the end of this millennium, [[Jericho]] had become a large agricultural settlement with some eight to ten acres within its walls. [[Kathleen Kenyon]] reckoned that it was home to about three thousand people. Construction was done using stone implements to mould clay into bricks. The main crop was wheat.<ref>Bronowski, p. 70.</ref>

===The Steppe===
“Sheep and goats were domesticated in South West Asia, probably in the region of eastern Anatolia and northern Syria between 8000 and 7500 BC, and were part of the agricultural package that was transmitted to Greece and the Balkans during the pioneering movements in the seventh millennium. From there the herding of domesticated sheep and goats was gradually taken up by foraging communities in the Pontic-Caspian steppe during the sixth and fifth millennia and became an essential part of the herder economy.”

<ref> — By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia by Barry Cunliffe
https://a.co/3dkOTDJ </ref>

==Geologic and climatic change==
===The Northgrippian===
In the [[geologic time scale]], the "[[Northgrippian]]" succeeded the "[[Greenlandian]]" c. 6236 BC (to c. 2250 BC).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stratigraphy.org/GSSP/index.html |publisher=International Commission on Stratigraphy |title=GSSP Table – All Periods |website=www.stratigraphy.org |date=2018 |access-date=1 June 2019}}</ref> The starting point for the Northgrippian is the so-called [[8.2 kiloyear event]], which was an [[abrupt climate change]] lasting some four centuries in which there was a marked decrease in global temperatures, possibly caused by an influx of glacial meltwater into the North Atlantic Ocean.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Alley |first1=Richard B. |last2=Ágústsdóttir |first2=Anna Maria |year=2005 |title=The 8k event: cause and consequences of a major Holocene abrupt climate change |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |volume=24 |issue=10–11 |pages=1123–49 |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2004.12.004 |bibcode = 2005QSRv...24.1123A}}</ref>

===Creation of Great Britain and Ireland===
The influx is believed to be one factor in the creation of [[Great Britain]] and [[Ireland]] as islands separate from the European continent. After the [[Last Glacial Period|Last Ice Age]] ended c. 9700 BC, increasing sea levels gradually inundated [[Doggerland]], a land bridge which linked Great Britain to [[Denmark]] and the [[Netherlands]]. This process began the formation of the [[North Sea]] and the [[English Channel]]. Further west, another low-lying land area was being flooded to form the [[Irish Sea]] and create Ireland. Sometime in the second half of the 7th millennium, the [[Storegga Slide]]s occurred off [[Norway]] to generate a huge [[tsunami]] which completely overwhelmed Doggerland and its [[Mesolithic]] community of an estimated 5,000 hunter-gatherers. By about 6100 BC, Great Britain had become an island.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12244964 |title=The moment Great Britain became an island |last=Lane |first=Megan |work=BBC News |publisher=BBC |date=15 February 2011 | access-date=5 November 2019}}</ref>

==Astronomy==
[[Jupiter]] [[Occultation|occulted]] [[Saturn]] in 6857 B.C.E.<ref>{{cite web|author=Bob King | url=https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/jupiter-and-saturn-embrace-in-solstice-conjunction/ |title=Jupiter and Saturn Embrace in Solstice Conjunction |publisher=Sky & Telescope|date=December 20, 2020}}</ref> This is one of the rarest astronomical events in the [[Solar System]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/curtis/astro4.html |title=Chapter 2: PREDICTABLE NON-PERIODIC EVENTS-PART II |access-date=2 January 2021 |archive-date=13 August 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120813234832/http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Curtis/astro4.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> with the next occurrence on February 17, 7541.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://chemistry.unina.it/~alvitagl/solex/Jusatocc.txt |title=Jusatocc.txt |archive-date=11 May 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120511024016/http://chemistry.unina.it/~alvitagl/solex/Jusatocc.txt}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book |last=Bronowski |first=Jacob |author-link=Jacob Bronowski |title=The Ascent of Man |year=1973 |publisher=BBC |location=London |isbn=978-1-849-90115-4 }}

{{Millennia}}

[[Category:7th millennium BC| ]]
[[Category:Millennia|-93]]