10th millennium BC
(Pleistocene, Paleolithic – 10th millennium BC – 9th millennium BC – other millennia)
- Beginning of the Mesolithic, or Epipaleolithic time period, which is the first part of the Holocene epoch.
- Bubalus Period in the Sahara
Events
- Circa 10,000 BC– Europe: Azilian (Painted Pebble Culture) people occupy Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Scotland.
- Circa 10,000 BC– Europe: Sami people occupy Scandinavia and intermarry with peoples already living in Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia.
- Circa 10,000 BC– Europe: Magdalenian culture flourishes and creates cave paintings in France
- Sometime before 9000 BC– First stone structures at Jericho, built during the pre-agricultural Natufian culture period
- Circa 10,000 BC– Norway: First traces of population in Randaberg
- Circa 10,000 BC– Egypt: Some people believe that Egypt's Great Sphinx of Giza was built around this time.
- Circa 10,000 BC– Egypt: Early sickle blades & grinding disappear and are replaced by hunting, fishing and gathering peoples who use stone tools
- Circa 10,000 BC– Asia: Cave sites near the Caspian Sea are used for human habitation.
- Circa 10,000 BC– Japan: The Jomon people use pottery, fish, hunt and gather acorns, nuts and edible seeds. There are 10,000 known sites. Pottery would not appear in the Near East until 6500BC.
- Circa 10,000 BC– Mesopotamia: Three or more linguistic groups, including Sumerian and Semitic peoples share a common political and cultural way of life.
- Circa 10,000 BC– Armenoid people from the Mediterranean Sea can be found from Hungary to Polynesia.
- Circa 10,000 BC– Iraq, Turkey, and Syria: People begin to collect wild wheat and barley probably to make malt then beer
- Circa 10,000 BC– Korea: First pottery appears, probably associated with the beginning of single location agarian life.
- Circa 10,000 BC– North America: Alabama and Paleoindian hunter-gatherer societies live seminomadically in the countryside.
- Circa 10,000 BC– North America: Blackwater Draw forms in eastern New Mexico, evidencing human activity
- Circa 10,000 BC– North America: Folsom people flourish throughout the Southwest
- Circa 10,000 BC– The dog is domesticated.
- Circa 9,000 BC– Near East: First stone structures are built at Jericho.
Environmental changes
- Circa 10,000 BC– North America: Dire Wolf, Smilodon, Giant beaver, Ground Sloth, Mammoth, and American Lion all become extinct.
- Circa 10,000 BC– Bering Sea: Land bridge from Siberia to North America sinks.
- Circa 10,000 BC– North America: Long Island becomes an island when waters break through on the western end to the interior lake
- Circa 10,000 BC– Homo floresiensis, the human's last known surviving close relative, becomes extinct.
- Circa 10,000 BC– World: Sea levels rise abruptly and massive inland flooding occurs due to glacier melt.
- Circa 9700 BC – Lake Agassiz forms.
- Circa 9600 BC– Younger Dryas cold period ends. Pleistocene ends and Holocene begins. Paleolithic ends and Mesolithic begins. Large amounts of previously glaciated land become habitable again.
- Circa 9500 BC – Ancylus Lake, part of the modern-day Baltic Sea, forms.