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Humans had been speaking for a couple hundred thousand years before they got the inspiration or nerve to mark their ideas down for posterity.
But when a Mesopotamian people called the Sumerians finally did scratch out a few bookkeeping symbols on clay tablets 5,000 years ago, they unknowingly started a whole new era in history we call, well … history.,
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<span> This cuneiform text dates back to the 6th year of prince Lugalanda who ruled about 2370 B.C. in southern Mesopotamia. It is an administrative document concerning deliveries of three sorts of beer to different recipients (to the palace and to a temple for offerings) and gives the exact quantities of barley and other ingredients used in brewing. Credit: Max Planck Society </span> </span>
Each Monday, this column turns a page in history to explore the discoveries, events and people that continue to affect the history being made today.
Humans had been speaking for a couple hundred thousand years before they got the inspiration or nerve to mark their ideas down for posterity.
But when a Mesopotamian people called the Sumerians finally did scratch out a few bookkeeping symbols on clay tablets 5,000 years ago, they unknowingly started a whole new era in history we call, well … history.
The presence of written sources denotes the technical dividing line between what scholars classify as prehistory versus what they call history, which starts at different times depending on what part of the world you're studying.
In most places, writing started about the same time ancient civilizations emerged from hunter-gatherer communities, probably as a way to keep track of the new concept of "property," such as animals, grain supplies or land.
By 3000 B.C. in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), and then soon after in Egypt, and by 1500 B.C. in China, people were scribbling, sketching and telling their world about their culture in a very permanent way."
