History of Eurasia
Much interest in this area lies with the presumed origin of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language and chariot warfare in Central Eurasia.
Finds of later fossils, such as Homo cepranensis, are local in nature, so the extent of human residence in Eurasia during 1,000,000 – 300,000 ybp remains a mystery.
The birth of the first modern humans (Homo sapiens idaltu) has been dated between 200000 and 130000 ybp (see:Mitochondrial Eve, Single-origin hypothesis), that is, to the coldest phase of the Riss glaciation.
According to the theory humans survived in Africa, and began to resettle areas north, as the effects of the eruption slowly vanished.
Tracing back minute differences in the genomes of modern humans by methods of genetic genealogy, can and have been used to produce models of historical migration.
What is known, is that on areas, of what is now Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, genetic markers diversify (from about 60000 BC), and subsequent migrations emerge to all directions (even back to the Levant) and North Africa.
The traditional view of associating early Celts with the Hallstatt culture, and the Nordic Bronze Age with Germanic peoples.
Due to the similarities between Indo-European languages spoken throughout Europe, Iran, and India, it is widely believed that a group originating in the Pontic steppe in the 5th millennium BC spread both east and west, gradually making their way towards the Indian subcontinent and China in the east and western Europe in the west.
[2] The valleys provided plentiful water and the enrichment of the soil due to annual floods, which made it possible to grow excess crops beyond what was needed to sustain an agricultural village.
[3][4] Boats on the river provided an easy and efficient way to transport people and goods, allowing for the development of trade and facilitating central control of outlying areas.
By the 2nd millennium BC, the eastern coastlines of the Mediterranean were dominated by the Hittite and Egyptian empires, competing for control over the city states in the Levant.
In part this is linked to technological developments, such as the mouldboard plough, that made life in once undeveloped areas more bearable.
In the Axial Age, China, India, and the Mediterranean formed a continuous belt of civilizations stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic and connected by the Silk Road.
The Indo-Mediterranean was the center of Afro-Eurasian connectivity in general until around 1000 AD,[12] with Warwick Ball and William Dalrymple arguing that the Silk Road's prominence only rose with the Pax Mongolica from the 13th century onwards,[13] and Dalrymple further arguing that until then, the main connecting route in Eurasia was a "Golden Road" going through the Indian Ocean and South Asia.
[14] The rise of Islam on Europe's periphery, notably culminating in the 1453 fall of Constantinople, began to fuel a European self-conceptualization of being a Christendom that was isolated from the broader world.
For example, Christopher Columbus's 1490s voyages to the Americas aimed to traverse from Atlantic Europe to Pacific Asia by sailing westward.
[18] At the same time, the foundations for the Japanese colonial empire in the Asia-Pacific were being laid, as Western learning and trans-Pacific contact with the United States helped Japan modernize itself.
Japan's brief rule over Southeast Asia in the mid-20th century played a significant role in removing European dominance in the region.
[20] The Cold War of the late 20th century meant that there was then a conflict between an American-led coalition against the Soviet/communist presence that dominated much of Eurasia.
[21] The end of the Cold War in 1991 saw the emergence of several independent states from the former Soviet Union in and around the Europe-Asia boundary region.
