The timeline below shows the date of publication of possible major scientific breakthroughs, theories and discoveries, along with the discoverer.
The timeline begins at the Bronze Age, as it is difficult to give even estimates for the timing of events prior to this, such as of the discovery of counting, natural numbers and arithmetic.
Many early innovations of the Bronze Age were prompted by the increase in trade, and this also applies to the scientific advances of this period.
For context, the major civilizations of this period are Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley, with Greece rising in importance towards the end of the third millennium BC.
The Indus Valley script remains undeciphered and there are very little surviving fragments of its writing, thus any inference about scientific discoveries in that region must be made based only on archaeological digs.