Before 1200: Patterns in World History

In September 2009, Kong Dejun returned to China from her home in Great Britain to attend a birthday celebration for her ancient ancestor Kong Fuzi (Confucius), who was born $2,560\,\text{years}$ earlier.
The celebration took place at the Confucian Temple in Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, and was attended by approximately $10,000\,\text{people}$ , including descendants, scholars, government officials, and foreign representatives.
Kong Dejun stated: "I was touched to see my ancestor being revered by people from different countries and nations."
The event was notable because it occurred in a country ruled by the Communist Party, which had long devoted significant efforts to discrediting Confucius and his teachings.
Under communist ideology, Confucianism was associated with:
- Class inequality
- Patriarchy
- Feudalism
- Superstition
- All things old and backward
Confucius outlasted modern communism, leading the Communist Party to claim him as a national treasure and establish over $300\,\text{Confucian Institutes}$ globally to study his writings.
Confucius appears in contemporary television shows and movies, and parents offer prayers at Confucian temples when their children take national college entrance examinations.
Other cultural and religious traditions have experienced modern revivals in China:
- Buddhism and Daoism have seen thousands of temples—destroyed during the height of communism—repaired and reopened.
- Christianity has grown rapidly since the 1970s.

Ancient traditions and the civilizations in which they were born provide a direct connection between the world of $1200\text{--}1450\,\text{C.E.}$ and preceding eras.
Homo sapiens (human beings essentially similar to modern humans) emerged around $300,000\,\text{years ago}$ , almost certainly in Africa.
Between $100,000\,\text{years ago}$ and $60,000\,\text{years ago}$ , Homo sapiens began migrating out of Africa into Eurasia, Australia, the Americas, and eventually the islands of the Pacific.
The final phase of this global migration ended around $1200\,\text{C.E.}$ , when humans first occupied New Zealand.
Every major landmass except Antarctica acquired a human presence prior to $1200\,\text{C.E.}$
Except for those who settled Pacific Oceania, all global migration was undertaken by people practicing a gathering and hunting lifestyle using only stone tools.
The Paleolithic era (or Old Stone Age) represents over $95\%$ of the time humans have occupied the planet.
During the Paleolithic era, humankind sustained itself entirely through foraging:
- Gathering wild foods
- Scavenging dead animals
- Hunting live animals
- Fishing

Paleolithic humans created a multitude of separate and distinct societies, each with its own history, culture, language, identity, stories, and rituals.
Paleolithic societies were small-scale, organized as bands of approximately $25\text{ to }50\,\text{people}$ .
All social relationships were intensely personal and normally understood in terms of kinship.
These small-scale societies were seasonally mobile or nomadic, moving frequently in regular patterns to exploit wild plant and animal resources.
Paleolithic societies were highly egalitarian, lacking the class and gender inequalities that emerged later with agriculture and urban life.
Demographic characteristics of Paleolithic societies:
- Life expectancy was low, averaging less than $35\,\text{years}$ .
- Population growth was very slow.
Paleolithic cultural creativity was evident through:
- Technological innovations
- Sophisticated oral traditions, such as the Dreamtime stories of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia
- Cave paintings and sculptures found worldwide

The Agricultural Revolution (also known as the Neolithic or New Stone Age Revolution) represents the most fundamental transformation in human history.
Between $12,000\,\text{years ago}$ and $4,000\,\text{years ago}$ , this process unfolded separately across Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

$6\text{th--}5\text{th centuries B.C.E.}$ : Life of Confucius.
$6\text{th--}3\text{rd centuries B.C.E.}$ : Lives of Laozi and Zhuangzi.
\text{ca. } $206\,\text{B.C.E.--}220\,\text{C.E.}$ : Han dynasty establishes Confucianism as official state ideology in China.
$111\,\text{B.C.E.--}939\,\text{C.E.}$ : Confucianism takes root in Vietnam under Chinese rule.
$4\text{th--}11\text{th centuries C.E.}$ : Confucianism takes root in Korea.
$7\text{th century C.E.}$ : Shotoku establishes Confucianism in Japan.
$960\text{--}1279\,\text{C.E.}$ : Neo-Confucianism flourishes in Song dynasty China.

$800\text{--}400\,\text{B.C.E.}$ : Hindu Upanishads compiled.
\text{ca. } $566\text{--}486\,\text{B.C.E.}$ : Life of Buddha.
$100\text{--}300\,\text{C.E.}$ : Mahayana Buddhism emerges.
$100\text{--}800\,\text{C.E.}$ : Buddhism established in China.
\text{ca. } $300\,\text{C.E.}$ : Bhagavad Gita compiled in final form.
$600\text{--}1200\,\text{C.E.}$ : Buddhism and Hinduism take root in Southeast Asia.
$600\text{--}1300\,\text{C.E.}$ : Bhakti movement takes shape in India.
$1000\,\text{C.E.}$ : Buddhism largely disappears within India.
$12\text{th century C.E.}$ : Emergence of Zen Buddhism in Japan.

$9\text{th--}6\text{th centuries B.C.E.}$ : Era of Jewish prophets (Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah).
\text{ca. } $4\,\text{B.C.E.--}29\,\text{C.E.}$ : Life of Jesus.
\text{ca. } $6\text{--}67\,\text{C.E.}$ : Life of Saint Paul.
$4\text{th century C.E.}$ : Christianity established as state religion in the Roman Empire, Armenia, and Axum.
$570\text{--}632\,\text{C.E.}$ : Life of Muhammad.
$7\text{th century C.E.}$ : Emergence of Sunni/Shia split in Islam.
$750\text{--}900\,\text{C.E.}$ : Islam established in Persia.
$800\text{--}1000\,\text{C.E.}$ : Beginnings of Sufi Islam.
$1054\,\text{C.E.}$ : Deepening divide between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.