At the end of November last year, the All-Russian Scientific Conference "Ways of Evolutionary Geography" was held in Moscow, dedicated to the memory of Professor Andrei Alekseevich Velichko, the founder of the scientific school of evolutionary geography and paleoclimatology. The conference was of an interdisciplinary nature, many reports were devoted to the study of the geographical factors of human settlement on the planet, its adaptation to various natural conditions, the influence of these conditions on the nature of settlements and migration routes ancient man. We present a brief overview of some of these interdisciplinary reports.
The role of the Caucasus in human settlement
Corresponding member's report RAS H.A. Amirkhanova(Institute of Archeology RAS) was dedicated to archaeological sites North Caucasus in the context of the problem of the initial human settlement (long before the appearance Homo sapiens and their exit from Africa). For a long time in the Caucasus there were two monuments of the Oldowan type, one of them - the Dmanisi site (1 million 800 thousand years) in Georgia, became widely known. 10-15 years ago, 15 sites were discovered in the Caucasus, the Stavropol Upland and in the southern Azov region, which are attributed to the same time - the early Pleistocene. This is the largest concentration of monuments of the Oldowan culture. Now North Caucasian monuments of this type are confined to the plateau and middle mountains, but at the time of human habitation there, they were located on the sea coast.
Monuments of the Oldovan of the Caucasus and Ciscaucasia. 1 - monuments of the Armenian Highlands (Kurtan: points near the Nurnus paleo-lake; 2 - Dmanisi; 3 - monuments of Central Dagestan (Ainikab, Mukhai, Gegalashur); 4 - Zhukovskoye; 5 - monuments of the southern Azov region (Bogatyrs, Rodniki, Kermek). From the presentation X .A.Amirkhanova.
The North Caucasian Early Pleistocene monuments are directly related to the problem of the time and ways of the initial human settlement in Eurasia. Their study made it possible to obtain unique materials (archaeological, geological, paleobotanical, paleontological) and draw the following conclusions:
1 - The initial settlement of the North Caucasus occurred approximately 2.3 - 2.1 million years ago;
2 - The picture of the ways of human settlement in the space of Eurasia was supplemented by a new direction - along the western coast of the Caspian Sea.
Ways of the initial settlement of man. Solid lines indicate migration routes confirmed by open sites; dotted lines are suggested migration routes. From the presentation of H.A. Amirkhanov.
On the Settlement of America
Doctor of History Sciences S.A.Vasiliev(Institute of History material culture RAS) in his presentation presented a picture of the settlement of North America based on the latest paleogeographic and archaeological data.
In the late Pleistocene era, the Beringian dry land existed in the interval from 27 to 14.0-13.8 thousand years. In Beringia, man was attracted by the commercial fauna, S.A. Vasiliev noted, although the man did not find the mammoth here anymore, he hunted bison, reindeer and red deer. It is assumed that a person remained in the territory of Beringia for several tens of thousands of years, at the end of the Pleistocene there was a resettlement of groups to the east and a rapid increase in their numbers. The oldest reliable traces of human habitation in the American part of Beringia date back to about 14.8-14.7 thousand years ago (the lower cultural layer of the Swan Point site). The monument's microblade industry reflects the first migration wave. Three different groups of cultures existed in Alaska - the Denali complex belonging to the Beringian province, the Nenana complex, and the Paleo-Indian cultures with various types of arrowheads. The Nenana complex includes the Little John site on the border of Alaska and Yukon. Denali-type sites are similar to those of the Duqtai culture in Yakutia, but these are not copies of it: rather, we are talking about a community of microblade industries that covered eastern Asia and the American part of Beringia. The finds with grooved tips are very interesting.
The two migration routes pointed to by archaeological and paleoclimatic evidence are the Mackenzie interglacial corridor and the ice-free route along the Pacific coast. However, some facts, for example, finds of grooved tips in Alaska, indicate that, apparently, at the end of the Pleistocene, a reverse migration took place - not from the northwest to the southeast, but vice versa - along the Mackenzie corridor in the opposite direction; it was associated with the northward migration of the bison, followed by the Paleo-Indians.
Unfortunately, the Pacific Way was inundated by the post-glacial rise in the level of the World Ocean, and most of the parking lots are now on seabed. Archaeologists were left with only later data: shell mounds, traces of fishing and petiole tips were found on the Channel Islands off the coast of California.
The Mackenzie Corridor, which becomes accessible after the partial melting of the ice sheets, 14 thousand years ago, according to new data, was more favorable for habitation than previously thought. Unfortunately, traces of human activity were found only in the southern part of the corridor, dating back 11 thousand years, these are traces of the Clovis culture.
The discoveries of recent years have found in various parts of North America monuments older than the Clovis culture, most of them concentrated in the east and south of the continent. One of the main ones is Meadowcroft in Pennsylvania - a complex of arrowheads dated 14 thousand years ago. In particular, there are points in the Great Lakes region where the skeletal remains of a mammoth are found, accompanied by stone tools. In the west, the discovery of the Paisley caves was a sensation, where a culture of petiolate arrowheads that preceded Clovis was found; later these cultures coexisted. At the Manis site, a mastodon rib with a bone tip stuck in was found, about 14 thousand years old. Thus, it has been shown that clovis is not the first crop to appear in North America.
But clovis is the first culture that demonstrates the complete settlement of the continent by man. In the west, it is dated to a very short interval for a Paleolithic culture from 13,400 to 12,700 years ago, and in the east it lasted until 11,900 years ago. The Clovis culture is characterized by grooved tips, which have no analogues among the artifacts of the Old World. The clovis industry is based on the use of high quality sources of raw materials. flint was transported over distances of hundreds of kilometers in the form of bifaces, which were later used to produce arrowheads. And the sites, mainly in the west, are not associated with rivers, but with ponds and shallow reservoirs, while in the Old World the Paleolithic is most often confined to river valleys.
Summing up, S.A. Vasiliev outlined a more complex picture of the settlement of North America than it seemed until recently. Instead of a single migration wave from Beringia, directed from the northwest to the southeast, along the Mackenzie corridor, most likely, there were several migrations of different times and different directions. Apparently, the first wave of migration from Beringia went along the Pacific coast, and then settling to the east followed. The advance along the Mackenzie Corridor probably took place at a later time, and this corridor was a "two-way street" - some groups went from the north, others from the south. The Clovis culture originated in the southeastern United States and then spread north and west across the continent. Finally, the end of the Pleistocene was marked by the "reverse" migration of a group of Paleo-Indians northward, along the Mackenzie corridor, to Beringia. However, all these ideas, S.A. Vasiliev emphasized, are based on extremely limited material, incomparable with what is available in Eurasia.
1 - migration route from Beringia along the Pacific coast; 2 - migratory route to the southeast along the Mackenzie corridor; 3 - distribution of the Clovis culture in North America; 4 - the spread of ancient people in South America; 5 - return migrations to Beringia. Source: S.A. Vasiliev, Yu.E. Berezkin, A.G. Kozintsev, I.I. Peiros, S.B. Slobodin, A.V. Tabarev. Human settlement of the New World: an experience of interdisciplinary research. St. Petersburg: Nestor-history, 2015. S. 561, insert.
He was not afraid to take the first step
E.I. Kurenkova(Candidate of Geographical Sciences, Leading Researcher of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences) spoke about the problem of the interaction between nature and human society in the works of A.A. Velichko - a problem that, according to her, was his "first love" in paleogeography. As emphasized by E.I. Kurenkov, now some things seem obvious to archaeologists and paleogeographers, but someone always said it first, and in many matters it was Andrei Alekseevich, who was not afraid and knew how to take the first step.
So, in the 50s of the last century, while still a graduate student, he questioned the then dominant idea of more early age Upper Paleolithic in Eastern Europe. He sharply rejuvenated the Upper Paleolithic, suggested that it corresponds to the time of the Valdai (Würm) glaciation. This conclusion was made on the basis of a detailed study of the Paleolithic sites of the East European Plain. He refuted the authoritative opinion about the famous "dugouts" of the Kostenkovskaya site - a detailed analysis showed that these are permafrost wedges - natural traces of permafrost that cover the cultural layers with the finds.
A.A. Velichko was one of the first to make an attempt to determine the role of natural changes in human settlement on the planet. He emphasized that man was the only creature who could leave the ecological niche where he appeared and master completely different environmental conditions. He tried to understand the motivation of human groups that change habitual living conditions to the opposite ones. And the wide adaptive capabilities of man, which allowed him to settle up to the Arctic. A.A. Velichko initiated the study of human settlement of high latitudes - the purpose of this project was to create a holistic picture of the history of the penetration of people to the North, their incentives and motivation, to identify the possibilities of the Paleolithic society to explore the circumpolar spaces. According to E.I. Kurenkova, he became the soul of the collective Atlas-monograph “Initial settlement of the Arctic natural environment» (Moscow, GEOS, 2014).
IN last years A.A. Velichko wrote about the anthroposphere, which was formed and separated from the biosphere, has its own mechanisms of development and in the 20th century is getting out of the control of the biosphere. He writes about the collision of two trends - the general trend towards cooling and anthropogenic global warming. He emphasized that we do not understand enough the mechanisms of this interaction, so we must be on our guard. One of the first A.A. Velichko began to cooperate with geneticists, while now the interaction of paleogeographers, archaeologists, anthropologists, geneticists has become absolutely necessary. A.A. Velichko was also one of the first to establish international contacts: he organized the Soviet-French long-term work on the interaction of man and nature. It was very important and rare for those years in terms of international cooperation (and even with a capitalist country).
His position in science - E.I. Kurenkova noted - was sometimes controversial, but it was never uninteresting, never was not advanced.
Way to the North
The report of Dr. Geogr. Sciences A.L. Chepalygi(Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences) under the title "The Way to the North: the oldest migrations of the Oldovan culture and the primary settlement of Europe through the south of Russia." The way to the North - this is how A.A. Velichko called the process of human exploration of the space of Eurasia. The exit from Africa was the path to the north, and then this path continued in the expanses of Eurasia. It allows us to trace the latest discoveries of sites of the Oldowan culture: in the North Caucasus, in Transcaucasia, in the Crimea, along the Dniester, along the Danube.
A.L. Chepalyga focused on the study of terraces on the southern coast of Crimea, between Sudak and Karadag, which were previously considered continental, but after a thorough examination were recognized as marine. Multilayered human sites with artifacts of the Oldowan type, confined to these Eopleistocene terraces, have been found. Their age is determined and the connection with climatic cycles and fluctuations of the Black Sea basin is shown. This testifies to the littoral, coastal-marine adaptation of the Oldowan man.
Archaeological and geomorphological materials have made it possible to reconstruct the migration of man during his primary exit from Africa, which dates back to about 2 million years ago. After moving to the Middle East, the path of man followed due north through Arabia, Central Asia and the Caucasus up to 45 o s.l. (Manych Strait). At this latitude, a sharp reversal of migration to the west is recorded - this is the North Black Sea passage, the corridor of migration to Europe. It ended in the territory of modern Spain and France, almost reaching Atlantic Ocean. The reason for this turn is not clear, there are only working hypotheses, A.L. Chepalyga.
Source: "Ways of evolutionary geography", Materials of the All-Russian scientific conference, dedicated to memory Professor A.A. Velichko, Moscow, November 23-25, 2016
Human settlement in the Siberian Arctic
The report was devoted to the study of the first wave of Paleolithic human settlement in the north. E.Yu.Pavlova(Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St. Petersburg) and Ph.D. ist. Sciences V.V. Pitulko(Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg). This resettlement could begin about 45 thousand years ago, when the entire territory of northeastern Europe was free from the glacier. The most attractive for human habitation were areas with a mosaic landscape - low mountains, foothills, plains and rivers - such a landscape is typical for the Urals, it provides an abundance of stone raw materials. For a long time, the population remained low, then began to increase, as evidenced by the sites of the Upper and Late Paleolithic discovered in recent years on the Yano-Indigirskaya lowland.
The report presented the results of the study of the Yanskaya Paleolithic site - this is the oldest complex of archaeological sites documenting the early human settlement in the Arctic. Its dating is 28.5 - 27 thousand years ago. Three categories of artifacts were found in the cultural layers of the Yanskaya site: stone macrotools (scrapers, pikes, bifaces) and microtools; utilitarian items made of horn and bone (weapons, promises, needles, awls) and non-utilitarian items (tiaras, bracelets, jewelry, beads, etc.). Nearby is the largest Yansky mammoth cemetery - its dating is from 37,000 to 8,000 years ago.
To reconstruct the living conditions of ancient people in the Arctic at the Yanskaya site, studies were carried out on carbon dating, spore-pollen analysis and analysis of plant macroremains of Quaternary deposits for the period of 37-10 thousand years ago. It was possible to perform a paleoclimatic reconstruction, which showed a change in periods of warming and cooling in the area of the Yano-Indigirskaya lowland. A sharp transition to cooling occurred 25 thousand years ago, marking the onset of the Sartan cryochron, the maximum cooling was observed 21-19 thousand years ago, and then warming began. 15 thousand years ago, average temperatures reached contemporary meanings and even exceeded them, and 13.5 thousand years ago they returned to the maximum cooling. 12.6-12.1 thousand years ago there was a noticeable warming, reflected in the spore-pollen spectra; the cooling of the Middle Dryas 12.1-11.9 thousand years ago was short and 11.9 thousand years ago was replaced by warming; then followed the cooling of the Younger Dryas - 11.0-10.5 thousand years ago and warming about 10 thousand years ago.
The authors of the study conclude that, in general, the natural and climatic conditions in the Yano-Indigirskaya lowland, as well as in the entire Siberian Arctic, were acceptable for human settlement and habitation. Probably, after the first wave of settlement, following the cooling, depopulation occurred, since in the period from 27 to 18 thousand years ago there were no archaeological sites in this territory. But the second wave of settlement - about 18 thousand years ago, was successful. 18 thousand years ago, a permanent population appeared in the Urals, which then, as the glacier retreated, moved to the northwest. Interestingly, in general, the second wave of colonization took place in a colder climate. But a person has increased the level of adaptation, which allowed him to survive in harsh conditions.
The unique Paleolithic complex Kostenki
A separate section at the conference was devoted to the research of one of the most famous complexes of Paleolithic sites in Kostenki (on the Don River, Voronezh region). A.A. Velichko began working in Kostenki in 1952, and the result of his participation was the replacement of the stadial concept with the concept of archaeological cultures. Cand. history of sciences A.A. Sinitsyn(Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg) characterized the Kostenki-14 site (Markina Gora) as a reference section of the cultural variability of the Paleolithic of Eastern Europe against the background of climatic variability. The section contains 8 cultural layers and 3 paleontological ones.
I cultural layer (27.0-28.0 thousand years ago) contains typical arrowheads of the Kostenkovo-Avdeevka culture and “knives of the Kostenkovo type”, as well as a powerful accumulation of mammoth bones. The second cultural layer (33.0-34.0 thousand years ago) contains artifacts of the Gorodtsovskaya archaeological culture (tools of the Mousterian type). The belonging of the III cultural layer (33.8-35.2 thousand years ago) remains debatable due to the lack of specific items belonging to the culture. Under the III cultural layer in 1954, a burial was discovered, which is currently the most ancient burial. modern man(36.9-38.8 thousand years ago according to calibrated dating).
I examined how the movement of the earth's axis affected the "comfort zones" of human habitation. As it has already become clear, the last 50,000 years can be safely divided into three periods:
- 2. After 16000 years ago and up to ~4500 years ago
- 3. After ~4500 years ago
The only thing, I ask the reader not to look too closely at the numbers, they are conditional. What is in the official history, what is in genetics. The main thing is to understand the relationship of migrations with pole shifts.
I'll start with the very first displacement, which happened about 16,000 years ago. I will give maps before and after the displacement, and modern look for clarity:
On the map on the left, a "dead" zone is clearly visible, falling exactly into the "Tropic of Cancer", i.e. in the hottest part of the earth. Tell me, please, dear reader, what can make a person living north of this zone move south of it? Today it is clear that - money, prestigious work, etc. When did it not exist? Excavations in the village of Kostenki show that people lived near the glacier for 30,000 years. They didn’t go anywhere and didn’t develop, in our understanding! They have been hunters all these millennia. And then, "suddenly", about 15,000 years ago, agriculture began to develop, and not just anywhere, but in the Middle East. That begs the question, why? Scientists argue that the climate, which has reduced the food base, is to blame. There were fewer mammoths, so they began to grow cereals. But we are talking about the Middle East, where, given the current position of the Earth, farming is an extremely risky business. It's hot out there, Tropic of Cancer is very close. And when the pole is in Alaska, the Middle East turns into an equatorial oasis.
Okay, let's leave scientists alone. Using their arguments, one very interesting conclusion can be drawn - all these 30,000 years, in which the Kostenkovskaya culture has been observed, the climate on Earth has been stable. Such a good period. And today we consider some small ice ages, we take into account the activity of the Sun with a period of 11 years ...
At the expense of the food base, scientists are right. The mammoths left behind the cold, the people left behind them. But this concerned only the northern peoples. This migration was provided by the shift of the pole to Alaska. The absence of traces of a cataclysm in the excavations, except for volcanic ash in the region of 30,000 years ago, indicates the smooth nature of this displacement. The glacier began to melt, it became impossible to live next to it. People got up and left.
The pole moved along the northern outskirts of North America, which means that our people followed it and the mammoths along the northern outskirts of Eurasia or south. Given the scale of the Valdai glaciation, the Arctic Circle was much wider.
So they reached Eastern Siberia and Primorye. Given the lower level of the Arctic Ocean, it can be assumed that these peoples inhabited the entire shelf of Siberia, Novaya Zemlya, all of eastern Siberia and Primorye. And that was about 15,000 years ago. They are still cut off from the southern peoples by the "tropic of Cancer". And why should they look for warm places when their life is connected with the cold and this tradition is many tens of thousands of years old?
This was the same haplogroup N, which today makes up about 20% of the gene pool of Russian people. It is not surprising that the Kostenkovites are so similar to us. Geneticists claim that this haplogroup arose 15,000 years ago somewhere in the south of China, and then, after 5,000 years, moved to Siberia and the Baltic. But let me ask, what prompted these Chinese "ancestors", who actually lived at the equator at that time, to leave for the area east of Taimyr, where today there is a maximum concentration of this haplogroup? These are completely different climatic zones, different food base, etc. and so on. There are very good reasons for such a migration. And they are not. 12,000 years of the stability of the earth's axis did not offer them.
The map on the left shows a completely different migration route for this haplogroup.
After the pole shifted to Alaska, representatives of its progenitor began migrating east, following the pole. The medieval map roughly defines the area that these people occupied during these thousands of years:
The map, of course, is very modern and the southern regions can simply be removed from it. There was, as now, a desert with mountains. But the whole north, from Novaya Zemlya to Primorye, was occupied by them. For 10,000 years they have multiplied decently. I will not judge their way of life, whether they remained hunters or started farming. This is not very important within the framework of this article. Mammoths during this period hardly had time to disappear. Although we are told that the last of them died out about 10,000 years ago. Given the slowness of climate change and the areas of their discovery east of Taimyr, we can make a bold assumption that they managed to leave the glacial regions of Europe to the east to the new Arctic Circle. Then for 10,000 years no catastrophes happened that could lead to their instant death. And the displacement of the pole by modern place, which happened about 4500 years ago, is very similar to such a catastrophe. People were able to leave the dangerous area, but no one warned the animals. So I think that mammoths died out much later than modern scientists believe. Radiocarbon analysis sometimes works wonders. And even scientists admit it.
After the displacement about 4500 years ago, representatives of this haplogroup were forced to leave the dangerous area. The bulk went to the West, again beyond the Arctic Circle, but some returned after the disaster. Some of them will later go to China, which is why they find it there to this day in small concentrations. Geneticists say the same thing - representatives of this haplogroup reached the Baltic about 4000 years ago and settled there.
This is how the Great Tartaria was formed.
With the northern peoples, it seems, sorted out. Let's see how things were in Siberia.
Before the pole shift to Alaska, it was in ideal climatic conditions of a temperate climate. I think that it was there that the haplogroup R1 was born. And that's why. The allocation of the R1b branch of genetics is attributed 16,000 years ago to the region of Central Asia, the rest of the people began to have the R1a branch and went further to the West. The direction of the outcome is clearly guessed. These people left the new pole, that's all. In their place came the northern peoples, they, in fact, changed places. But in Europe, the glacier has not yet melted, so the R1 representatives made a stop in Asia. Representatives of R1a, who got used to the subtropical climate, remained in place, and representatives of R1b went to seek their fortune in the Urals, the Caucasus and further to Europe, which sooner or later thawed out.
With the last pole shift, Central Asia went far away from the "Tropic of Cancer", the climate there became completely different. Therefore, the heat-loving representatives of R1a moved south - to the Iranian Highlands and northern India. And so the branches of the Iranian and Indian Aryans diverged.
Around the same period, according to the Rigveda, Gods came to India from the north...
The territory had a hard time modern China, almost all of it fell into the Tropic of Cancer. Relatively normal conditions life was possible only on the southern coast of Indochina. This is where, in my opinion, immigrants from Australia (Isle of Mu) moved before the last pole shift. And only after him they began to develop more northern territories. It was a completely different culture, which, for example, cannot be reconciled with Indian to this day. It was also alien to our northern ancestors, who at the beginning tried to set them on the right path, but then waved their hand and fenced themselves off from them with a wall. This section is clearly marked on the map above. But still, the Chinese accepted the teachings of the northern peoples, which remained in Buddhism. And that's good, they began to look more like us.
In Africa, as well as in the north, there was the most restless place. Before the first displacement, Central Africa was an oasis, as it is now, for the heat-loving peoples of the black race. But after the shift of the pole to Alaska, this oasis shifted to the north of the mainland. It was there that peoples migrated from the central regions, as well as to the south, but I think there were a minority of them. For 10,000 years, the desert began to bloom again, the rains did their job. There were also preconditions for migration to the Arabian Peninsula and the Iranian Highlands.
After the shift of the pole to the present position for Africa and the Middle East, everything returned to normal. The desert regained its possessions, and Central Africa came to life. Most fortunate were the inhabitants of the Iranian Highlands, which moved from the equatorial zone to the subtropical zone, that is, the climate has changed, but not drastically. Iranian Aryans came to fertile ground, which determines the prosperity of Sumer, Egypt and the list goes on.
So we have analyzed the main possible ways of migration of the population across the territory of Eurasia and Africa. Naturally, I focused more on our ancestors, haplogroups N and R1, I did not mention the rest in such detail, but I think it’s enough to form general idea about migration during the period described.
Peoples have changed many habitats, and some of them traveled distances of thousands of kilometers. Migration of peoples radically changed the picture of the world.
The settlement of the planet (120,000 - 20,000 years ago)
Most geneticists and archaeologists assure that a person very similar to you and me populated the vast expanses of Eurasia, Australia and America, moving from East Africa. This happened gradually, in several waves.
The first wave of migration occurred about 120 thousand years ago, when the first settlers appeared in the Middle East. The last wave of settlement reached the American continent 20,000 - 15,000 years ago.
There were no races at that time: the first people looked like Australians, who for a long time lived scattered and isolated from the rest of the world, which is why they retained their original appearance. The reasons for the "exodus" for science are still a mystery. One part of the scientists refers to climate change and lack of food, the other - to the first social contradictions and the practice of cannibalism, which divided people into "predators" and "eaten". However, these versions are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Expansion of farmers and the cult of the Mother Goddess (about 6000 BC)
The homeland of agriculture, many cultivated plants and domestic animals that moved with people to Europe, was the Middle East region: Anatolia, the Levant and Mesopotamia. From here, the first farmers settled the Balkans, and then Southern and Central Europe, bringing with them the cult of fertility and the Mother Goddess. Archaeological finds are replete with "mother figurines", and the cult itself survived into antiquity in the form of the Eleusinian mysteries.
In addition to Europe, the agricultural center was also in China in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, from where farmers spread throughout the Far East.
Exodus and the "Dark Ages" (1200-1150 BC)
Scientists correlate the times of the biblical Exodus with large-scale cataclysms and the movements of peoples during the “catastrophe bronze age» - natural and social upheavals of the XII-XIII centuries BC. As a result of the improvement of technology, peoples could easily defeat their previously invincible enemies.
During this period, the “peoples of the sea” attacked the coast of Egypt and the Hittite kingdom and moved to Italy, the Jews settled in Palestine and created a powerful kingdom of Israel. There are gradual migrations of the Aryans to India and Asia Minor - it was during this period that the Rigveda, the oldest collection of Indian religious hymns, was compiled. The powerful states of the ancient peoples are in decline and disappear from the map - the Hittite kingdom, Urartu, Mycenae (Greek Dark Ages) and the Harappan civilization.
"Axial time" (VIII-II centuries BC)
This term was proposed by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers. He wanted to describe the dramatic shifts that took place in the way of life of people and in the development of the largest civilizations of that time. At this time, contacts between peoples increase sharply, which leads to a breakthrough in ancient culture and the emergence of philosophy.
Greek colonists by this time gradually fill the entire Mediterranean and even the Black Sea steppes. The Scythians attack the Persian Empire, the Saks and Yuezhi penetrate into India and China. The Romans begin their expansion in the Apennine Peninsula, and the Celtic tribes (Galatians) reach Anatolia.
The first Japanese-speaking tribes migrated to Japan from North Asia. The oldest world religion, Buddhism, is born and spread, which causes a flow of preachers and pilgrims in the Hellenistic states of the Middle East.
Great Migration of Peoples (IV-VI centuries AD)
The climatic pessimum, the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west and the Xiongnu Power in the east caused the most active movement of peoples in history. Separate peoples (Huns, Avars) covered a distance of more than 6000 kilometers.
The Romans had to "make room" for the first time. Numerous Germanic (Franks, Lombards, Saxons, Vandals, Goths) and Sarmatian (Alans) tribes moved to the territory of the weakening empire. The Slavs, who from time immemorial lived in the forests and swamps of the inner strip, reach the coast of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, populate the island of Peloponnese, and individual tribes break even into Asia Minor. Hordes of Turks reach Central Europe and settle there (mainly in Pannonia). The Arabs begin aggressive campaigns, during which they conquer the entire Middle East to the Indus, North Africa and Spain.
Crisis of the Middle Ages
This period includes grandiose campaigns of western and eastern conquerors, during which the richest states of the Middle Ages (Rus, Byzantium, the State of Khorezmshahs, the Song Empire) fell into decay. The Crusaders capture Constantinople and the Holy Land. The Mongols move deep into the Chinese territories and throughout Asia, the Turks reach Europe and finally conquer Byzantium, the Germans occupy Central Europe, and the Russian population is concentrated in the northeastern and southwestern principalities, cut off from each other by the Golden Horde. Thailand and Laos are finally settled by Thai peoples who fled south from the Mongols.
Great geographical discoveries and a new era (XVII-XVIII centuries)
A breakthrough in European science and great geographical discoveries prompted many Europeans to populate the lands of the New World untouched by the Mediterranean civilization - South and North America. A large number of aboriginal peoples ( American Indians) were driven from their land: partially exterminated, partially relocated to reservations.
A stream of Dutch, French, Irish, English, Spanish (and later Russian) settlers poured into North America. A huge number of black slaves were exported from the West coast of Africa to the Americas. Many Portuguese colonists appeared in South Africa and South America. Siberia is beginning to be populated by Russian explorers, Cossacks and peasants.
Cataclysms of the early 20th century
The beginning of the 20th century was marked by many upheavals for peoples around the world. The resettlement of Jews from the territory began Russian Empire(mainly in the USA). After three revolutions, European countries and the New World experienced the invasion of Russian immigration. After the mass cleansing of the Christian population by the Young Turks in Ottoman Empire emigrated according to various estimates from 500,000 to 1,500,000 million Armenians, about a million Assyrians and Pontic Greeks.
World War II and its aftermath
During the Second World War mass resettlement and deportation were subjected to many peoples of the USSR. Volga Germans were resettled in Siberia, Kazakhstan and the Urals, Karachais were taken to Kyrgyzstan, Chechens and Ingush were exiled to the Kazakh SSR. Kalmyks were evicted to the central Siberian regions, 172 thousand Koreans from the border areas Far East were deported to Central Asia, and Crimean Tatars were resettled in Uzbekistan and neighboring territories Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
In the first years after the end of the war, the creation of the state of Israel took place, accompanied by a mass migration of Jews to historical homeland, as well as the partition of India, during which a total of about 16 million people migrated into and out of Pakistan.
