The 10th millennium BC marks the beginning of the Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic period, which is the first part of the Holocene epoch. Agriculture, based on the cultivation of primitive forms of millet and rice, occurred in Southwest Asia. Although agriculture was being developed in the Fertile Crescent, it would not be widely practised for another 2,000 years.
The world population is estimated as between one and ten million people, most of whom were hunter-gatherer communities scattered over all continents except Antarctica and Zealandia. The Würm glaciation ended, and the beginning interglacial, which endures to this day, allowed the re-settlement of northern regions.
Read more about 10th Millennium BC: Events, Environmental Changes, In Popular Culture, Chronological Studies
Famous quotes containing the word millennium:
“At the end of one millennium and nine centuries of Christianity, it remains an unshakable assumption of the law in all Christian countries and of the moral judgment of Christians everywhere that if a man and a woman, entering a room together, close the door behind them, the man will come out sadder and the woman wiser.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)