Historians divide the human past into periods, or eras. It is a convention: nobody in 1500 knew they were living in the "early modern period". But the division helps, because within one era different societies share a lot — how they farmed, how states were run, how wars were fought and what culture looked like.
The main periods of history: table
| Period | Dates | Begins with |
|---|---|---|
| Prehistory | c. 3 million years ago – c. 3000 BC | The first humans; The earliest Homo sapiens |
| Ancient history | c. 3000 BC – AD 476 | The first states and writing |
| Middle Ages | 476 – c. 1500 | Fall of the Western Roman Empire |
| Early modern period | c. 1500 – 1789 | Columbus reaches the Americas, the Renaissance, the Reformation |
| Late modern period | 1789 – 1945 | Storming of the Bastille, the Start of the Industrial Revolution |
| Contemporary history | 1945 – today | The end of World War II |
This is the common scheme in English-language historiography. Other traditions draw the lines differently: Russian and continental European schools, for instance, often end the "modern era" in 1914 and call everything after it "contemporary history".
Prehistory: Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages
Prehistory is divided by the material used for tools:
- Stone Age — the Palaeolithic (Old), Mesolithic (Middle) and Neolithic (New). The Neolithic brought the The dawn of farming — the shift to farming and herding around 9000 BC in the Near East.
- Bronze Age — roughly 3300 to 1200 BC in the Near East; the first states appeared in this period.
- Iron Age — from the 12th century BC, as iron tools and weapons spread after the Late Bronze Age collapse.
These "ages" arrived at different times in different places: the Americas had no iron before the Europeans came.
Ancient history
Ancient history begins with states and writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt (around 3500–3000 BC) and ends with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. "Classical antiquity" refers to Greece and Rome, roughly from the 8th century BC (the First Olympic Games in 776 BC) to the 5th century AD. See the Map of the ancient world: civilizations from Sumer to Rome.
When were the Middle Ages?
The Middle Ages run from 476 (the fall of the Western Roman Empire) to around 1500. Historians mark the end differently: the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, Columbus's voyage in 1492, or the start of the Reformation with the Luther's Ninety-five Theses in 1517. The period is usually divided into:
- Early Middle Ages — 5th–10th centuries: barbarian kingdoms, the Coronation of Charlemagne, the rise of Islam (Hijra: Muhammad's migration to Medina), the Vikings and the birth of Rus.
- High Middle Ages — 11th–13th centuries: the Crusades, growing towns, Gothic cathedrals, the Magna Carta.
- Late Middle Ages — 14th–15th centuries: the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, the Gutenberg's printing press.
"Middle Ages" is a European concept. For China, India or the Islamic world these centuries were something else entirely — the Tang and Song dynasties, or the Islamic Golden Age.
The modern era
The early modern period begins around 1500 with the voyages of discovery, the Renaissance and the Reformation: absolute monarchies, colonial empires and the Scientific Revolution (Newton's Principia). The late modern period opens with the age of revolutions — the US Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution — and the Industrial Revolution, and runs through two world wars.
Contemporary history
Since 1945: the Cold War, decolonisation, the space age (Gagarin's flight, Moon landing), the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Invention of the World Wide Web.
Eras on the timeline
The Panchronia timeline covers every era, from the appearance of Homo sapiens around 300,000 years ago to 2012. The closer to our time, the more detail: you can skim through millennia of prehistory in a second and stop at a single year of the Middle Ages to see who was ruling. How to count centuries is explained in BC and AD: how to count centuries.
Questions
When were the Middle Ages?
From 476 (the fall of the Western Roman Empire) to around 1500 — the end is usually dated to 1453 or 1492. That is about a thousand years.
What are the main periods of history?
Prehistory, ancient history, the Middle Ages, the early modern period, the late modern period and contemporary history.
When did the modern era begin?
Around 1500, with the voyages of discovery, the Renaissance and the Reformation — the start of the early modern period.