From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Archaeology Outline

The First Industrial Complex
(Circa 2,500,000 BCE – 500,000 BCE)

Acheulean or Mode 2 Industries
(Circa 1,650,000 BCE – 100,000 BCE)

The Earliest Preserved Footprints of Our Ancestors
(Circa 1,530,000 BCE – 1,510,000 BCE)

Early Humans Make Bone Tools
(Circa 1,500,000 BCE)

The Earliest Hearths
(Circa 1,500,000 BCE – 790,000 BCE)

The Earliest Use of Pigments
(Circa 400,000 BCE – 350,000 BCE)

Early Attempt to Record Information or Early Art?
(Circa 75,000 BCE – 73,000 BCE)

The Earliest Examples of Figurative Art
(Circa 38,000 BCE – 33,000 BCE)

The Oldest Known Mathematical Artifact
(35,000 BCE)

The Earliest Musical Instruments
(Circa 33,000 BCE)

Making Materials from Flax Fibers
(Circa 32,000 BCE – 28,000 BCE)

Information Recorded in Cave Paintings
(Circa 30,000 BCE)

The Earliest Zoomorphic / Anthropomorphic Sculpture
(Circa 30,000 BCE)

The Oldest Known Ceramic Figurine
(29,000 BCE – 25,000 BCE)

Untitled
(Circa 28,000 BCE – 21,000 BCE)

The Ishango Bone
(25,000 BCE – 20,000 BCE)

The Earliest Representation of Spun Thread
(25,000 BCE)

The Venus of Willendorf
(Circa 24,000 BCE – 22,000 BCE)

One of the Earliest Known Realistic Representations of a Human Face
(Circa 23,000 BCE)

The Earliest Surviving Pottery
(Circa 16,000 BCE)

Perhaps the Oldest Map in the World
(10,000 BCE)

Possibly the Earliest Attempt at Writing
(Circa 6,600 BCE)

A Wallpainting that Could be a Landscape or a Map
(Circa 6,200 BCE)

Horse Domestication Revolutionizes Transportation, Communication, and Warfare
(Circa 3,500 BCE)

One of the Earliest Surviving Examples of Narrative Relief Sculpture and Egyptian Hieroglyphs
(Circa 3,200 BCE)

One of the Earliest Surviving Works of Narrative Relief Sculpture, Looted in the Iraq War
(Circa 3,200 BCE – 3,000 BCE)

The Abu Salbikh Tablet Lost in the Iraq War
(Circa 2,500 BCE)

The Earliest Known Dictionaries
(Circa 2,300 BCE)

The Earliest Printing was Stamped into Soft Clay
(Circa 2,291 BCE – 2,254 BCE)

One of the Oldest Known Ancient Mesopotamian Medical Texts
(2,112 BCE – 2,004 BCE)

The Oldest Known Tablet Containing a Legal Code
(2,100 BCE – 2,050 BCE)

"The World's First Typewritten Document" - James Chadwick
(Circa 2,000 BCE – 1,700 BCE)

The Most Famous Document of Babylonian Mathematics
(Circa 1,822 BCE – 1,784 BCE)

The Code of Hammurabi
(Circa 1,760 BCE)

The Largest Surviving Medical Treatise from Ancient Mesopotamia
(Circa 1,600 BCE)

Egyptian Scribal Palettes with Ink Wells and Brushes
(Circa 1,550 BCE – 1450)

Wooden Writing Board Containing Text of the Words of Khakheperresoneb
(Circa 1,500 BCE)

Wooden Drawing Board with a figure of Thutmose III
(Circa 1,450 BCE)

Archive of Egyptian Diplomatic Correspondence Written in the Diplomatic Language, Akkadian Cuneiform
(Circa 1,360 BCE – 1,330 BCE)

The Epic of Gilgamesh
(Circa 1,300 BCE – 1,000 BCE)

Self-Portrait of an Egyptian Scribe with his Autograph Signature
(Circa 1,292 BCE – 1,069 BCE)

The Only Ancient Egyptian Document that Mentions Israel
(1,209 BCE – 1,208 BCE)

Oracle Bone Script
(Circa 1,200 BCE – 1,050 BCE)

The Earliest Chinese Inscriptions in Bronze
(Circa 1,200 BCE – 1,045 BCE)

The Oldest Known Evidence of the Phoenician Alphabet
(Circa 1,000 BCE)

Possibly the Earliest Hebrew Inscription
(Circa 1,000 BCE)

The Gezer Calendar
(Circa 950 BCE)

The First Olympic Games
(776 BCE)

One of the Oldest Records of the Greek Alphabet
(Circa 740 BCE)

One of the Oldest Known Examples of Writing in Greek
(Circa 740 BCE – 720 BCE)

The Tower of Babel Stele
(604 BCE – 562 BCE)

The Oldest Surviving Texts from the Hebrew Bible
(Circa 600 BCE)

Destruction of Solomon's Temple
(586 BCE)

The Oldest Known Work on Military Strategy
(Circa 550 BCE)

Disappearance of the Ark of the Covenant and the Ten Commandments
(535 BCE)

The Rosetta Stone of Cuneiform Script
(522 BCE – 486 BCE)

The Royal Road
(Circa 450 BCE – 420 BCE)

The Guodian Chu Slips: "Like the Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls"
(Circa 300 BCE)

The Earliest Known Examples of Maya Script
(Circa 300 BCE)

A "Wild" or "Eccentric" Papyrus of the Iliad
(Circa 275 BCE)

Early Example of Assembly Line Production
(215 BCE – 210 BCE)

The Mawangui Silk Texts
(Circa 175 BCE)

The Earliest Analog Computer
(Circa 150 BCE – 100 BCE)

Humorous Inscriptions on Lead Sling-Bolts (Sling Bullets; Slingshot) Reflect War of Words
(41 BCE)

The Portland Vase: Classical Conoisseurship, Influence, Destruction & Conservation
(30 BCE – 25 CE)

Roman Portraits Celebrating Literacy
(Circa 75 CE)

The Only Library Preserved Intact from Roman Times
(79 CE)

Over 11,000 Wall Inscriptions Survived from Pompeii
(79 CE)

The Oldest Surviving Handwritten Documents in Britain
(Circa 100 CE)

The "Hawara Homer"
(Circa 150 CE)

The Forma Urbis Romae
(203 CE – 211 CE)

Possibly the Earliest Record of Rabbinic Texts
(244 CE – 256 CE)

The Earliest, Most Significant Rabbinic Texts Are Preserved in Stone
(Circa 500 CE – 600)

The Earliest Known Star Atlas
(649 – 684)

The Aztec Calendar Stone
(1427 – 1479)

Early Archaeological Exploration of Fertility Rites
(1786)

The Rosetta Stone
(July 15, 1799)

Deciphering the Hieroglyphs
(1822)

Deciphering the Hieroglyphs
(1823)

Decipherment of the Mayan System of Counting
(1832)

Genesis of the "Three-Age" System in Archaeology
(1836)

Pioneering Treatise on the Antiquity of Man
(1846 – 1849)

Constantin von Tischendorf Discovers the Codex Sinaiticus
(1859)

Probably the Earliest Paper on Paleolithic Mobiliary Art
(1864)

Pre-Historic Times
(1865)

Schliemann Discovers the Ancient City of Troy
(1871 – 1873)

Decipherment of Linear B
(1952 – 1953)

Rome Reborn on Google Earth
(1997)

The Digital Michelangelo Project
(1998)

Over 500,000 Egyptian Papyri Survive
(2002)

Looting of the National Museum of Iraq
(April 6 – April 12, 2003)

The Site of the Original Library of Alexandria
(May 12, 2004)

The First Intelligible Word from an Extinct South American Civilization?
(August 12, 2005)

The Finest Roman Cameo Glass Vase Discovered
(October 13, 2009)