Kỷ Nguyên Hồng Bàng - Truyền thuyết và huyền sử dân tộc Việt Nam
Tên gọi Việt Nam
◙ Nước Xích Thần = 3118– 2879 TCN - Đế Nghi Phía Bắc (núi Thái Sơn)
◙ Nước Xích Quỷ = 2879–2524 TCN - Kinh Dương Vương phía Nam (Nam Lĩnh)
◙ Nước Văn Lang = 2524–208 TCN - Vua Hùng Vương, Phong Châu (Bắc Việt)
2832 BC: Estimated germination of the oldest living tree and organism on earth as of 2020 the Methuselah Tree, the second-oldest known organism. Sprouting in what would become Inyo County, California.
2807 BC: Suggested date for an asteroid or comet impact occurring between Africa and Antarctica, around the time of a solar eclipse on May 10, based on an analysis of flood stories. Possibly causing the Burckle crater and Fenambosy Chevron.[5][6]
Văn hóa Đông Sơn II. Giữa thiên niên kỷ 1 trước Công nguyên.
Đồng.
Văn hóa Đông Sơn hay văn hóa Lạc Việt (được đặt tên theo làng Đông Sơn, một ngôi làng ở Thanh Hóa, Việt Nam) là một nền văn hóa thời đại đồ đồng ở Việt Nam cổ đại tập trung tại Thung lũng sông Hồng ở miền bắc Việt Nam từ năm 1000 trước Công nguyên cho đến thế kỷ thứ nhất sau Công nguyên.[1]: 207 Các nhà sử học Việt Nam gán văn hóa cho các bang Văn Lang và Âu Lạc. Văn hóa Trống đồng lan sang các khu vực khác của Đông Nam Á, bao gồm cả Đông Nam Á, từ khoảng năm 1000 trước Công nguyên đến năm 1 trước Công nguyên. [2] [3] [4]
Người Đông Sơn có kỹ năng trồng lúa, nuôi trâu lợn, đánh cá và chèo thuyền trên những chiếc xuồng đào dài. Họ cũng là những thợ đúc đồng lành nghề, bằng chứng là trống Đông Sơn được tìm thấy rộng rãi trên khắp miền Bắc Việt Nam và Nam Trung Quốc sông Trường Giang. [5]
Ở phía nam của văn hóa Đông Sơn là văn hóa Sa Huỳnh của người Chăm nguyên thủy.
The first king Hùng reigned over Văn Lang, the first Vietnamese kingdom.
The VAN LANG Kingdom (2879 BC – 258 BC, 2621 years)
P. HUARD1 & M. DURAND2
Once reaching Phong Châu, the fifty sons of Âu Cơ3 elected their elder brother king of the Hùng Dynasty.
That was the first king Hùng who reigned over Văn Lang, the first vietnamese kingdom. The Văn Lang, with its imprecise boundaries that extended from Vietnam to the Blue river4, is unknown to ancient Chinese geographies. Thereby, HENRI MASPERO5 has estimated that the Văn Lang of Vietnamese historians, is just the old kingdom of Ye-lang (Dạ Lang), situated in the South of Tong-T’ing lake which the name had been ill-read and wrongly recopied by Tang Chinese historians who had transmitted their, error to their vietnamese colleagues. In fact, the character Ye (Dạ) could have been wrongly recopied Wen (Văn) and that is the reason why there was a confusion between Ye-Lang and Wen-Lang. There existed, by way of compensation, a Văn Lang located further in the South, on the septentrional part of present-day Central Vietnam; would it be that Văn-Lang which the authors had confounded with the Ye-lang and thought that these two kingdoms arc a same one.
Văn Lang, the first Vietnamese kingdom, must have occupied a territory much more confined than that of the Xích Quỷ. The list of districts generally given by various histories and legends does not include any territory relating to Tong-T’ing lake6. The twelve districts do not go beyond Kouang-si and Kouang-tong in the North.
The Văn Lang had a quite long existence. Il had been transmitted between Hùng Kings from legendary time to 257 BC, date of its annexion by An Dương Vương7, a prince of Pa-Chou (Ba Thục).
The information we can gather on Văn Lang political organizations and social life are extracted from Chinese texts, not anterior to 4th century of our era, and from Vietnamese texts much more recent (14th century) but conveying very ancient facts and beliefs.
The inconvenience of drafting a tableau of this kingdom’s life resides in the difficulty to fix the epoch, or even the section of centuries through which it could be valid. The Hùng dynasty probably reigned during almost one thousand years, if we admit an average of fifty years for each reign; while the summary views on Văn Lang’s life are contained in a few scattered texts and a certain number of legends which a critical study has been commenced by HENRY MASPERO. On the 18 Hùng kings counted by tradition, we have very few onomastical and chronological precision.
Any general tableau will contain trails, attributable, for instance, to the year 1000 BC, or 300 BC. Besides, quite a great deal of those traits might belong to epochs posterior to Văn Lang kingdom and might have been transposed to it by vietnamese authors of the 14th and 15th centuries.
The Văn-Lang kingdom, if one believes in texts, was a feudal state, hierarchically organized but decentralized. It was placed under the aulorily of a Hùng (valorous) or (Lạc) king who originally had been elected for his courage and valour. That first Hùng king reigned at Phong Châu8, a place located in present-day Bạch Hạc. He was the eldest son of Lạc Long Quân, the ancestor of the Hundred Yue (Việt) i.e present-day Vietnamese, who was also genie protector of that first vietnamese dynasty. The first Hùng king divided the Văn Lang territory into districts confided to his brothers who were probably the Lạc Marquis (Lạc Hầu or civilian chiefs).
Those districts themselves were divided into circumscriptions entrusted to the king’s brothers or to persons in the royal family (Lạc Tướng Or military chiefs). Territories occupied by such Lords were called Lạc Điền.
Public functions such as king, marquis, generals (or chiefs) seem to have been hereditary. Male children of the king had the title of Quan-Lang and female ones were called Mệ Nàng or Mỵ Nương9. People have compared that political organization to the feudal system which still exists at the present lime in districts of middle and high regions of North Vietnam, particularly, with the Mường10 that still have a hierarchy of heredirary chiefs, united between themselves by bonds of vassality and sovereignty. The inhabitants of Văn Lang had reached a certain degree of civilization. Inheriting the techniques of their Xích Quỷ ancestors, they had improved them and even invented new ones. They were tillers who used fire to clear lands, and hoes to plough. They then came to practice cutting and burning turves; they sowed and reaped sticky and non-slicky rice (See the legend of Bánh Chưng). They, first cooked their rice in bamboo tubes, then came to use earthen and metallic pots. They knew about bronze. They were also fishermen and seamen. They talloed and painted on their bodies images of dragons (crocodiles or alligators), snakes and other aquatic beasts to assure themselves of a magic protection against those animals which they feared the attacks. With a same aim, they drew on their boats and vessels numerous heads and eyes of aquatic monsters. Their clothes originally were made with vegetal fibres. They also weaved mats. Their houses were built high on stills to avoid all possible attacks of wild beasts. They bore, according to certain Chinese texts, long hairs in chignon sustained by a turban. According to certain vietnamese legends they had, on the contrary, short hairs so as to “facilitate their marching in mountainous jungles“. They utilized areca-nuts and betel. The blackening of teeth is not explicitly indicated in the legend of the betel and areca-nul tree or legend of the Cao (Cau) family, but many vietnamese scholars pul it back to that primitive period. They must have been totem worshippers and practiced human sacrifices that lasted until the 10th century of our era, and such practices would have been suppressed by King Đinh Tiên Hoàng11. Marriages among them seemed to have been fairly free and were carried out in proprer seasons. Betel and areca-nuts played a great role in the betrothal. Marriage rituals comprised a sacrifice and a banquet before its consummation.
If one believes in vietnamese legends, during the reign of Hùng kings and probably towards the end of their dynasty, indirect relations were established with Occident or more simply with the South seas. The Legend of the Water Melon seems to testify the arrival in Vietnam of foreigners of a different race that would have imported the seeds, and this probably by sea (3rd century BC.?).
REFERENCES : 1: PIERRE HUARD (16 October 1901, Bosnia – 28 April 1983) was a French physician (surgeon and anatomist), historian of medicine and anthropologist, long in post in Indochina, dean of several faculties of medicine (Hanoï, Paris), rector of the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny, a pioneer in the history of medicine. (See all details: P. HUARD)
2: MAURICE DURAND was a French-Vietnamese linguist born in Hanoi. (See all details: M. DURAND)
3: ÂU CƠ (嫗 姬) was, according to the creation myth of the Vietnamese people, an immortal mountain fairy who married Lạc Long Quân (“Dragon Lord of Lac“), and bore an egg sac that hatched a hundred children known collectively as Bách Việt, ancestors to the Vietnamese people. (See all details: ÂU CƠ)
4: Blue river: means Yangtze River, sometimes referred to as the Blue River in older English sources. The Yangtze or Yangzi (English: /ˈjæŋtsi/ or /ˈjɑːŋtsi/) is the longest river (6,300 km # 3,900 mi) in Asia, the third-longest in the world and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows 6,300 km (3,900 mi) in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the sixth-largest river by discharge volume in the world.
5: HENRI PAUL GASTON MASPERO (15/12/1883, Paris – 17/3/1945, Buchenwald concentration camp, Nazi Germany) was a French sinologist and professor who contributed to a variety of topics relating to East Asia. (See all details: HENRI PAUL GASTON MASPERO) (See all details: HENRI MASPERO)
6: Tong-T’ing lake or Dongting Lake (Chinese: 洞 庭 湖) is a large, shallow lake in northeastern Hunan Province, China.
7: AN DƯƠNG VƯƠNG was the king and the only ruler of the kingdom of Âu Lạc, a classical antiquity state centered in the Red River Delta. As the leader of the Âu Việt tribes, he defeated the last Hùng king of the state of Văn Lang and united its people – known as the Lạc Việt – with his people the Âu Việt. An Dương Vương fled and committed suicide after the war with Nanyue forces in 179 BCE. (See all details: AN DƯƠNG VƯƠNG)
8: Phong Châu (峯州, Bạch Hạc District, Việt Trì, Phú Thọ Province today) was the capital city of Văn Lang (now Viet Nam) for the most part of the Hồng Bàng period,1 from the Third Dynasty to the Eighteenth Dynasty of Hùng kings.
9: Mỵ Nương (chinese: 媚 娘 or 媚 嬝) is a title used during the Hong Bang period to refer to the daughter of the Hung kings. (See all details: MỴ NƯƠNG)
10: The Mường (Vietnamese: Người Mường) or the Mwai are an ethnic group native to northern Vietnam. The Muong is the country’s third largest of 53 minority groups, with an estimated population of 1.45 million (according to the 2019 census). The Muong people inhabit the mountainous region of northern Vietnam, concentrated in Hòa Bình Province and the mountainous districts of Thanh Hóa Province. They are most closely related to the ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh). (See all details: MƯỜNG)
11: ĐINH BỘ LĨNH (924–979) (r. 968–979), originally named Đinh Hoàn (丁 桓 1), was the first Vietnamese emperor following the liberation of the country from the rule of the Chinese Southern Han Dynasty, as well as the founder of the short-lived Đinh Dynasty and a significant figure in the establishment of Vietnamese independence and political unity in the 10th century. (See all details: ĐINH TIÊN HOÀNG)
NOTES :
◊ Sources: Connaissance du Vietnam – P. HUARD. Hanoi, 1954.
◊ Image: wikipedia.com.
◊ Header title, citations, uppercase, bold, italic textes, featured sepia image has been set by Ban Tu Thư – thanhdiavietnamhoc.com
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying and studying ancient societies and history. It is also considered the second phase, of three, in the Metal Ages.[1]
An ancient civilization is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age because it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze is harder and more durable than the other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage.
While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, 1,250 °C (2,280 °F), in addition to the greater difficulty of working with the metal, placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tin's low melting point of 231.93 °C (449.47 °F) and copper's relatively moderate melting point of 1,085 °C (1,985 °F) placed them within the capabilities of the Neolithic potterykilns, which date back to 6,000 BC and were able to produce temperatures greater than 900 °C (1,650 °F).[2] Copper and tin ores are rare, since there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the 3rd millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition.
The period is characterized by the widespread use of bronze, even if only by elites in its early part, though the introduction and development of bronze technology were not universally synchronous.[3] Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques. Tin must be mined (mainly as the tin ore cassiterite) and smelted separately, then added to hot copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of extensive use of metals and of developing trade networks (See Tin sources and trade in ancient times). A 2013 report suggests that the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to the mid-5th millennium BC in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik (Serbia), although this culture is not conventionally considered part of the Bronze Age.[4] The dating of the foil has been disputed.[5][6]
Western Asia and the Near East were the first regions to enter the Bronze Age, which began with the rise of the Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. Cultures in the ancient Near East (often called one of "the cradles of civilization") practiced intensive year-round agriculture, developed writing systems, invented the potter's wheel, created centralized governments (usually in form of hereditary monarchies), written law codes, city-states and nation-states and empires, embarked on advanced architectural projects, introduced social stratification, economic and civil administration, slavery, and practiced organized warfare, medicine and religion. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy, mathematics and astrology.
Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details
Near East Bronze Age Divisions
The Bronze Age in the Near East can be conveniently divided into Early, Middle and Late periods. The dates and phases below are solely applicable to the Near East and thus not applicable universally.[7][8][9]
The Hittite Empire was established in Hattusa in northern Anatolia from the 18th century BC. In the 14th century BC the Hittite Kingdom was at its height, encompassing central Anatolia, southwestern Syria as far as Ugarit, and upper Mesopotamia. After 1180 BC, amid general turmoil in the Levant conjectured to have been associated with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples,[10][11] the kingdom disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until as late as the 8th century BC.
The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia that was defeated by the Hittites under an earlier Tudhaliya I, around 1400 BC. Arzawa has been associated with the much more obscure Assuwa generally located to its north. It probably bordered it, and may even be an alternative term for it (at least during some periods).
In Ancient Egypt, the Bronze Age begins in the Protodynastic period, c. 3150 BC. The archaic Early Bronze Age of Egypt, known as the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt,[12][13] immediately follows the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, c. 3100 BC. It is generally taken to include the First and Second Dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period of Egypt until about 2686 BC, or the beginning of the Old Kingdom. With the First Dynasty, the capital moved from Abydos to Memphis with a unified Egypt ruled by an Egyptian god-king. Abydos remained the major holy land in the south. The hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilization, such as art, architecture and many aspects of religion, took shape during the Early Dynastic Period. Memphis in the Early Bronze Age was the largest city of the time.
The Old Kingdom of the regional Bronze Age[12] is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom).
The First Intermediate Period of Egypt,[14] often described as a "dark period" in ancient Egyptian history, spanned about 100 years after the end of the Old Kingdom from about 2181 to 2055 BC. Very little monumental evidence survives from this period, especially from the early part of it. The First Intermediate Period was a dynamic time when the rule of Egypt was roughly divided between two competing for power bases: Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt and Thebes in Upper Egypt. These two kingdoms would eventually come into conflict, with the Theban kings conquering the north, resulting in the reunification of Egypt under a single ruler during the second part of the 11th Dynasty.
The Bronze Age in Nubia started as early as 2300 BC.[15] Copper smelting was introduced by Egyptians to the Nubian city of Meroë, in modern-day Sudan, around 2600 BC.[16] A furnace for bronze casting has been found in Kerma that is dated to 2300–1900 BC.[15]
The Middle Kingdom of Egypt lasted from 2055 to 1650 BC. During this period, the Osiris funerary cult rose to dominate Egyptian popular religion. The period comprises two phases: the 11th Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes and the 12th[17] and 13th Dynasties centered on el-Lisht. The unified kingdom was previously considered to comprise the 11th and 12th Dynasties, but historians now at least partially consider the 13th Dynasty to belong to the Middle Kingdom.
During the Second Intermediate Period,[18] Ancient Egypt fell into disarray for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. It is best known for the Hyksos, whose reign comprised the 15th and 16th dynasties. The Hyksos first appeared in Egypt during the 11th Dynasty, began their climb to power in the 13th Dynasty, and emerged from the Second Intermediate Period in control of Avaris and the Delta. By the 15th Dynasty, they ruled lower Egypt, and they were expelled at the end of the 17th Dynasty.
The New Kingdom of Egypt, also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, lasted from the 16th to the 11th century BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period. It was Egypt's most prosperous time and marked the peak of Egypt's power. The later New Kingdom, i.e. the 19th and 20th Dynasties (1292–1069 BC), is also known as the Ramesside period, after the eleven pharaohs that took the name of Ramesses.
Elam was a pre-Iranian ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia. In the Old Elamite period (Middle Bronze Age), Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian Plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a crucial role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the IranianAchaemenid dynasty that succeeded it.
The Oxus civilization[19] was a Bronze Age Central Asian culture dated to c. 2300–1700 BC and centered on the upper Amu Darya (Oxus). In the Early Bronze Age, the culture of the Kopet Dag oases and Altyndepe developed a proto-urban society. This corresponds to level IV at Namazga-Tepe. Altyndepe was a major center even then. Pottery was wheel-turned. Grapes were grown. The height of this urban development was reached in the Middle Bronze Age c. 2300 BC, corresponding to level V at Namazga-Depe.[20] This Bronze Age culture is called the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC).
The Kulli culture,[21][22] similar to those of the Indus Valley civilisation, was located in southern Balochistan (Gedrosia) c. 2500–2000 BC. Agriculture was the economic base of these people. At several places, dams were found, providing evidence for a highly developed water management system.
Konar Sandal is associated with the hypothesized "Jiroft culture", a 3rd-millennium-BC culture postulated based on a collection of artifacts confiscated in 2001.
In modern scholarship, the chronology of the Bronze Age Levant is divided into Early/Proto Syrian; corresponding to the Early Bronze. Old Syrian; corresponding to the Middle Bronze. Middle Syrian; corresponding to the Late Bronze. The term Neo-Syria is used to designate the early Iron Age.[23]
The earliest-known Ugaritic contact with Egypt (and the first exact dating of Ugaritic civilization) comes from a carnelian bead identified with the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senusret I, 1971–1926 BC. A stela and a statuette from the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhet III have also been found. However, it is unclear at what time these monuments got to Ugarit. In the Amarna letters, messages from Ugarit c. 1350 BC written by Ammittamru I, Niqmaddu II, and his queen, were discovered. From the 16th to the 13th century BC, Ugarit remained in constant touch with Egypt and Cyprus (named Alashiya).
The Mitanni was a loosely organized state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia from c. 1500–1300 BC. Founded by an Indo-Aryan ruling class that governed a predominantly Hurrian population, Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Kassite Babylon created a power vacuum in Mesopotamia. At its beginning, Mitanni's major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni and Egypt allied to protect their mutual interests from the threat of Hittite domination. At the height of its power, during the 14th century BC, it had outposts centered on its capital, Washukanni, which archaeologists have located on the headwaters of the Khabur River. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite, and later Assyrian attacks, and was reduced to a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire.
The Aramaeans were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram) during the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia, where they intermingled with the native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population. The Aramaeans never had a unified empire; they were divided into independent kingdoms all across the Near East. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to many Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC.
The Mesopotamian Bronze Age began about 3500 BC and ended with the Kassite period (c. 1500 BC – c. 1155 BC). The usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division primarily based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common.
The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people. Ur, Kish, Isin, Larsa and Nippur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon, Calah and Assur in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC) became the dominant power in the region, and after its fall the Sumerians enjoyed a renaissance with the Neo-Sumerian Empire. Assyria became a regional power, under the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad I, with the Old Assyrian Empire (c. 1800–1600 BC). The earliest mention of Babylon (then a small administrative town) appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC. The Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it briefly took over the other city-states and formed the short-lived First Babylonian Empire during what is also called the Old Babylonian Period. Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia all used the written East SemiticAkkadian language for official use and as a spoken language. By that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use in Assyria and Babylonia, and would remain so until the 1st century AD. The Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in later Assyrian and Babylonian culture, even though Babylonia (unlike the more militarily powerful Assyria) itself was founded by non-native Amorites and often ruled by other non-indigenous peoples, such as Kassites, Aramaeans and Chaldeans, as well as its Assyrian neighbors.
For many decades scholars made superficial reference to Central Asia as the "pastoral realm" or alternatively, the "nomadic world", in what researchers have come to call the "Central Asian void": a 5,000 year span that was neglected in studies of the origins of agriculture. Foothill regions and glacial melt streams supported Bronze Age agropastoralists who developed complex east–west trade routes between Central Asia and China that introduced wheat and barley to China and spread millet across Central Asia.[30]
A wealth of information indicates that the BMAC had close international relations with the Indus Valley, the Iranian Plateau, and possibly even indirectly with Mesopotamia, and all civilizations were very familiar with lost wax casting.[32]
According to recent studies,[33] the BMAC was not a primary contributor to later South-Asian genetics.
The Altai Mountains in what is now southern Russia and central Mongolia have been identified as the point of origin of a cultural enigma termed the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon.[34] It is conjectured that changes in climate in this region around 2000 BC and the ensuing ecological, economic and political changes triggered a rapid and massive migration westward into northeast Europe, eastward into China and southward into Vietnam and Thailand[35] across a frontier of some 4,000 miles.[34] This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to peoples from Finland in the west to Thailand in the east employing the same metal working technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding.[34] It is further conjectured that the same migrations spread the Uralic group of languages across Europe and Asia: some 39 languages of this group are still extant, including Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian.[34] However, recent genetic testings of sites in south Siberia and Kazakhstan (Andronovo horizon) would rather support a spreading of the bronze technology via Indo-European migrations eastwards, as this technology was well known for quite a while in western regions.[36][37]
In China, the earliest bronze artifacts have been found in the Majiayao culture site (between 3100 and 2700 BC).[38][39]
The term "Bronze Age" has been transferred to the archaeology of China from that of Western Eurasia, and there is no consensus or universally used convention delimiting the "Bronze Age" in the context of Chinese prehistory.[40]
By convention, the "Early Bronze Age" in China is sometimes taken as equivalent to the "Shang dynasty" period (16th to 11th centuries BC),[41] and the "Later Bronze Age" as equivalent to the "Zhou dynasty" period (11th to 3rd centuries BC, from the 5th century, also dubbed "Iron Age"), although there is an argument to be made that the "Bronze Age" proper never ended in China, as there is no recognizable transition to an "Iron Age".[42] Significantly, together with the jade art that precedes it, bronze was seen as a "fine" material for ritual art when compared with iron or stone.[43]
Bronze metallurgy in China originated in what is referred to as the Erlitou (Wade–Giles: Erh-li-t'ou) period, which some historians argue places it within the range of dates controlled by the Shang dynasty.[44] Others believe the Erlitou sites belong to the preceding Xia (Wade–Giles: Hsia) dynasty.[45] The U.S. National Gallery of Art defines the Chinese Bronze Age as the "period between about 2000 BC and 771 BC", a period that begins with the Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule.[46]
There is reason to believe that bronze work developed inside China separately from outside influence.[47] However, the discovery of Europoid mummies in Xinjiang has caused some scholars such as Johan Gunnar Andersson, Jan Romgard, and An Zhimin to suggest a possible route of transmission from the West eastwards. According to An Zhimin, "It can be imagined that initially bronze and iron technology took its rise in West Asia, first influenced the Xinjiang region, and then reached the Yellow River valley, providing external impetus for the rise of the Shang and Zhou civilizations." According to Jan Romgard, "bronze and iron tools seems to have traveled from west to east as well as the use of wheeled wagons and the domestication of the horse." There are also possible links to Seima-Turbino culture, "a transcultural complex across northern Eurasia," the Eurasian steppe, and the Urals.[48] However the oldest bronze objects found in China so far were discovered at the Majiayao site in Gansu rather than at Xinjiang.[49]
The Shang dynasty (also known as the Yin dynasty)[50] of the Yellow River Valley rose to power after the Xia dynasty around 1600 BC. While some direct information about the Shang dynasty comes from Shang-era inscriptions on bronze artifacts, most comes from oracle bones—turtle shells, cattle scapulae, or other bones—which bear glyphs that form the first significant corpus of recorded Chinese characters.
The production of Erlitou in Henan represents the earliest large-scale metallurgy industry in the Central Plains of China. The influence of the Saima-Turbino metalworking tradition from the north is supported by a series of recent discoveries in China of many unique perforated spearheads with downward hooks and small loops on the same or opposite side of the socket, which could be associated with the Seima-Turbino visual vocabulary of southern Siberia. The metallurgical centers of northwestern China, especially Qijia in Gansu and Kexingzhuang culture in Shaanxi, played an intermediary role in this process.[51]
Iron has been found from the Zhou dynasty, but its use was minimal. Chinese literature dating to the 6th century BC attests knowledge of iron smelting, yet bronze continues to occupy the seat of significance in the archaeological and historical record for some time after this.[52] Historian W.C. White argues that iron did not supplant bronze "at any period before the end of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC)" and that bronze vessels make up the majority of metal vessels through the Later Han period, or to 221 BC [sic?].[53]
The Chinese bronze artifacts generally are either utilitarian, like spear points or adze heads, or "ritual bronzes", which are more elaborate versions in precious materials of everyday vessels, as well as tools and weapons. Examples are the numerous large sacrificial tripods known as dings in Chinese; there are many other distinct shapes. Surviving identified Chinese ritual bronzes tend to be highly decorated, often with the taotie motif, which involves highly stylized animal faces. These appear in three main motif types: those of demons, of symbolic animals, and abstract symbols.[54] Many large bronzes also bear cast inscriptions that are the great bulk of the surviving body of early Chinese writing and have helped historians and archaeologists piece together the history of China, especially during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC).
The bronzes of the Western Zhou dynasty document large portions of history not found in the extant texts that were often composed by persons of varying rank and possibly even social class. Further, the medium of cast bronze lends the record they preserve a permanence not enjoyed by manuscripts.[55] These inscriptions can commonly be subdivided into four parts: a reference to the date and place, the naming of the event commemorated, the list of gifts given to the artisan in exchange for the bronze, and a dedication.[56] The relative points of reference these vessels provide have enabled historians to place most of the vessels within a certain time frame of the Western Zhou period, allowing them to trace the evolution of the vessels and the events they record.[57]
The beginning of the Bronze Age on the peninsula is around 1000–800 BC.[58][59] Initially centered around Liaoning and southern Manchuria, Korean Bronze Age culture exhibits unique typology and styles, especially in ritual objects.[60]
The Mumun pottery period is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage over the entire length of the period, but especially 850–550 BC. The Mumun period is known for the origins of intensive agriculture and complex societies in both the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago.
The Middle Mumun pottery period culture of the southern Korean Peninsula gradually adopted bronze production (c. 700–600? BC) after a period when Liaoning-style bronze daggers and other bronze artifacts were exchanged as far as the interior part of the Southern Peninsula (c. 900–700 BC). The bronze daggers lent prestige and authority to the personages who wielded and were buried with them in high-status megalithic burials at south-coastal centers such as the Igeum-dong site. Bronze was an important element in ceremonies and as for mortuary offerings until 100 BC.
The Japanese archipelago saw the introduction of bronze during the beginning of the Early Yayoi period (≈300 BC), which saw the introduction of metalworking and agricultural practices brought in by settlers arriving from the continent. Bronze and iron smelting techniques spread to the Japanese archipelago through contact with other ancient East Asian civilizations, particularly immigration and trade from ancient Korean peninsula and ancient mainland China. Iron was mainly used for agricultural and other tools, whereas ritual and ceremonial artifacts were mainly made of bronze.
The Bronze Age on the Indian subcontinent began around 3300 BC with the beginning of the Indus Valley civilization. Inhabitants of the Indus Valley, the Harappans, developed new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead and tin. The Late Harappan culture, which dates from 1900 to 1400 BC, overlapped the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age; thus it is difficult to date this transition accurately. It has been claimed that a 6,000-year-old copper amulet manufactured in Mehrgarh in the shape of wheel spoke is the earliest example of lost-wax casting in the world.[61][62]
The civilization's cities were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, and new techniques in handicraft (carnelian products, seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin).[63] The large cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very likely grew to contain between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals,[64] and the civilization itself during its florescence may have contained between one and five million individuals.[65]
In Ban Chiang, Thailand, (Southeast Asia) bronze artifacts have been discovered dating to 2100 BC.[66] However, according to the radiocarbon dating on the human and pig bones in Ban Chiang, some scholars propose that the initial Bronze Age in Ban Chiang was in late 2nd millennium.[67] In Nyaunggan, Burma, bronze tools have been excavated along with ceramics and stone artifacts. Dating is still currently broad (3500–500 BC).[68] Ban Non Wat, excavated by Charles Higham, was a rich site with over 640 graves excavated that gleaned many complex bronze items that may have had social value connected to them.[69]
Ban Chiang, however, is the most thoroughly documented site while having the clearest evidence of metallurgy when it comes to Southeast Asia. With a rough date range of late 3rd millennium BC to the first millennium AD, this site alone has various artifacts such as burial pottery (dating from 2100 to 1700 BC), fragments of Bronze, copper-base bangles, and much more. What's interesting about this site, however, is not just the old age of the artifacts but that this technology suggested on-site casting from the very beginning. The on-site casting supports the theory that Bronze was first introduced in Southeast Asia as fully developed which therefore shows that Bronze was innovated from a different country.[70] Some scholars believe that the copper-based metallurgy was disseminated from northwest and central China via south and southwest areas such as Guangdong province and Yunnan province and finally into southeast Asia around 1000 BC.[67] Archaeology also suggests that Bronze Age metallurgy may not have been as significant a catalyst in social stratification and warfare in Southeast Asia as in other regions, social distribution shifting away from chiefdom-states to a heterarchical network.[70] Data analyses of sites such as Ban Lum Khao, Ban Na Di, Non-Nok Tha, Khok Phanom Di, and Nong Nor have consistently led researchers to conclude that there was no entrenched hierarchy.[71]
Archaeological research in Northern Vietnam indicates an increase in rates of infectious disease following the advent of metallurgy; skeletal fragments in sites dating to the early and mid-Bronze Age evidence a greater proportion of lesions than in sites of earlier periods.[73] There are a few possible implications of this. One is the increased contact with bacterial and/or fungal pathogens due to increased population density and land clearing/cultivation. The other one is decreased levels of immunocompetence in the Metal age due to changes in the diet caused by agriculture. The last is that there may have been an emergence of infectious disease in the Da But the period that evolved into a more virulent form in the metal period.[73]
The Aegean Bronze Age began around 3200 BC, when civilizations first established a far-ranging trade network. This network imported tin and charcoal to Cyprus, where copper was mined and alloyed with the tin to produce bronze. Bronze objects were then exported far and wide and supported the trade. Isotopic analysis of tin in some Mediterranean bronze artifacts suggests that they may have originated from Great Britain.[74]
Knowledge of navigation was well developed at this time and reached a peak of skill not exceeded (except perhaps by Polynesian sailors) until 1730 when the invention of the chronometer enabled the precise determination of longitude.
Invasions, destruction and possible population movements during the collapse of the Bronze Age, c. 1200 BC
Bronze Age collapse theories have described aspects of the end of the Bronze Age in this region. At the end of the Bronze Age in the Aegean region, the Mycenaean administration of the regional trade empire followed the decline of Minoan primacy.[76] Several Minoan client states lost much of their population to famine and/or pestilence. This would indicate that the trade network may have failed, preventing the trade that would previously have relieved such famines and prevented illness caused by malnutrition. It is also known that in this era the breadbasket of the Minoan empire, the area north of the Black Sea, also suddenly lost much of its population, and thus probably some capacity to cultivate crops.[77] Drought and famine in Anatolia may have also led to the Aegean collapse by disrupting trade networks, and therefore preventing the Aegean from accessing bronze and luxury goods.[78]
The Aegean collapse has been attributed to the exhaustion of the Cypriot forests causing the end of the bronze trade.[79][80][81] These forests are known to have existed into later times, and experiments have shown that charcoal production on the scale necessary for the bronze production of the late Bronze Age would have exhausted them in less than fifty years.
The Aegean collapse has also been attributed to the fact that as irontools became more common, the main justification for the tin trade ended, and that trade network ceased to function as it did formerly.[82] The colonies of the Minoan empire then suffered drought, famine, war, or some combination of those three, and had no access to the distant resources of an empire by which they could easily recover.
The Thera eruption occurred c. 1600 BC, 110 km (68 mi) north of Crete. Speculation includes that a tsunami from Thera (more commonly known today as Santorini) destroyed Cretan cities. A tsunami may have destroyed the Cretan navy in its home harbor, which then lost crucial naval battles; so that in the LMIB/LMII event (c. 1450 BC) the cities of Crete burned and the Mycenaean civilization took over Knossos. If the eruption occurred in the late 17th century BC (as most chronologists now think) then its immediate effects belong to the Middle to Late Bronze Age transition, and not to the end of the Late Bronze Age, but it could have triggered the instability that led to the collapse first of Knossos and then of Bronze Age society overall.[citation needed] One such theory highlights the role of Cretan expertise in administering the empire, post—Thera. If this expertise was concentrated in Crete, then the Mycenaeans may have made political and commercial mistakes in administering the Cretan empire.[citation needed]
Archaeological findings, including some on the island of Thera, suggest that the center of the Minoan civilization at the time of the eruption was actually on Thera rather than on Crete.[83] According to this theory, the catastrophic loss of the political, administrative and economic center due to the eruption, as well as the damage wrought by the tsunami to the coastal towns and villages of Crete precipitated the decline of the Minoans. A weakened political entity with a reduced economic and military capability and fabled riches would have then been more vulnerable to conquest. Indeed, the Santorini eruption is usually dated to c. 1630 BC,[84] while the Mycenaean Greeks first enter the historical record a few decades later, c. 1600 BC.[citation needed] The later Mycenaean assaults on Crete (c. 1450 BC) and Troy (c. 1250 BC) would have been a continuation of the steady encroachment of the Greeks upon the weakened Minoan world.[citation needed]
Radivojevic et al. (2013) reported the discovery of a tin bronze foil from the Pločnik archaeological site securely dated to c. 4650 BC as well as 14 other artifacts from Serbia and Bulgaria dated to before 4000 BC has shown that early tin bronze was more common than previously thought, and developed independently in Europe 1500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the Near East. The production of complex tin bronzes lasted for c. 500 years in the Balkans. The authors reported that evidence for the production of such complex bronzes disappears at the end of the 5th millennium coinciding with the "collapse of large cultural complexes in north-eastern Bulgaria and Thrace in the late fifth millennium BC". Tin bronzes using cassiterite tin would be reintroduced to the area again some 1500 years later.[4]
The Dabene Treasure was unearthed from 2004 to 2007 near Karlovo, Plovdiv Province, central Bulgaria. The whole treasure consists of 20,000 gold jewelry items from 18 to 23 carats. The most important of them was a dagger made of gold and platinum with an unusual edge. The treasure was dated to the end of the 3rd millennium B.C. The scientists suggest that the Karlovo valley used to be a major crafts center which exported golden jewelry all over Europe. It is considered as one of the largest prehistoric golden treasure in the world.[85]
In Central Europe, the early Bronze Age Unetice culture (2300–1600 BC) includes numerous smaller groups like the Straubing, Adlerberg and Hatvan cultures. Some very rich burials, such as the one located at Leubingen with grave gifts crafted from gold, point to an increase of social stratification already present in the Unetice culture. All in all, cemeteries of this period are rare and of small size. The Unetice culture is followed by the middle Bronze Age (1600–1200 BC) Tumulus culture, which is characterised by inhumation burials in tumuli (barrows). In the eastern HungarianKörös tributaries, the early Bronze Age first saw the introduction of the Mako culture, followed by the Otomani and Gyulavarsand cultures.
The late Bronze Age Urnfield culture (1300–700 BC) is characterized by cremation burials. It includes the Lusatian culture in eastern Germany and Poland (1300–500 BC) that continues into the Iron Age. The Central European Bronze Age is followed by the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (700–450 BC).
The Bronze Age in Central Europe has been described in the chronological schema of German prehistorian Paul Reinecke. He described Bronze A1 (Bz A1) period (2300–2000 BC: triangular daggers, flat axes, stone wrist-guards, flint arrowheads) and Bronze A2 (Bz A2) period (1950–1700 BC: daggers with metal hilt, flanged axes, halberds, pins with perforated spherical heads, solid bracelets) and phases Hallstatt A and B (Ha A and B).
The Apennine culture (also called Italian Bronze Age) is a technology complex of central and southern Italy spanning the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age proper. The Camuni were an ancient people of uncertain origin (according to Pliny the Elder, they were Euganei; according to Strabo, they were Rhaetians) who lived in Val Camonica—in what is now northern Lombardy—during the Iron Age, although human groups of hunters, shepherds and farmers are known to have lived in the area since the Neolithic.
Located in Sardinia and Corsica, the Nuragic civilization lasted from the early Bronze Age (18th century BC) to the 2nd century AD, when the islands were already Romanized. They take their name from the characteristic Nuragic towers, which evolved from the pre-existing megalithic culture, which built dolmens and menhirs.
The nuraghe towers are unanimously considered the best-preserved and largest megalithic remains in Europe. Their effective use is still debated: some scholars considered them as monumental tombs, others as Houses of the Giants, other as fortresses, ovens for metal fusion, prisons or, finally, temples for a solar cult. Around the end of the 3rd millennium BC, Sardinia exported towards Sicily a Culture that built small dolmens, trilithic or polygonal shaped, that served as tombs as it has been ascertained in the Sicilian dolmen of "Cava dei Servi". From this region, they reached Malta island and other countries of Mediterranean basin.[86]
The Terramare was an early Indo-European civilization in the area of what is now Pianura Padana (northern Italy) before the arrival of the Celts and in other parts of Europe. They lived in square villages of wooden stilt houses. These villages were built on land, but generally near a stream, with roads that crossed each other at right angles. The whole complex denoted the nature of a fortified settlement. Terramare was widespread in the Pianura Padana (especially along the Panaro river, between Modena and Bologna) and in the rest of Europe. The civilization developed in the Middle and Late Bronze Age, between the 17th and the 13th centuries BC.
The Castellieri culture developed in Istria during the Middle Bronze Age. It lasted for more than a millennium, from the 15th century BC until the Roman conquest in the 3rd century BC. It takes its name from the fortified boroughs (Castellieri, Friulian: cjastelir) that characterized the culture. The Canegrate culture developed from the mid-Bronze Age (13th century BC) until the Iron Age in the Pianura Padana, in what are now western Lombardy, eastern Piedmont and Ticino. It takes its name from the township of Canegrate where, in the 20th century, some fifty tombs with ceramics and metal objects were found. The Canegrate culture migrated from the northwest part of the Alps and descended to Pianura Padana from the Swiss Alps passes and the Ticino.
The Golasecca culture developed starting from the late Bronze Age in the Po plain. It takes its name from Golasecca, a locality next to the Ticino where, in the early 19th century, abbot Giovanni Battista Giani excavated its first findings (some fifty tombs with ceramics and metal objects). Remains of the Golasecca culture span an area of c. 20,000 square kilometers south to the Alps, between the Po, Sesia and Serio rivers, dating from the 9th to the 4th century BC.
In Great Britain, the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from around 2100 to 750 BC. Migration brought new people to the islands from the continent.[87] Recent tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early Bronze Age graves around Stonehenge indicates that at least some of the migrants came from the area of modern Switzerland. Another example site is Must Farm, near Whittlesey, which has recently been host to the most complete Bronze Age wheel ever to be found. The Beaker culture displayed different behaviors from the earlier Neolithic people, and cultural change was significant. Integration is thought to have been peaceful, as many of the early henge sites were seemingly adopted by the newcomers. The rich Wessex culture developed in southern Britain at this time. Additionally, the climate was deteriorating; where once the weather was warm and dry it became much wetter as the Bronze Age continued, forcing the population away from easily defended sites in the hills and into the fertile valleys. Large livestock farms developed in the lowlands and appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances. The Deverel-Rimbury culture began to emerge in the second half of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1400–1100 BC) to exploit these conditions. Devon and Cornwall were major sources of tin for much of western Europe and copper was extracted from sites such as the Great Orme mine in northern Wales. Social groups appear to have been tribal but with growing complexity and hierarchies becoming apparent.
The burial of the dead (which, until this period, had usually been communal) became more individual. For example, whereas in the Neolithic a large chambered cairn or long barrow housed the dead, Early Bronze Age people buried their dead in individual barrows (also commonly known and marked on modern British Ordnance Survey maps as tumuli), or sometimes in cists covered with cairns.
The greatest quantities of bronze objects in England were discovered in East Cambridgeshire, where the most important finds were recovered in Isleham (more than 6500 pieces).[88]
Alloying of copper with zinc or tin to make brass or bronze was practiced soon after the discovery of copper itself. One copper mine at Great Orme in North Wales, extended to a depth of 70 meters.[89] At Alderley Edge in Cheshire, carbon dates have established mining at around 2280 to 1890 BC (at 95% probability).[90] The earliest identified metalworking site (Sigwells, Somerset) is much later, dated by Globular Urn style pottery to approximately the 12th century BC. The identifiable sherds from over 500 mould fragments included a perfect fit of the hilt of a sword in the Wilburton style held in Somerset County Museum.[91]
The Atlantic Bronze Age is a cultural complex of the period of approximately 1300–700 BC that includes different cultures in Portugal, Andalusia, Galicia, and Britain and Ireland. It is marked by economic and cultural exchange. Commercial contacts extend to Denmark and the Mediterranean. The Atlantic Bronze Age was defined by many distinct regional centers of metal production, unified by a regular maritime exchange of some of their products.
The Bronze Age in Ireland commenced around 2000 BC when copper was alloyed with tin and used to manufacture Ballybeg type flat axes and associated metalwork. The preceding period is known as the Copper Age and is characterised by the production of flat axes, daggers, halberds and awls in copper. The period is divided into three phases: Early Bronze Age (2000–1500 BC), Middle Bronze Age (1500–1200 BC), and Late Bronze Age (1200–c. 500 BC). Ireland is also known for a relatively large number of Early Bronze Age burials.
One of the characteristic types of artifact of the Early Bronze Age in Ireland is the flat axe. There are five main types of flat axes: Lough Ravel (c. 2200 BC), Ballybeg (c. 2000 BC), Killaha (c. 2000 BC), Ballyvalley (c. 2000–1600 BC), Derryniggin (c. 1600 BC), and a number of metal ingots in the shape of axes.[92]
Even though Northern European Bronze Age cultures were relatively late, and came into existence via trade, sites present rich and well-preserved objects made of wool, wood and imported Central European bronze and gold. Many rock carvings depict ships, and the large stone burial monuments known as stone ships suggest that shipping played an important role. Thousands of rock carvings depict ships, most probably representing sewn plank built canoes for warfare, fishing, and trade. These may have a history as far back as the neolithic period and continue into the Pre-Roman Iron Age, as shown by the Hjortspring boat. There are many mounds and rock carving sites from the period. Numerous artifacts of bronze and gold are found. No written language existed in the Nordic countries during the Bronze Age. The rock carvings have been dated through comparison with depicted artifacts.
Arsenical bronze artifacts of the Maykop culture in the North Caucasus have been dated around the 4th millennium BC.[93] This innovation resulted in the circulation of arsenical bronze technology over southern and eastern Europe.[94]
Bronze Age spread of Yamnayasteppe pastoralist ancestry into two subcontinents—Europe and South Asia, and location of the Afanasievo culture, which has the same genetic characteristics as the Yamnayas.[87]
The Yamnaya culture is a Late Copper Age/Early Bronze Age culture of the Southern Bug/Dniester/Ural region (the Pontic steppe),[95][96] dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC. The name also appears in English as Pit-Grave Culture or Ochre-Grave Culture. The Catacomb culture, c. 2800–2200 BC, comprises several related Early Bronze Age cultures occupying what is presently Russia and Ukraine. The Srubnaya culture was a Late Bronze Age (18th–12th centuries BC) culture. It is a successor to the Yamnaya and the Poltavka culture.
Iron and copper smelting appeared around the same time in most parts of Africa.[16][97] As such, most African civilizations outside of Egypt did not experience a distinct Bronze Age. Evidence for iron smelting appears earlier or at the same time as copper smelting in Nigeria c. 900–800 BC, Rwanda and Burundi c. 700–500 BC and Tanzania c. 300 BC.[97][98][99]
There is a longstanding debate about whether the development of both copper and iron metallurgy were independently developed in sub-Saharan Africa or were introduced from the outside across the Sahara Desert from North Africa or the Indian Ocean.[97] Evidence for theories of independent development and outside introduction are scarce and subject to active scholarly debate.[97] Scholars have suggested that both the relative dearth of archeological research in sub-Saharan Africa as well as long-standing prejudices have limited or biased our understanding of pre-historic metallurgy on the continent.[98][100][101] One scholar characterized the state of historical knowledge as such: "To say that the history of metallurgy in sub-Saharan Africa is complicated is perhaps an understatement."[101]
Copper smelting took place in West Africa prior to the appearance of iron smelting in the region. Evidence for copper smelting furnaces was found near Agadez, Niger that has been dated as early as 2200 BC.[98] However, evidence for copper production in this region before 1000 BC is debated.[102][16][98] Evidence of copper mining and smelting has been found at Akjoujt, Mauretania that suggests small scale production c. 800 to 400 BC.[98]
The Moche civilization of South America independently discovered and developed bronze smelting.[103] Bronze technology was developed further by the Incas and used widely both for utilitarian objects and sculpture.[104] A later appearance of limited bronze smelting in West Mexico suggests either contact of that region with Andean cultures or separate discovery of the technology. The Calchaquí people of Northwest Argentina had bronze technology.[105]
Trade and industry played a major role in the development of the ancient Bronze Age civilizations. With artifacts of the Indus Valley civilization being found in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, it is clear that these civilizations were not only in touch with each other but also trading with each other. Early long-distance trade was limited almost exclusively to luxury goods like spices, textiles and precious metals. Not only did this make cities with ample amounts of these products extremely rich but also led to an intermingling of cultures for the first time in history.[106]
Trade routes were not only over land but also over water. The first and most extensive trade routes were over rivers such as the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates which led to growth of cities on the banks of these rivers. The domestication of camels at a later time also helped encourage the use of trade routes over land, linking the Indus Valley with the Mediterranean. This further led to towns sprouting up in numbers anywhere and everywhere there was a pit-stop or caravan-to-ship port.
^Bronze was independently discovered in the Maykop culture of the North Caucasus as early as the mid-4th millennium BC, which makes them the producers of the oldest-known bronze. However, the Maykop culture only had arsenical bronze. Other regions developed bronze and its associated technology at different periods.
^Sljivar, D.; Boric, D.; et al. (2014). "Context is everything: comments on Radivojevic et al. (2013)". Antiquity. 88 (342): 1310–1315. doi:10.1017/s0003598x00115480. S2CID163137272.
^Radivojevic, M.; Rehren, Th.; Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic, J.; Jovanovic, M. (2014). "Context is everything indeed: a response to Sljivar and Boric". Antiquity. 88 (342): 1315–1319. doi:10.1017/s0003598x00115492. S2CID163091248.
^The Near East period dates and phases are unrelated to the bronze chronology of other regions of the world.
^Piotr Bienkowski, Alan Ralph Millard (editors). Dictionary of the ancient Near East. p. 60.
^Amélie Kuhr. The Ancient Near East, c. 3000–330 BC. p. 9.
^Killebrew, Ann E. (2013), "The Philistines and Other "Sea Peoples" in Text and Archaeology", Society of Biblical Literature Archaeology and biblical studies, Society of Biblical Lit, vol. 15, p. 2, ISBN978-1-58983-721-8, archived from the original on 3 September 2015, retrieved 20 June 2015. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the French Egyptologist G. Maspero (1896), the somewhat misleading term "Sea Peoples" encompasses the ethnonyms Lukka, Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh, Eqwesh, Denyen, Sikil / Tjekker, Weshesh, and Peleset (Philistines). [Footnote: The modern term "Sea Peoples" refers to peoples that appear in several New Kingdom Egyptian texts as originating from "islands" (tables 1–2; Adams and Cohen, this volume; see, e.g., Drews 1993, 57 for a summary). The use of quotation marks in association with the term "Sea Peoples" in our title is intended to draw attention to the problematic nature of this commonly used term. It is noteworthy that the designation "of the sea" appears only concerning the Sherden, Shekelesh, and Eqwesh. Subsequently, this term was applied somewhat indiscriminately to several additional ethnonyms, including the Philistines, who are portrayed in their earliest appearance as invaders from the north during the reigns of Merenptah and Ramesses Ill (see, e.g., Sandars 1978; Redford 1992, 243, n. 14; for a recent review of the primary and secondary literature, see Woudhuizen 2006). Henceforth the term Sea Peoples will appear without quotation marks.]"
^The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca. 1200 B.C., Robert Drews, pp. 48–61Archived 23 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine Quote: "The thesis that a great "migration of the Sea Peoples" occurred ca. 1200 B.C. is supposedly based on Egyptian inscriptions, one from the reign of Merneptah and another from the reign of Ramesses III. Yet in the inscriptions themselves, such a migration nowhere appears. After reviewing what the Egyptian texts have to say about 'the sea peoples', one Egyptologist (Wolfgang Helck) recently remarked that although some things are unclear, "eins ist aber sicher: Nach den agyptischen Texten Haben wir es Nicht mit einer 'Volkerwanderung' zu tun." Thus the migration hypothesis is based not on the inscriptions themselves but their interpretation."
^ abKarin Sowada and Peter Grave. Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Old Kingdom.
^Lukas de Blois and R. J. van der Spek. An Introduction to the Ancient World. p. 14.
^Hansen, M.H. (2000). A comparative study of thirty city-state cultures: An investigation conducted by the Copenhagen Polis Centre. Copenhagen: Det Kongelike Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. p. 68.
^ abChilds, S. Terry; Killick, David (1993). "Indigenous African Metallurgy: Nature and Culture". Annual Review of Anthropology. 22: 317–337. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.22.1.317. JSTOR2155851.
^ abcMiller, Duncan E.; van der Merwe, Nikolaas J. (1994). "Early Metal Working in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Recent Research". The Journal of African History. 35 (1): 1–36. doi:10.1017/s0021853700025949. JSTOR182719. S2CID162330270.
^Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger. Gods, goddesses, and images of God in ancient Israel, 1998. p. 17 (cf. "The first phase (Middle Bronze Age IIA) runs roughly parallel to the Egyptian Twelfth Dynasty")
^Bruce G. Trigger. Ancient Egypt: A Social History. 1983. p. 137. (cf. ... "for the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period it is the Middle Bronze Age".)
^V.M. Masson, The Bronze Age in Khorasan and Transoxiana, chapter 10 in A.H. Dani and Vadim Mikhaĭlovich Masson (eds.), History of civilizations of Central Asia, volume 1: The dawn of civilization: earliest times to 700 BC
^Possehl, G.L. (1986). Kulli: An exploration of ancient civilization in Asia. Durham, N.C: Carolina Academic Press
^Piggott, S. (1961). Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. Baltimore: Penguin Book.
^Finkelstein, Israel (1996). "Ethnicity and origin of the Iron I settlers in the Highlands of Canaan: Can the real Israel stand up?". The Biblical Archaeologist. 59 (4): 198–212. doi:10.2307/3210562. JSTOR3210562. S2CID164201705.
^Finkelstein, Israel (1988). The archaeology of the Israelite settlement. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. ISBN965-221-007-2.
^Finkelstein, Israel; Naʼaman, Nadav, eds. (1994). From nomadism to monarchy: archaeological and historical aspects of early Israel. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi. ISBN965-217-117-4.
^Finkelstein, Israel (1996). "The archaeology of the United Monarchy: an alternative view". Levant. 28 (1): 177–187. doi:10.1179/lev.1996.28.1.177.
^Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2002). The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts. Simon and Schuster. ISBN0-684-86913-6.
^White, Joyce; Hamilton, Elizabeth (2009). "The Transmission of Early Bronze Technology to Thailand: New Perspectives". Journal of World Prehistory. 22 (4): 357–397. doi:10.1007/s10963-009-9029-z. S2CID9400588.
^Keyser, Christine; Bouakaze, Caroline; Crubézy, Eric; Nikolaev, Valery G.; Montagnon, Daniel; Reis, Tatiana; Ludes, Bertrand (2009). "Ancient DNA provides new insights into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people". Human Genetics. 126 (3): 395–410. doi:10.1007/s00439-009-0683-0. PMID19449030. S2CID21347353.
^The archaeological term "Bronze Age" was first introduced for Europe in the 1830s and soon extended to the Near East. By the 1860s, there was some debate as to whether the term should be extended to China (John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times (1868), cited after The Athenaeum No. 2121, 20 June 1868, p. 870Archived 23 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine).
^Robert L. Thorp, China in the Early Bronze Age: Shang Civilization, University of Pennsylvania Press (2013).
^" Without entering on the vexed question whether or not there ever was a bronze age in any part of the world distinguished by the sole use of that metal, it is a fact that in China and Japan to the present day, amid an iron age, bronze is in constant use for cutting instruments, either alone or in combination with steel."
The Rectangular Review, Volume 1 (1871), p. 408Archived 23 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine.
^Wu Hung (1995). Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture. pp. 11, 13[ISBN missing]
^Chang, K.C.: "Studies of Shang Archaeology", pp. 6–7, 1. Yale University Press, 1982.
^Chang, K.C.: "Studies of Shang Archaeology", p. 1. Yale University Press, 1982.
^Barnard, N.: "Bronze Casting and Bronze Alloys in Ancient China", p. 14. The Australian National University and Monumenta Serica, 1961.
^White, W.C.: "Bronze Culture of Ancient China", p. 208. University of Toronto Press, 1956.
^von Erdberg, Elizabeth (1993). Ancient Chinese Bronzes: Terminology and Iconology. Siebenbad-Verlag. p. 20. ISBN978-3877470633.
^Shaughnessy, E.L.: "Sources of Western Zhou History", pp. xv-xvi. University of California Press, 1982.
^Shaughnessy, E.L. "Sources of Western Zhou History", pp. 76–83. University of California Press, 1982.
^Shaughnessy, E.L. "Sources of Western Zhou History", p. 107
^Eckert, Carter J.; Lee, Ki-Baik; Lew, Young Ick; Robinson, Michael; Wagner, Edward W. (1990). Korea, Old and New: A History. p. 9. ISBN978-0962771309.
^McIntosh, Jane (2008). The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives. ABC-Clio. p. 387. ISBN978-1-57607-907-2. The enormous potential of the greater Indus region offered scope for huge population increase; by the end of the Mature Harappan period, the Harappans are estimated to have numbered somewhere between 1 and 5 million, probably well below the region's carrying capacity.
^ abHigham, C.; Higham, T.; Ciarla, R.; Douka, K.; Kijngam, A.; Rispoli, F. (2011). "The Origins of the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia". Journal of World Prehistory. 24 (4): 227–274. doi:10.1007/s10963-011-9054-6. S2CID162300712.
^Higham, C.F.W. (2011). "The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia: New insight on social change from Ban Non Wat". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 21 (3): 365–389. doi:10.1017/s0959774311000424. S2CID162729367.
^ abWhite, J.C. (1995). "Incorporating Heterarchy into Theory on Socio‐political Development: The Case from Southeast Asia". Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association. 6 (1): 101–123. CiteSeerX10.1.1.522.1061. doi:10.1525/ap3a.1995.6.1.101. S2CID129026022.
^O'Reilly, D.J.W. (2003). "Further evidence of heterarchy in Bronze Age Thailand". Current Anthropology. 44 (2): 300–306. doi:10.1086/367973. S2CID145310194.
^ abOxenham, M.F.; Thuy, N.K.; Cuong, N.L. (2005). "Skeletal evidence for the emergence of infectious disease in bronze and iron age northern Vietnam". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 126 (4): 359–376. doi:10.1002/ajpa.20048. PMID15386222.
^Carl Waldman, Catherine Mason. Encyclopedia of European peoples: Volume 1. 2006. p. 524.
^Lancaster, H.O. (1990). Expectations of life: A study in the demography, statistics, and history of world mortality. New York: Springer-Verlag. p. 228.
^Drews, R. (1993). The end of the Bronze Age: Changes in warfare and the catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press
^Neer, Richard T. (2012). Greek Art and Archaeology. New York: Thames and Hudson Inc. p. 63. ISBN978-0-500-28877-1.
^Cities on the Sea., Swiny, S., Hohlfelder, R.L., & Swiny, H.W. (1998). Res maritime: Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean from prehistory to late antiquity: proceedings of the Second International Symposium "Cities on the Sea", Nicosia, Cyprus, 18–22 October 1994. Atlanta, Ga: Scholars Press.
^Creevey, B. (1994). The forest resources of Bronze Age Cyprus
^A. Bernard Knapp, Steve O. Held, and Sturt W. Manning. The prehistory of Cyprus: Problems and prospects.
^Lockard, Craig A. (2009). Societies, Networks, and Transitions: To 600. Wadsworth Pub Co. p. 96.
^O'Brien, W. (1997). Bronze Age Copper Mining in Britain and Ireland. Shire Publications Ltd. ISBN978-0-7478-0321-8.
^Timberlake, S. and Prag A.J.N.W. (2005). The Archaeology of Alderley Edge: Survey, excavation and experiment in an ancient mining landscape. Oxford: John and Erica Hedges Ltd. p. 396. doi:10.30861/9781841717159. ISBN9781841717159.
^Tabor, Richard (2008). Cadbury Castle: A hillfort and landscapes. Stroud: The History Press. pp. 61–69. ISBN978-0-7524-4715-5.
^ abcdChilds, S. Terry (2008). "Metallurgy in Africa". In Selin, Helaine (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Netherlands: Springer. pp. 1596–1601. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8776. ISBN978-1-4020-4425-0.
^ abcdeHoll, Augustin F. C. (2009). "Early West African Metallurgies: New Data and Old Orthodoxy". Journal of World Prehistory. 22 (4): 415–438. doi:10.1007/s10963-009-9030-6. S2CID161611760.
^Killick, David (2009). "Cairo to Cape: The Spread of Metallurgy Through Eastern and Southern Africa". Journal of World Prehistory. 22 (4): 399–414. doi:10.1007/s10963-009-9025-3. S2CID162458882.
^Killick, David; van der Merwe, Nikolaas J.; Gordon, Robert B.; Grebenart, Danilo (1988). "Reassessment of the Evidence for Early Metallurgy in Niger, West Africa". Journal of Archaeological Science. 15 (4): 367–3944. doi:10.1016/0305-4403(88)90036-2.
Eogan, George (1983). The hoards of the Irish later Bronze Age, Dublin: University College, 331 p., ISBN0-901120-77-4
Hall, David and Coles, John (1994). Fenland survey : an essay in landscape and persistence, Archaeological report 1, London : English Heritage, 170 p., ISBN1-85074-477-7
Pernicka, E., Eibner, C., Öztunah, Ö., Wagener, G.A. (2003). "Early Bronze Age Metallurgy in the Northeast Aegean", In: Wagner, G.A., Pernicka, E. and Uerpmann, H-P. (eds), Troia and the Troad: scientific approaches, Natural science in archaeology, Berlin; London : Springer, ISBN3-540-43711-8, pp. 143–172
Piccolo, Salvatore (2013). Ancient Stones: The Prehistoric Dolmens of Sicily. Abingdon (GB): Brazen Head Publishing, ISBN978-09565106-2-4,
Waddell, John (1998). The prehistoric archaeology of Ireland, Galway University Press, 433 p., ISBN1-901421-10-4
Higham, C.F.W. (2011). "The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia: New insight on social change from Ban Non Wat". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 21 (3): 365–389. doi:10.1017/s0959774311000424. S2CID162729367.
"Галичский клад" [Ancient bronze idol 13 Cent B.C.] (in Russian). Northern Russia. Archived from the original on 4 October 2010. Retrieved 21 December 2009.
Aegean and Balkan Prehistory articles, site-reports and bibliography database concerning the Aegean, Balkans and Western Anatolia
3 rois régnèrent entre 337-258 av. J.-C., sous le nom de Hùng Duệ Vương
Bản đồ Văn Lang / Xích Quỷ
Việt Nam có thời Bắc tiến đi lên tới Thái Sơn và vùng đồng bằng Trong Nguồn. Trình đại Bắc Thần Nông của đế Nghi được 520 năm.
Nhưng rồi bị đẩy lùi xuống dảy Ngũ Lĩnh sông Trường Giang
Lực Lượng Thúc đẩy lịch sử Đông Nam Á
Zomia và Nusantao The forces which pushed the history of Southeast Asia.
https://youtu.be/dH4I9Nwxrq0
This is a timeline of Vietnamese history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Vietnam and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Vietnam.
This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (December 2017)
29th century BC
Year
Date
Event
2879 BC
Kinh Dương Vương unified all vassal states in his territory into the single state of Xích Quỷ, which he ruled as Hùng king from the capital at Phong Châu.[4]
Thục Phán, ruler of the Âu Việt, invaded and conquered Văn Lang. He renamed the country Âu Lạc and took the regnal name An Dương Vương, ruling as king from Cổ Loa Citadel.
In exchange for the restoration of his family in modern Zhengding County and the withdrawal of Han forces from the Nanyue border, Zhao Tuo renounced the title emperor and pledged submission to the Han dynasty.
Lü Jia, the prime minister of Nanyue and a Lạc Việtchief, killed Zhao Xing and his Han Chinese mother Juishi after the latter agreed to full submission to the Han dynasty in order to preserve her authority in Nanyue. He declared Zhao Xing's elder brother Zhao Jiande king.
Han conquest of Nanyue: Han forces invaded Nanyue. Zhao Jiande was captured in flight and executed. The zhou of Jiaozhou was organized on the territory of the defunct Nanyue and divided into the commanderies of Nanhai, Cangwu, Yulin, Jiaozhi, Hepu, Zhuya, Taner, and Jiuzhen.[29] Shi Dai was appointed its governor.
Hậu Lý Nam Đế, Lý Nam Đế's cousin and claimant to the throne of Vạn Xuân, signed a truce with Triệu Việt Vương establishing a boundary between their two territories.
Nguyễn Văn Nhạc's younger brother Nguyễn Văn Huệ proclaimed himself emperor of Đại Việt. Nguyễn Văn Nhạc relinquished the title, taking that of king instead.
Emperor Bảo (1925–1945) ended his rule of Vietnam.
__ Sept.
After the close of hostilities in WWII, 200,000 Chinese troops under General Lu Han sent by Chiang Kai-shek
entered northern Indochina north of the 16th parallel to accept the surrender of Japanese occupying forces,
based on instructions by General Douglas MacArthur.
The Geneva Conference sends French forces to the south, and Vietnamese forces to the north,
of a ceasefire line, and calls for elections to decide the government for all of Vietnam by July 1956.
Failure to abide by the terms of the agreement leads to the establishment
de facto of regimes of North Vietnam and South Vietnam, and the Vietnam War.
The
Vietnam War begins between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and
Republic of Vietnam; the north is allied with the Viet Cong.
1959
26 September
First large unit action of the Vietnam War takes place, when two companies of
the ARVN 23d Division are ambushed by a well-organized Viet Cong
force of several hundred, identified as the "2d Liberation Battalion".
1960
6 March
Vietnam War: The United States announces that 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam.
1961
18 November
Vietnam War: U.S. President
John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.
11 December
The American involvement in the Vietnam War officially begins,
as the first American helicopters arrive in Saigon along with 400 U.S. personnel.
Huế Phật Đản shootings: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam opens fire on Buddhists
who defy a ban on the flying of the
Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of
Gautama Buddha,
killing 9. Earlier, President Ngô Đình Diệm allowed the flying of the
Vatican flag in honour of his brother, Archbishop
Ngô Đình Thục, triggering the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam.
3 June
Huế chemical attacks: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam rains liquid chemicals on the heads of Buddhist protestors, injuring 67 people. The United States threatens to cut off aid to the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm.
1963 South Vietnamese coup: Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese President.
6 November
1963 South Vietnamese coup: Coup leader General Dương Văn Minh takes over as leader of South Vietnam.
1964
30 January
General Nguyễn Khánh leads a bloodless military coup d'état, replacing Dương Văn Minh as Prime Minister of South Vietnam.
2 May
Vietnam War: Attack on USNS Card – An explosion caused by Viet Cong commandos causes carrier USNS Card to sink in the port of Saigon.
19 July
Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Khánh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
20 July
Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attack a provincial capital, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which are children).
27 July
Vietnam War: The U.S. sends 5,000 more military advisers to South Vietnam, bringing the total number of United States forces in Vietnam to 21,000.
2 August
Vietnam War: United States destroyer Maddox is attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. Air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga sinks one gunboat, while the other two leave the battle.
5 August
Vietnam War: Operation Pierce Arrow – Aircraft from carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes against U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
7 August
Vietnam War: The United States Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces.
16 August
Vietnam War: In a coup, General Nguyễn Khánh replaces Dương Văn Minh as South Vietnam's chief of state and establishes a new constitution, drafted partly by the U.S. Embassy.
Vietnam War: Some 3,500 United States Marines arrive in Da Nang, South Vietnam, becoming the first American ground combat troops in Vietnam.
29 April
Australia announces that it is sending an infantry battalion to support the South Vietnam government.
10 June
Vietnam War – Battle of Dong Xoai: About 1,500 Viet Cong mount a mortar attack on Đồng Xoài, overrunning its military headquarters and the adjoining militia compound.
24 July
Vietnam War: Four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi are targeted by antiaircraft missiles, in the first such attack against American planes in the war. One is shot down and the other 3 sustain damage.
28 July
Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000, and to more than double the number of men drafted per month - from 17,000 to 35,000.
18 August
Vietnam War – Operation Starlite: 5,500 United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in Quảng Ngãi Province, in the first major American ground battle of the war. The Marines were tipped-off by a Viet Cong deserter who said that there was an attack planned against the U.S. base at Chu Lai.
20 September
Vietnam War: An USAF F-104 Starfighter piloted by Captain Philip Eldon Smith is shot down by a Chinese MiG-19 Farmer. The pilot is held until 15 March 1973.
9 October
A brigade of South Korean soldiers arrive in South Vietnam.
30 October
Vietnam War: Near Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. A sketch of Marine positions is found on the dead body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before.
8 November
Vietnam War – Operation Hump: The United States Army 173rd Airborne is ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong.
14 November
Vietnam War – Battle of Ia Drang: In the Ia Drang Valley of the Central Highlands in Vietnam, the first major engagement of the war between regular United States and North Vietnamese forces begins.
28 November
Vietnam War: In response to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's call for "more flags" in Vietnam, Philippines President-elect Ferdinand Marcos announces he will send troops to help fight in South Vietnam.
21 December
The Soviet Union announces that it has shipped rockets to North Vietnam.
1966
15 May
The South Vietnamese army besieges Da Nang.
29 June
Vietnam War: U.S. planes begin bombing Hanoi and Haiphong.
A Warsaw Pact conference ends with a promise to support North Vietnam.
24 July
A USAF F-4C Phantom #63-7599 was shot down by a North Vietnamese SAM-2 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Hanoi, in the first loss of a US aircraft to a Vietnamese SAM in the Vietnam War.
18 August
Vietnam War – Battle of Long Tan: D Company, 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, meets and defeats a Viet Cong force estimated to be four times larger, in Phuoc Tuy Province, Republic of Vietnam.
16 September
In South Vietnam, Thích Trí Quang ends a 100-day hunger strike.
Vietnam War: The People's Republic of China agrees to give North Vietnam an undisclosed amount of aid in the form of a grant.
9 August
Vietnam War – Operation Cochise: United States Marines begin a new operation in the Que Son Valley.
21 August
Two U.S. Navy jets stray into the airspace of the People's Republic of China following an attack on a target in North Vietnam and are shot down. Lt. Robert J. Flynn, the only survivor, is captured alive and will be held prisoner by China until 1973.
Vietnam War – Operation Swift: The United States Marines launch a search and destroy mission in Quảng Nam and Quảng Tín provinces. The ensuing 4-day battle in Que Son Valley kills 114 Americans and 376 North Vietnamese.
U.S. Navy pilot John McCain is shot down over North Vietnam and taken prisoner. His capture is confirmed two days later, and he remains a prisoner of war for more than five years.
3 November
Vietnam War – Battle of Dak To: Around Đắk Tô (located about 280 miles north of Saigon near the Cambodian border), heavy casualties are suffered on both sides; U.S. troops narrowly win the battle on 22 November.
4 December
Vietnam War: U.S. and South Vietnamese forces engage Viet Cong troops in the Mekong Delta (235 of the 300-strong Viet Cong battalion are killed).
1968
21 January
Vietnam War – Battle of Khe Sanh: One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on 8 April.
30 January
Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive begins, as Viet Cong forces launch a series of surprise attacks across South Vietnam.
1 February
Vietnam War: A Viet Cong officer named Nguyễn Văn Lém is executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The event is photographed by Eddie Adams. The photo makes headlines around the world, eventually winning the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war.
Vietnam War: Battle of Lima Site 85, the largest single ground combat loss of United States Air Force members (12) during the (at this time) secret war later known as the Laotian Civil War.
16 March
Vietnam War – My Lai Massacre: American troops kill scores of civilians. The story will first become public in November 1969 and will help undermine public support for the U.S. efforts in Vietnam.
26 July
Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Trương Đình Dzu is sentenced to 5 years hard labor, for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war.
23 September
Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive comes to an end in South Vietnam.
8 October
Vietnam War – Operation Sealords: United States and South Vietnamese forces launch a new operation in the Mekong Delta.
31 October
Vietnam War: Citing progress in the Paris peace talks, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective 1 November.
15 November
Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt is initiated to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Laos into South Vietnam. By the end of the operation, 3 million tons of bombs are dropped on Laos, slowing but not seriously disrupting trail operations.
U.S. President Richard Nixon and South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu meet at Midway Island. Nixon announces that 25,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn by September.
8 July
Vietnam War: The very first U.S. troop withdrawals from South Vietnam are made.
25 July
Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This starts the "Vietnamization" of the war.
2 September
Ho Chi Minh, the chairman chosen by Communist party of the North Vietnam, dies at the age of 79.
1970
5 September
Vietnam War – Operation Jefferson Glenn: The United States 101st Airborne Division and the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division initiate a new operation in Thua Thien Province (the operation ends in October 1971).
12 October
Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas.
30 October
In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.
4 November
Vietnam War – Vietnamization: The United States turns control of the air base in the Mekong Delta to South Vietnam.
21 November
Vietnam War – Operation Ivory Coast: A joint Air Force and Army team raids the Sơn Tây prison camp in an attempt to free American POWs thought to be held there (no Americans are killed, but the prisoners have already moved to another camp; all U.S. POWs are moved to a handful of central prison complexes as a result of this raid).
1971
13 February
Vietnam War: Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos.
18 August
Vietnam War: Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw their troops from Vietnam.
29 October
Vietnam War – Vietnamization: The total number of American troops still in Vietnam drops to a record low of 196,700 (the lowest since January 1966).
12 November
Vietnam War – Vietnamization: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon sets 1 February 1972, as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
1972
24 February
North Vietnamese negotiators walk out of the Paris Peace Talks to protest U.S. air raids.
30 March
Vietnam War: The Easter Offensive begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of South Vietnam
16 April
Vietnam War – Nguyen Hue Offensive: Prompted by the North Vietnamese offensive, the United States resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong.
8 May
U.S. President Richard Nixon orders the mining of Haiphong Harbor in Vietnam.
U.S. actress Jane Fonda tours North Vietnam, during which she is photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun.
26 October
Following a visit to South Vietnam, U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger suggests that "peace is at hand."
11 November
Vietnam War – Vietnamization: The United States Army turns over the massive Long Binh military base to South Vietnam.
22 November
Vietnam War: The United States loses its first B-52 Stratofortress of the war.
25 December
The Christmas bombing of North Vietnam causes widespread criticism of the U.S. and President Richard Nixon.
1973
15 January
Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.
27 January
U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ends with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords.
29 March
The last United States soldier leaves Vietnam.
15 August
The U.S. bombing of Cambodia ends, officially halting 12 years of combat activity in Southeast Asia according to the Case–Church Amendment-an act that prohibites military operations in Laos, Cambodia, and North and South Vietnam as a follow up of the Paris Peace Accords.
Vietnam War: South Vietnam President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu orders the Central Highlands evacuated. This turns into a mass exodus involving troops and civilians (the Convoy of Tears).
4 April
Vietnam War: The first military Operation Babylift flight, C5A 80218, crashes 27 minutes after takeoff, killing 138 on board; 176 survive the crash.
25 April
Vietnam War: As North Vietnamese Army forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost 10 years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.
29 April
Vietnam War:
Operation Frequent Wind – Americans and their allies are evacuated from South Vietnam by helicopter.
* North Vietnam concludes its East Sea Campaign by capturing all of the Spratly Islands that were being held by South Vietnam.
30 April
The Vietnam War ends with the Fall of Saigon: The Vietnam War concludes as Communist forces from North Vietnam take Saigon, resulting in mass evacuation of the remaining American troops and South Vietnam civilians. As the capital is taken, South Vietnam surrenders unconditionally and is replaced with the temporary Provisional Government.
1 May
The Cold War between Cambodia and Vietnam begins, which eventually leads to the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.
Võ Nguyên Giáp, Vietnamese General, one of the greatest military strategists of the 20th century, had died, aged 102, at 18:09 hours, local time, at Central Military Hospital 108 in Hanoi.
2014
2 May
2014 China-Vietnam oil rig crisis. The tensions between China and Vietnam arising from the Chinese state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation moving its Hai Yang Shi You 981 (known in Vietnam as "Hải Dương - 981") oil platform to waters near the disputed Paracel Islands in South China Sea, and the resulting Vietnamese efforts to prevent the platform from establishing a fixed position.
Hồng Bàng thị (chữ Hán: 鴻龐氏) hay Thời đại Hồng Bàng là một giai đoạn lịch sử thuộc thời đại thượng cổ của lịch sử Việt Nam.
Thời đại này dựa nhiều trên các truyền thuyết, truyện kể ở những tác phẩm như Lĩnh Nam chích quái và được hợp thức hóa trở thành một giai đoạn lịch sử qua Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, cuốn sử thư đã đưa Hồng Bàng thị làm Kỷ đầu tiên.
Theo Đại Việt Sử ký Toàn thư: Đế Minh là cháu ba đời của vua Thần Nông, đi tuần thú phương Nam, đến núi Ngũ Lĩnh (nay thuộc tỉnh Hồ Nam, Trung Hoa) gặp một nàng tiên, lấy nhau đẻ ra người con tên là Lộc Tục. Sau Đế Minh truyền ngôi lại cho con trưởng là Đế Nghi làm vua phương Bắc (từ núi Ngũ Lĩnh về phía Bắc), phong cho Lộc Tục làm vua phương Nam (từ núi Ngũ Lĩnh về phía Nam), xưng là Kinh Dương Vương, quốc hiệu là Xích Quỷ. Kinh Dương Vương làm vua Xích Quỷ vào năm Nhâm Tuất 2879 TCN, lấy con gái Động Đình Hồ quân (còn có tên là Thần Long) là Long nữ sinh ra Sùng Lãm, nối ngôi làm vua, xưng là
Lạc Long Quân. Lạc Long Quân
lấy Âu Cơ (một nàng tiên ở phương Bắc), sinh một lần trăm người con. Một hôm, Lạc Long Quân bảo Âu Cơ rằng: "Ta là giống rồng, nàng là giống tiên, thủy hỏa khắc nhau, chung hợp thật khó". Bèn từ biệt nhau, chia 50 con theo mẹ về núi, 50 con theo cha về ở miền biển (có bản chép là về Nam Hải), phong cho con trưởng làm Hùng Vương, nối ngôi vua.[1]
Đầu thời kỳ đồ đồng, người Việt gồm khoảng 15 nhóm Lạc Việt khác nhau sống trên vùng núi miền Bắc và miền châu thổ sông Hồng và hơn 12 nhóm Âu Việt sống ở vùng Đông Bắc, ngoài ra còn có một số nhóm người sinh sống trên các lưu vực sông thuộc khu vực Thanh Nghệ Tĩnh ngày nay. Để tiện việc trao đổi buôn bán, phòng chống lụt lội, chống lại kẻ thù... những bộ lạc Lạc Việt dần được gom lại thành một nước lấy tên Văn Lang và người đứng đầu tự xưng là Hùng Vương.
Trong Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư (大越史記全書), Ngoại kỉ (外紀), quyển 1, Hồng Bàng thị kỉ (鴻厖氏紀), cương vực và tên gọi 15 bộ của nước Văn Lang được chép gần như tương tự với Lĩnh Nam chích quái chỉ khác là không có bốn bộ Nhật Nam, Chân Định, Quế Lâm và Tượng Quận mà thay vào đó là bốn bộ Vũ Định (武定), Bình Văn (平文), Tân Hưng (新興) và Cửu Đức (九德). Bộ Văn Lang là nơi vua đóng đô. 15 bộ của nước Văn Lang theo "Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư" bao gồm:
Trong triều đình có các quan Lạc hầu (駱侯) giúp việc, đứng đầu các bộ là các quan Lạc tướng (駱將), đều có thái ấp riêng, các quan nhỏ ở địa phương gọi là "Bồ chính" (蒲正). Con trai vua gọi là "Quan lang" (官郎), con gái vua gọi là "Mị nương" (媢娘) hay Mệ nàng, nữ nô lệ gọi là "xảo xứng" (稍稱) (còn gọi là "nô tỳ" (奴婢)). Xã hội phân làm ba tầng lớp là vua quan, dân, nô tỳ (nô lệ).
"Giao Chỉ có ruộng Lạc, trông nước triều lên xuống mà làm. Người ăn ruộng là Lạc Vương (Lạc Hầu). Các huyện gọi là Lạc Tướng (quan cai quản), có ấn đồng dãi xanh, tức quan lệnh ngày nay."
"Hồi quốc sơ, dân không đủ đồ dùng, phải lấy vỏ cây làm áo, dệt cỏ gianh làm chiếu, lấy cốt gạo làm rượu, lấy cây quang lang, cây tung lư làm cơm (có chỗ viết là uống), lấy cầm thú, cá, ba ba làm mắm, lấy rễ gừng làm muối, cầy bằng dao, trồng bằng lửa. Đất sản xuất được nhiều gạo nếp, lấy ống tre mà thổi cơm. Bắc gỗ làm nhà để tránh hổsói. Cắt tóc ngắn để dễ đi lại trong rừng rú. Đẻ con ra lấy lá chuối lót cho nằm, có người chết thì giã cối làm lệnh, người lân cận nghe tiếng đến cứu. Chưa có trầu cau, việc hôn thú giữa nam nữ lấy gói đất làm đầu, sau đó mới giết trâu dê làm đồ lễ, lấy cơm nếp để nhập phòng cùng ăn, sau đó mới thành thân."
"Long Quân lấy Âu Cơ rồi đẻ ra một bọc, cho là điềm bất thường, vứt ra cánh đồng; qua sáu bảy ngày, bọc vỡ ra một trăm quả trứng, mỗi trứng nở ra một con trai, mới đem về nhà nuôi... Âu Cơ và năm mươi con lên ở đất Phong Châu suy phục lẫn nhau, cùng tôn người con cả lên làm vua, hiệu là Hùng Vương, lấy tên nước là Văn Lang, đông giáp Nam Hải, tây tới Ba Thục, bắc tới Động Đình hồ, nam tới nước Hồ Tôn (nay là Chiêm Thành). Chia nước làm 15 bộ (còn gọi là quận) là Việt Thường, Giao Chỉ, Chu Diên, Vũ Ninh, Phúc Lộc, Ninh Hải, Dương Tuyền, Lục Hải, Hoài Hoan, Cửu Chân, Nhật Nam, Chân Định, Văn Lang, Quế Lâm, Tượng Quận. Chia các em ra cai trị, lại đặt các em làm tướng văn tướng võ, văn là lạc hầu, võ là lạc tướng. Con trai vua gọi là quan lang, con gái vua gọi là mỵ nương, trăm quan gọi là bồ chính, thần bộc, nữ lệ gọi là xảo xứng (còn gọi là nô tỳ). Bề tôi gọi là hồn, đời đời cha truyền con nối gọi là phụ đạo. Vua đời đời thế tập gọi là Hùng Vương, không hề thay đổi".[2]
Học giả Trần Quốc Vượng nói rằng bánh chưng nguyên thủy có hình tròn và dài, giống như bánh tét; đồng thời bánh chưng và bánh dày tượng trưng cho dương vật và âm hộ trong tín ngưỡng phồn thực Việt Nam.[3] Bánh tét, dùng thay cho bánh chưng vào các dịp Tết trong cộng đồng người Việt ở miền nam Việt Nam, theo Trần Quốc Vượng là dạng nguyên thủy của bánh chưng.
Văn hóa Tràng An là một nền văn hóa cổ ở Việt Nam, hình thành từ thời kỳ đồ đá cũ cách nay khoảng 25 ngàn năm. Tràng An là tên một địa danh ở Ninh Bình, nơi đầu tiên tìm ra những di chỉ của nền văn hóa này. Đến nay đã có khoảng 30 địa điểm thuộc nền văn hóa Tràng An đã được phát hiện.[1]
Trong giai đoạn đầu và giữa, Văn hóa Tràng An có trình độ chỉ ở mức thời kỳ đồ đá của người tiền sử. Đến thời kỳ cuối (7.000 - 4000 năm trước) thì xuất hiện đồ gốm, cho thấy trình độ của cư dân đã thoát khỏi thời kỳ chỉ biết chế tác đồ đá.
Khu vực Quần thể danh thắng Tràng An ở Ninh Bình có hơn 30 di tích khảo cổ học thời tiền sử đã được phát hiện, kết quả nhiều cuộc nghiên cứu của các chuyên gia khảo cổ học cho thấy dấu ấn của người tiền sử thích nghi với biến cố lớn về môi trường, cảnh quan ít nhất là từ khoảng 23.000 năm TCN đến nay, một số nền văn hóa tiền sử đã tiến hóa liên tục ở khu vực này, từ thời đại đồ đá cũ qua thời đại đồ đá mới đến thời đại đồ đồng và đồ sắt... Với những giá trị về văn hóa và thiên nhiên mang tính nổi bật toàn cầu, Tràng An được UNESCO vinh danh trở thành khu di sản thế giới kép đầu tiên ở Việt Nam và khu vực Đông Nam Á.[2][3]
Văn hóa Tràng An kéo dài từ thời đại đồ đá cũ sang thời đại đồ đá mới (cách ngày nay 25.000 năm), trên vùng đất xen núi đá vôi, thuộc phía nam châu thổ sông Hồng.
Phó Giáo sư, Tiến sĩ Nguyễn Khắc Sử cho hay, căn cứ vào kết quả khai quật, nghiên cứu khảo cổ học hang động Tràng An đã xác nhận rằng, các di tích tiền sử mang trong mình những đặc thù riêng biệt, xác lập sự hiện diện của một nền văn hóa khảo cổ - văn hóa Tràng An. Nó rất khác so với văn hóa khảo cổ Hòa Bình, Cái Bèo, Đa Bút, Quỳnh Văn, Hạ Long, Hoa Lộc cả về không gian cư trú, về chất liệu công cụ đá, kỹ thuật gia công công cụ, có sự giao thoa, tiếp xúc và diễn tiến văn hóa để bước từ nguyên thủy sang văn minh ở một địa bàn hết sức đặc trưng của thung lũng karst lầy trũng. Truyền thống khai thác nhuyễn thể ở hang động Tràng An còn được lưu truyền cho tới những người Việt sau này.[4]
Qua phân tích, đối sánh giữa nền văn hóa Tràng An với các văn hóa khảo cổ học đã biết, thì ở Tràng An: Về vị trí địa lý là thung lũng đá vôi đầm lầy chứ không phải đá vôi vùng núi khác; Công cụ lao động không sử dụng đá cuội mà sử dụng bằng đá vôi; Phổ biến sử dụng đồ gốm hoa văn dấu thừng thô chứ không phải là dấu thừng mịn; Khai thác các loài vỏ nhuyễn thể (như vỏ ốc, trai, hàu) là nước ngọt và biển (đồng thời); Con người cư trú hầu như chỉ ở trong hang động, không ở ngoài trời và các hang động đó được sử dụng đến ngày nay (ban đầu là nơi cư trú, sinh sống sau này được sử dụng làm chùa, nơi sinh hoạt văn hóa của cư dân địa phương); Niên đại kéo dài từ 25.000 năm đến 3.000 năm cách ngày nay.
Trong điều kiện tự nhiên đặc biệt, hầu như chỉ có đá vôi là chất liệu đá duy nhất, người Tràng An đã biết sử dụng nó làm công cụ lao động ít nhất cho đến cách ngày nay khoảng 3.000 năm, trong quá trình đó đã nhận biết được rằng đá vôi đô-lô-mít thuộc loại chất liệu tốt nhất có thể có. Đồng thời với giai đoạn biển tiến lớn nhất cuối cùng (khoảng 7.000-4.000 năm trước), người tiền sử Tràng An đã biết tới nghệ thuật làm đồ gốm. Những chứng cứ sớm nhất được cho là tương đương với gốm Đa Bút (6.000 năm trước), nhưng thực tế đã được làm ra ở đây sớm hơn nhiều (khoảng 9.000 năm trước) và tiến hóa liên tục qua thời đại Kim khí đến tận sau này. Việc sử dụng đồ gốm từ sớm và liên tục ở Tràng An chứng tỏ rằng một trung tâm gốm sứ rất khác biệt so với nhiều trung tâm gốm sứ khác ở Việt Nam đã từng tồn tại ở đây. Ts. Masanari Nishimura (Nhật Bản) qua nghiên cứu khảo cổ học tiền sử Quần thể danh thắng Tràng An đã khẳng định: Cách đây 5.000-6.000 năm trước, có một trận động đất lớn ở Tràng An và người Việt cổ ở Tràng An đã trải qua nhiều sự biến đổi của thiên nhiên để thích ứng và phát triển cho đến ngày nay, tạo nên một giá trị về một nền văn hóa Tràng An.[5]
Hệ thống các di tích khảo cổ hang động trong Quần thể di sản thế giới Tràng An (Ninh Bình) là một thí dụ nổi bật về một sự định cư truyền thống của loài người, việc sử dụng đất hoặc biển, mà đại diện cho một nền văn hóa (hoặc nhiều nền văn hóa) hoặc sự tác động của con người đến thiên nhiên đặc biệt khi nó trở nên bị nguy hại dưới tác động của sự thay đổi không thể thay đổi được. Điều này được chứng minh qua các tư liệu sau:
Truyền thống định cư hang động lâu dài từ thời tiền sử, cách đây 25.000 năm (C14 Hang Trống) đến các chùa hang mà người Việt đang sử dụng. Tại đây con người sống, khai thác nguồn lợi tự nhiên trong vùng karst nhiệt đới, gắn liền với những biến động địa chất mang tính toàn cầu (biển tiến, biển thoái), gắn liền với những phát minh vĩ đại của nhân loại (kỹ thuật mài trong chế tác công cụ, kỹ thuật làm đồ gốm, kỹ thuật trồng trọt, chăn nuôi), một thí dụ điển hình về bước tiến của văn hóa nhân loại ở vùng biển cổ Ninh Bình.
Địa tầng các di tích tiền sử Tràng An cho biết các giá trị văn hóa tiền sử ở đây phát triển bền vững, được truyền lại từ thế hệ này sang thế hệ khác và trở thành truyền thống (tradition). Theo thời gian, truyền thống ở đây không lặp lại nguyên gốc, mà do áp dụng kỹ thuật mới hoặc các dạng thức hoạt động mới đã nảy sinh cái mới (innovation), cái mới lại được cách tân (renovation) và gia nhập vào truyền thống. Cứ như vậy, truyền thống và cách tân là 2 chiều ngang và dọc, dệt nên bức tranh văn hóa tiền sử, làm nên giá trị bền vững, tinh hoa của các cộng đồng tộc người ở vùng Tràng AnNinh Bình.
Các chứng tích văn hóa khảo cổ tiền sử ở Tràng An phong phú và đa dạng, là nguồn sử liệu vật thật minh chứng cho sự biến đổi đặc biệt về kinh tế, văn hóa, xã hội của cộng đồng cư dân nơi đây dưới sự tác động thay đổi môi trường karst, biến động của cổ khí hậu, của mực nước biển vùng nhiệt đới gió mùa. Đây là các chứng tích điển hình nhất cho loại hình cư trú liên tục trong hang động trước, trong và sau biển tiến, truyền thống khai thác và sử dụng nhuyễn thể biển và trên cạn, truyền thống săn bắt đa tạp, theo phổ rộng, săn bắt nhiều loài, mỗi loài một ít và không dẫn đến hủy diệt bầy đàn động vật đó; truyền thống chế tác và sử dụng công cụ đá vôi, sự nảy sinh kỹ thuật mài, cưa và kỹ thuật làm gốm và trồng trọt trong thung lũng đầm lầy là nét riêng độc đáo, làm nên giá trị nổi bật toàn cầu của quần thể các di tích khảo cổ nơi đây.
Hệ thống các di tích khảo cổ tiền sử hang động Tràng An (Ninh Bình) còn chứa đựng sự độc bản hoặc chí ít là chứng cứ đặc biệt về truyền thống văn hóa hoặc nền văn minh hiện còn tồn tại hoặc đã mất của nhân loại (tiêu chí:iii của một di sản thế giới).[6]
Các di chỉ[
Dựa trên những dấu tích của nền văn hóa Tràng An còn lại cho thấy, các di tích tiền sử Tràng An phát triển qua 3 giai đoạn: Trước biển tiến Holocene trung (trước 6.000 năm cách ngày nay) có các di tích Hang Trống, Hang Bói, Mái đá Ông Hay, lớp dưới Mái đá Chợ và lớp sớm nhất Hang Mòi. Giai đoạn biển tiến (6.000 - 4.000 năm cách ngày nay) có các di tích: Mái đá Vàng, Hang Ốc và lớp trên Hang Mòi. Giai đoạn sau biển tiến (4.000 - 2.000 năm cách ngày nay) có các di tích: Hang Núi Tướng 1, Núi Tướng 2, lớp trên Mái đá Chợ, di tích Thung Bình 1, Thung Bình 2.
Các di tích ở Tràng An đều thuộc loại hình hang động, mật độ cao, phân bố không đều, tập trung ở khu trung tâm và vùng rìa phía tây và tây nam, phần còn lại (phía bắc và phía đông) của quần thể di sản thế giới Tràng An có rất ít. Chúng phân bố thành nhóm, mỗi nhóm từ 4 đến 6 di tích, chiếm một vài thung lũng núi đá vôi liền khoảnh, thuộc các tiểu vùng cảnh quan khác nhau gồm nhóm 1, 2 ở trung tâm khối đá vôi Tràng An, tiêu biểu là các di tích Hang Trống, Hang Bói và Hang Mòi, Mái đá Ông Hay, Mái đá Chợ, Mái đá Vàng. Các di tích này phân bố trong địa hình núi đá vôi dạng chóp nón, đỉnh nhọn, kết nối với nhau bằng các sống núi kiểu thành lũy, bao lấy các hố sụt, trũng kín, đáy bằng, tụ nước dạng đầm lầy, liên thông với nhau bằng các động xuyên thủy. Nhóm 3 ở rìa phía tây khối đá vôi Tràng An, tiêu biểu là 4 hang: Thung Bình 1, 2, 3, 4 và Hang Chùa. Đây là vùng núi đá vôi dạng tháp tách biệt nhau, thung lũng rộng, ngập nước và liên kết nhau qua mạng lưới sông suối. Nhóm 4 ở rìa tây nam, tiêu biểu là Mái đá Ốc 1, 2, Núi Tướng 1, 2 và Hang Vàng. Cảnh quan nơi đây thuộc dạng chóp nón nối đỉnh, dạng dãy, thành lũy đan xen; thung lũng hẹp chạy dài theo phương tây bắc - đông nam, có nhiều hang xuyên thủy, xuyên thung. Nhóm 5 ở phía bắc, gồm các di chỉ Hang Áng Nồi, Hang Ông Mi, Hang Trâu, Hang Son. Các núi đá vôi ở đây đỉnh bằng, đứng tách rời nhau, rải rác trong các thung lũng ngập nước và được liên thông bởi hệ thống sông suối tự nhiên như sông Ngô Đồng, sông Đền Vối, sông Sào Khê, sông Bến Đang.[7]
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