6500 Potter's wheel invented in Asia Minor. 6000 Flint sickles of this period indicate the cultivation of crops. 6000-2500 Tassili pastoral rock paintings (Africa). 5500 Sun-dried brick houses and settlements in Iraq and Anatolia. 5000 Sumerians from Central Asia settled in plain of Shinar called Sumer. Sumerian language in use. 4500 Earliest copper smelting sites (Yugoslavia). 4500-250 Neolithic Jomonshiki culture (Japan). 4300 Egyptians advanced beyond Neolithic stage. 4000 The end of the Palaeolithic period along the Mediterranean coastline, with spread of Neolithic culture. Sumerian pictographic writing; about 2000 signs in use, writing done on clay tablets. 4000-3500 Sumerians settle on the site of city of Bablon. 3800 Earliest Omen tablets of Babylon. Sumerian clay tablet maps of River Euphrates. 3500 Great period of prosperity of Sumerian civilization. Beginnings of true Bronze Age, in Bohemia. Sumerian temple of Ianna at Eridu built; clay tables of cuneiform writing of Sumerian language were found here in 1952 AD. Earliest writing (Sumerian), found in SE Iran in 1970 AD. 3500-3000 Megalithic temples on Malta. 3500-1700 Neolithic period in Western Europe. 3400 Upper (White) Egypt joined to Lower (Red) Egypt by Menes the Fighter, king of Upper Egypt (1st/Thinite Dynasty). He founds a city that will be called Memphis. Cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing of Sumerian civilization; earliest writing known. 3300 Solid wheel (Sumeria). 3200 Early stages of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Ox-drawn plough in Egypt and Sumeria. 3200-2850 Protoliterate Period (Sumeria) 3200-2800 Archaic Period, first and second dynasties of Egypt. 3100 Ceremonial palette of King Na'rmer, Egypt. 3000 Semitic tribes occupied Assyria in northern part of the plain of Shinar and Akkad; wars with Sumerians already there. Other Semitic tribes settled on Syrian coast; these were Phoenicians with centres of Tyre, Sidon and later, Carthage. Neolithic settlements known to have existed in Crete by this date (possibly as early as 5000 BC) Two-wheel chariot in Sumeria. Bow-harp in use in Egypt and Sumeria. 3000-2850 First cities in Indus Valley. 3000-1500 Yang-shao, Kausu, and Fengt'ien cultures (China).