The Egyptians and Phoenicians invent the sailboats
The Phoenicians and Egyptians sailed under cloth sails on single log and simple long narrow sailboats.
5th Millennia B.C.E.
Humans begin using yeast to make bread, perhaps in Ancient Egypt
Baker’s yeast is the common name for the strains of yeast commonly used as a leavening agent in baking bread and bakery products.
Humans invent lost-wax casting, perhaps in modern-day Pakistan
Lost-wax casting is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass or bronze) is cast from an original sculpture.
Humans of the Yangshao period in China produce silk for the first time
According to Confucian text, the discovery of silk production dates to about 2700 BC, although archaeological records point to silk cultivation as early as the Yangshao period (50003000 BC).
The Funnelbeaker culture flourishes in north-central Europe
The Funnelbeaker culture developed as a technological merger of local neolithic and mesolithic techno-complexes, introducing farming and husbandry as a major source of food to the pottery-using hunter-gatherers north of this line.
Hunter-gatherers of the Wilton stone age culture inhabit Twyfelfontein in modern-day Namibia
Displaying one of the largest concentrations of rock petroglyphs in Africa, UNESCO approved Twyfelfontein as Namibia’s first World Heritage Site in 2007.
The Kura–Araxes culture thrives in the Caucauses
The Kura–Araxes culture was a civilization that existed from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC. The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; it spread northward in Caucasus by 3000 BC.E.
Altogether, the early Transcaucasian culture enveloped a vast area approximately 1,000 km by 500 km,[4] and mostly encompassed, on modern-day territories, the Southern Caucasus (except western Georgia), northwestern Iran, the northeastern Caucasus, eastern Turkey, and as far as Syria.[5][6]
The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys. Kura–Araxes culture is sometimes known as Shengavitian, Karaz (Erzurum), Pulur, and Yanik Tepe (Iranian Azerbaijan, near Lake Urmia) cultures.[7] It gave rise to the later Khirbet Kerak-ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire.
The peoples of sub-Saharan Africa begin metal smelting
Copper artifacts recovered from Nubia provide the earliest known evidence of metal smelting in sub-Saharan Africa, dating back sometime after 4000 B.C.E. – they were most likely imports from Egypt.
Humans settle on the Macau Peninsula for the first time
The human history of Macau stretches back up to 6,000 years, and includes many different and diverse civilizations and periods of existence. Evidence of human and culture dating back 4,000 to 6,000 years has been discovered on the Macau Peninsula and dating back 5,000 years on Coloane Island.
Early Norwegians begin farming for the first time
The first farming and thus the start of the Neolithic period, began ca. 4000 BC around the Oslofjord, with the technology coming from southern Scandinavia.