History of Asia

The history of Asia can be seen as the collective history of several regions such as East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and West Asia.

Asia was the home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations. These developed around fertile river valleys as they were fertile and conducive to agriculture. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, ancient India, and ancient China shared many similarities and likely exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other inventions such as writing likely developed independently as did Cities, states, and empires.

The steppe region had long been inhabited by nomads, and from the central steppes, they could reach all parts of the Asian continent. The northern part of the continent, covering much of Siberia was inaccessible to the steppe nomads due to the dense forests and the tundra. These areas in Siberia were very sparsely populated. Mountains and deserts such as the Caucasus, Himalayas, Karakum and Gobi Desert formed natural barriers against the steppe nomads. The urban centers were technologically and culturally more advanced, but could do little militarily to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grassland to support a large horse mounted force. Thus the nomads who conquered states in West Asia were soon forced to adopt local customs.

Asia has been the birthplace of many religions. They include Abrahamic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as well as Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Other religions include Zoroastrianism and the now dead religion of Manichaeism. The spread of Islam ushered in the Islamic Golden Age and the Timurid Renaissance, which later went on to influence the Islamic gunpowder empires.

The history of Asia includes major developments such as the invention of gunpowder in medieval China, which was later developed by the Gunpowder empires, mainly the Mughals and Safavids, and led to significant advancements in warfare. The Silk Road, helped spread cultures, languages, religions, as well as diseases throughout Asia and Europe.

A report by archaeologist Rakesh Tewari on Lahuradewa, India shows new C14 datings that range between 9000 and 8000 BC associated with rice, making Lahuradewa the earliest Neolithic site in entire South Asia. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus River alluvium approximately 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BC.

Göbekli Tepe is a Neolithic site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between c. 9500 and 8000 BC, the site comprises a number of large circular structures supported by massive stone pillars – the world's oldest known megaliths.

The prehistoric Beifudi site near Yixian in Hebei Province, China, contains relics of a culture contemporaneous with the Cishan and Xinglongwa cultures of about 8000–7000 BC, Neolithic cultures east of the Taihang Mountains, filling in an archaeological gap between the two Northern Chinese cultures. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square meters and the collection of Neolithic findings at the site consists of two phases.