3500–3400 BC – Jar with boat designs, from Hierakonpolis (today in the Brooklyn Museum) is created. Predynastic Egypt. c. 3150 BC – Predynastic period ended in Ancient Egypt. Early Dynastic (Archaic) period started (according to French Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal). The period includes 1st and 2nd Dynasties. c. 3100 BC – Narmer Palette. Sails used in the Nile. Mastabas, the predecessors of the Egyptian pyramids. Harps and flutes played in Egypt. Lyres and double clarinets (arghul, mijwiz) played in Egypt. Earliest known numerals in Egypt. Europe Crete: Rise of Minoan civilization. c. 4000 BC – First neolithic settlers in the island of Thera (Santorini), Greece, migrating probably from Minoan Crete. Pontic–Caspian steppe 3500–2300 BC – The Yamna culture ("Kurgan culture"), succeeding the Sredny Stog culture on the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the Caucasus and Central Asia. This culture is believed to have been the locus of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, and thus the Urheimat, or point of origin, of the Proto Indo-European language, according to the Kurgan hypothesis. 5500–2750 BC – The Trypillian culture has cities with 15,000 citizens, eastern Europe. Kurgan culture of what is now Southern Russia and Ukraine; possibly the first domestication of the horse. Balkans c. 3500 BC – Figures of a man and a woman, from Cernavodă, Romania, are made. They are now at National Historical Museum, Bucharest. c. 3138 BC Ljubljana Marshes Wheel is a wooden wheel that was found in the Ljubljana Marsh in Slovenia. Radiocarbon dating showed that it is approximately 5,150 years old, which makes it the oldest wooden wheel yet discovered. c. 4000–2000 BC – People and animals, a detail of rock-shelter painting in Cogul (Roca dels Moros), Lleida, Spain, are painted. It is now at Archaeology Museum of Catalonia, Barcelona. Arzachena & Ozieri cultures. Malta 3600 BC – Construction of the Ġgantija megalithic temple complex on the Island of Gozo: the world's oldest extant unburied free-standing structures, and the world's oldest religious structures. (See Göbekli Tepe for older, buried religious structures.) 3600–3200 BC – Construction of the first temple within the Mnajdra solar temple complex, containing "furniture" such as stone benches and tables, that set it apart from other European megalith constructions. 3600–3000 BC – Construction of the Ta' Ħaġrat and Kordin III temples. 3250–3000 BC – Construction of three megalithic temples at Tarxien. 3200–2500 BC – Construction of the Ħaġar Qim megalithic temple complex, featuring both solar and lunar alignments. Northern Europe