In 2018, charred remains of flatbread about 14,400 years old were identified in Jordan, and that same year traces of brewing roughly 13,000 years old were reported from a cave in Israel. Their makers, the Natufians, were still hunter-gatherers. Some researchers wonder whether a taste for bread helped push people to grow cereals.
Around 2300 BCE, Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, became high priestess of the Moon god at Ur. She composed hymns to the goddess Inanna and put her name to them. She is the oldest person identified as the author of a literary work, about 1,500 years before Homer.
Squeeze Earth's 4.5 billion years into a single 24-hour day. Homo sapiens shows up around 11:59:54 p.m., roughly six seconds before midnight. All of written history, from Sumerian tablets to today, fits into the final tenth of a second. A cosmic blink.