The period 10,000 BC to 500 AD saw the birth of society in the rise and fall of great civilisation, farming and the domestication of animals transformed clans that previously depended on hunting and gathering. By 5000 BC, irrigation produced enough food for people to settle in villages. Tools were first crafted in stones, then later in bronze, copper and iron. The wheels the ox drawn, plow and clay pottery also came into use. The rhythms of farming and the turn of seasons had a mystical aspect. The first urban societies were organised around the worship of deities. Among the legacies of the period are mathematics instruments to measure time, and painting and sculpture as art forms, writing systems invented in summer about 3000 BC. Began the age of recorded history. The civilisations of this era left remarkable treasures. The pyramids of Egypt, monuments to engineering genius, and a belief in the afterlife. The Epic of Gilgamesh and Hammurabi 's code from Babylonia, Judaism, and Christianity from the Middle East and Buddhism from India. The empires of Greece and Rome built the foundation of Western Civilisation. In politics and government, philosophy and drama, the arts and language. In fact, the word history comes from the ancient Greek for knowledge.