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Timeline: 2000 to 1001 BCE

2000 Near what today is Haifa, Israel, at least two neolithic dwellers are infected with tuberculosis.

2000 Another wave of settlements is about to begin into what today is northern Israel.

2000 Give or take a century or two, Malay people begin migrating from the Asian mainland, across the ocean, to join others on Indonesian islands, bringing with them the cultivation of rice and domesticated animals. People called Mon migrate from Central Asia to the southern tip of Burma, where they began growing rice. People leave the Mulucca Islands and migrate eastward to islands north of Australia.

1950 The Sumerians have been overrun by Amorites and are to disappear as a recognizable people. Their writings, stories and gods are to endure. Sumerian language is to be what Latin will be in Europe in early modern times.

1900 Egypt is united again, followed by the rule of King (Pharaoh) Amenemhet I. Common people have failed to win political power, and local lords are subservient again to one king, but common people and lords have won recognition of having an afterlife like kings. And more importance is given by all to the goddess of justice, Ma'at.

1800 Migrants in magnificent little boats reach Micronesia.

1800 An Amorite king at Babylon, Hammurabi, extends his empire from the Persian Gulf to the city of Haran. He builds roads, creates a postal system and sees himself as conqueror of the world. Babylon is lush with agriculture. In the name of his god of justice, Hammurabi gives his subjects laws about mistreatment of each other.

1750 Along the Yellow River (Huang He), conquerors start building what would be known as the Shang civilization, eventually to stretch four or five hundred miles. The main concern of the Shang kings is power. They take slaves and practice human sacrifice to please the gods they fear. Women are subservient to men. Shang kings claim to be descended from ancestors who reside in heaven. Canals are dug for irrigation.

1750 A literate people move through Canaan, take control of some cities there, and then they conquer northern Egypt. They have horses and light-weight chariots and introduce the Egyptians to the wheel, new musical instruments, new techniques for making bronze and pottery, new kinds of crops, new gods and new weapons of war. The Egyptians call them Hyksos.

1700 Rainfall declines in the Indus Valley and Mohenjo-daro civilization disappears. By now Indo-European hunter-gatherers and farmers have moved into Sweden and have learned to endure winters there.

1680 In Egypt, leavened bread is being baked.

1593 Hittites from Asia Minor, with horses and lightweight chariots, sack Babylon, ending the dynasty that had been created by Hammurabi. Then they withdraw.

1525 The Egyptians drive the Hyksos from their land. The Egyptian king, Thutmose I, and his subjects pursue the Hyksos through Canaan and into Syria.

1500 Aryan nomads with horses and light-weight chariots packed in their wagons drop out of the mountains eastward into the Indus valley. They bring with them their sacred hymns and oral history - stories that express their desire to please the gods, including their god Dyaus Pitar (Sky Father).

1480 Hurrians, from the Zagros Mountains, dominate the city of Mari, on the upper Euphrates, and Nuzi, a thriving commercial center. They have overrun and dominate the Assyrians. And around this time they battle the Egyptians who are still in the north around Syria.

1420 Around now, Mycenae Greeks invade and conquer Crete. Minoan civilization will fade.

1400 In Egypt a water clock is invented.

1350 The Egyptian king, Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) rules. He tries to force his subjects to worship the god Aton, whom he believes is the god of the universe. Egypt has withdrawn from Syria and Canaan.

1300 The Assyrians have benefited from the decline of the Hurrians and are in control all of Mesopotamia.

1300 People from Micronesia have sailed into Melanesia, including the Solomon and Fiji islands.

1300 Writing has appeared in Shang civilization, with characters partly pictorial and partly phonetic, and bronze casting has developed.

1279 Ramses II becomes King of Egypt, in his early twenties.

1213 Ramses II dies, in his eighties

1207 On a stele in Egypt, Pharoah Merenptah memorializes his victories in Canaan. [Authors of the Bible, Fred Glynn.]

1200 Tribal peoples from Central Asia had been moving westward with their herds, running from droughts. They are pushing other tribal peoples into Asia Minor. Hittites are overrun and begin to disappear as a recognizable people. Waves of illiterate migrants overrun Greece, beginning a "dark age" there. Brown-skinned people begin migrating eastward into Polynesia, to the Tonga and Samoan islands.

1177 People in boats, perhaps escaping from invasions into Greece, raid the coast of Egypt and are driven off. They land farther east and are to be known as Philistines.

1050 A century or so after the arrival of the Philistines, Hebrews, occupying hilly regions in the Land of Canaan, combine their forces for the first time and confront an army of Philistines near the Philistine outpost at Aphek, and they lose the battle.

1010 The Hebrew David conquers and subjugates Amorities - also known as Canaanites. David has acquired some Canaanite culture and is a man of his time.