Global Periodization of World History: A Structural Model from Anthropogenesis to the Present

This article proposes a structural framework for the global periodization of world history, tracing the biological and socio‐cultural evolution of humanity from the emergence of the genus Homo to the contemporary era. The model defines historical periods not merely by conventional chronological labels, but by major transformations in the dominant technological, economic, and interactional regimes that structure large‐scale human development. Four broad ethnocultural areas—African, Macro‐Eurasian, Sahulian, and American—are examined within a comparative perspective. The Macro‐Eurasian region serves as a primary analytical reference point for synchronizing global processes due to the density of early urbanized societies and written sources, while the framework remains comparative rather than hierarchical. The proposed periodization integrates established archaeological and historical epochs—from the Paleolithic and Neolithic transitions to the classical, medieval, and modern periods— within a unified structural logic emphasizing technological change, migration dynamics, and patterns of intercultural interaction. By grounding period boundaries in shifts of underlying historical mechanisms, the article offers a coherent chronological model that enables systematic cross‐regional comparison of long‐term human development.