Although the earliest evidence of martial arts goes back millennia, the true roots are difficult to reconstruct. Inherent patterns of human aggression which inspire practice of mock combat (in particular wrestling) and optimization of serious close combat as cultural universals are doubtlessly inherited from the pre-human stage and were made into an "art" from the earliest emergence of that concept. Indeed, many universals of martial art are fixed by the specifics of human physiology and not dependent on a specific tradition or era.
Specific martial traditions become identifiable in Classical Antiquity, with disciplines such as shuai jiao, Greek wrestling or those described in the Indian epics or the Spring and Autumn Annals of China.
Early history
The earliest evidence for specifics of martial arts as practiced in the past comes from depictions of fights, both in figurative art and in early literature, besides analysis of archaeological evidence, especially of weaponry. The oldest work of art depicting scenes of battle, dating back 3400 BC, was the Ancient Egyptian paintings showing some form of struggle. Dating back to 3000 BC in Mesopotamia (Babylon), reliefs and the poems depicting struggle were found. In Vietnam, drawings and sketches from 2879 BCE describe certain ways of combat using sword, stick, bow, and spears.
The spear has been in use since the Lower Paleolithic and retained its central importance well into the 2nd millennium AD. The bow appears in the Upper Paleolithic and is likewise only gradually replaced by the crossbow, and eventually firearms, in the Present Day. True bladed weapons appear in the Neolithic with the stone axe, and diversify in shape in the course of the Bronze Age (khopesh/kopis, sword, dagger)
Some early examples are the depiction of wrestling techniques in a tomb of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt at Beni Hasan (c. 2000 BC) and pictorial representations of fist fighting in the Minoan civilization dating to the 2nd millennium BCE.
In ancient China, Yellow Emperor (2698 BC) is described as a famous general who, before becoming China’s leader, wrote lengthy treatises on medicine, astrology and the martial arts. Literary descriptions of combat began in the 2nd millennium BC, with mention of weaponry and combat in texts like the Gilgamesh epic or the Rig-Veda. Detailed description of Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age hand-to-hand combat with spear, sword and shield are found in the Iliad (c. 8th century BC) and also the Mahabharatha.
Africa
An Egyptian fresco, dated to 3400 BC, and depicting military training at Beni Hassan is the world's oldest known artistic representation of an organised fighting system. In gymnasiums similar to those of Greece, recruits would practice wrestling, callisthenics and duelling with single-stick. The attacking weapon apparently had a basket-guard protecting the hand, while the left forearm had a splint strapped on to serve as a shield. Soldiers fought with spears, large shields with an eye-hole, clubs, axes, poleaxes, flails, bows, slings, and swords of various forms.
Later, martial styles as varied as Gidigbo (a form of wrestling practiced by the Yoruba people of Nigeria), Donga (a form of stickfighting practiced by the Suri people of Ethiopia), Musangwe (a form of bare-knuckle boxing practiced by the Venda people of South Africa), Tahtib (a form of stickfighting practiced by the Copts of Egypt) and Engolo (a form of kicking, dodging and leg sweeping practiced by the tribes of the Cunene river region of Angola), to name just a few, were developed by cultures all over Africa.
China
Antiquity (Zhou to Jin) A hand-to-hand combat theory, including the integration of notions of "hard" and "soft" techniques, is expounded in the story of the Maiden of Yue in the Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue (5th century BCE).
The Han History Bibliographies record that, by the Former Han (206 BC – 9 AD), there was a distinction between no-holds-barred weaponless fighting, which it calls shǒubó (手搏), for which "how-to" manuals had already been written, and sportive wrestling, then known as juélì or jiǎolì (角力).
Wrestling is also documented in the Shǐ Jì, Records of the Grand Historian, written by Sima Qian (c. 100 BCE).
Jiǎolì is also mentioned in the Classic of Rites (1st century BCE).
In the 1st century, "Six Chapters of Hand Fighting", were included in the Han Shu (history of the Former Han Dynasty) written by Ban Gu. The Five Animals concept in Chinese martial arts is attributed to Hua Tuo, a 3rd-century physician.