western civ Blog #3

Human history can date all the way back to 200,000 years ago when the first human species emerged in central Africa. Fourteen thousand years ago, humans evolved and spread all across the world, creating a worldwide human race. The earliest prehistoric age in human history is the Paleolithic age, followed by the Neolithic age. During the Neolithic/New Stone Age, advanced tools were created and agriculture began to advance. During the prehistoric era, humans were also parts of migratory groups in order to gather food by hunting, fishing, and gathering plants. After this however, in the Neolithic age that I mentioned previously, humans made a switch from hunting/gathering to more permanent settlements based on getting food from agriculture. This agricultural advancement also led to population growth because there was a surplus of food that could be used to feed everyone and young children could be cared for easily. The permanent settlements created began to adapt cultures and hierarchies such as women having little rights and mainly being able to do domestic duties. Also, the villagers were polytheists and believed in many different nature, rain, sun gods, etc. The villages and settlements were not slowing down from their advancements anytime soon. The wheel and plow then became an invention that could create even more food to be stored. Eventually, the human race advanced enough to cause ancient Mesopotamia to exist. Mesopotamia was a place containing Sumerians that occupied the land between the tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Mesopotamian population was growing at fast rates due to the new irrigation techniques they came up with and their diverse amount of professions caused by enough food being stored. Mesopotamian cities and towns were founded and contained many people, up to 40,000 to be exact, and dynasties, kings, and city-states were all beginning to emerge as the civilization advanced. Sumerians also created the earliest writing form. The human race had come so far from where it began and it only grew more.