Ancient people: from appearance to the first civilizations

In the modern scientific environment, there is no consensus as to when the first ancient man appeared on the planet. The whole problem is who, specifically from a whole series of our upright ancestors, is considered a human being and by what criteria: the volume of the brain, the availability of tools, the level of social organization, and the development of other physiological parameters. Be that as it may, the ancient man existed on the planet for a very long period of time. Much longer, Than our entire written history totals.

The Paleolithic Age

It is this period that can be considered the time of the final formation of the first Homo sapiens, which appeared in the Upper Paleolithic (50-10 thousand years BC). Then tribal communities are formed, which will give the first states. Primitive culture, religious beliefs are developing. An illustrative example is the rock drawing of an ancient man, reflecting his worldview. Perhaps the most famous in this regard are the walls of the Lasko and Altamira caves that have preserved to the present day surprisingly eloquent murals with scenes of social, spiritual life, hunting and so on.

Different humanity

It is interesting to note that in the Paleolithic, according to modern scholars, several alternative branches of the development of upright Hominids. For example, all known Neanderthals today are no longer considered the ancestor of modern man, but only deadlock, extinct about 40 thousand years ago, a branch, literally other humanity. Versions about why this ancient man, having considerable technical achievements, having mastered the hunting craft, having tamed the fire, could not survive to our days, a lot is being put forward: from a banal failure in adapting to new natural conditions and leaving glaciers to the physical everywhere destruction of the Neanderthals by our ancestors - Cro-Magnon people.

The emergence of the first civilizations

It was the latter kind that managed not only to successfully resist the forces of the surrounding nature, but also to tame it. An epochal event was the so-called Neolithic revolution. This definition denotes the transition from appropriating a natural economy, that is, hunting and gathering, to the producer - cattle breeding and the cultivation of useful plants. The fact that the ancient man learned not only to take what nature gives him, but also create food and labor independently, predetermined the fundamental transformations on our planet. The transition to a producing economy made it possible to forget about the painful problem of hunger, the first permanent settlements appeared - the oldest villages and cities. Previously, the limitations of hunting territories and Diversity of fauna on them imposed a natural limit on the number of human communities. The increase in labor productivity, which was now characterized by agriculture, led to a significant increase in the number of tribes, the specialization of labor, social stratification, the first property right. Of course, all this could not but lead to the creation of the first states on the planet in the 7th and 6th millennia BC. People of ancient Egypt, India, Mesopotamia had already developed social systems, cultural and religious worldviews, economic and political arrangements. The history of mankind has begun.