Topic
Origins of Civilization
How Homo sapiens spread across the world, settled, farmed, built cities and states, invented writing, and created the interconnected Bronze Age world.
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- Origins of Civilization: From Homo sapiens to the Bronze Age CollapseCivilization is extraordinarily recent. Homo sapiens has existed for roughly 300,000 years, but agriculture, permanent large settlements, cities, states, and writing are concentrated in roughly the last 12,000 years. For almost all of our species' history, humans lived without cities, kings, bureaucracies, or written records.
Go Deeper
- Out of Africa: How Homo sapiens Spread Across the World"Out of Africa" sounds like one migration: modern humans evolve in Africa, leave once, and replace everyone else. The evidence now shows something much more interesting.