Telling Human History

Human history is a story, so there are different ways of telling it. It depends on what you think is most significant. Here is my first attempt.

In the old, old days things were different. There was a time before people. There were other creatures, some of them very large, like giant lizards and dragons. Some of them flew in the air, and others lumbered along the ground, their feet crushing lush green undergrowth.

There were changes, and long passages of time. Into the landscape came creatures we would recognise as being related to us – like us but not quite us. They had similar bodies and arms and legs. They also had massive jaw bones, good for biting and chewing. They had no foreheads but two thick ridges above the eyes. That did not suggest deep thought, although looks can deceive. These people learned to use elementary tools, and hunt for food.

Among them were the people who have become us. These people also learned to communicate with each other, more than just making noises like grunting or the music of birds. They talked. And they drew pictures on rocks and the walls of caves. What did that mean? It suggests an appreciation of significance. It was not art, not as we know it, to make something pretty, or to draw it like science, a faithful representation. No, it was more likely to be wonder, or the desire for power – magic.

The ages passed, and the world became warmer. On our measure of time, it was around 12,000 years ago. The people learned to grow plants deliberately for food, and tame animals such as sheep, dogs and cows. This made a difference; there was greater stability and variety of life in that transition. It changed the nature of living.

But still the people were scarce on the earth. They lived in small groups, brought together mostly by the need for defence against wild animals, and the need to coordinate their activities. They learned how to build houses with the skins of animals, mud and clay and sticks and leaves. They learned the use of fire so they could cook. After long ages, they learned the use of metals like copper, tin and iron to make tools, weapons and implements. They made pots which they baked in their fires.

In time, some of the settlements became larger, with more people, who lived there permanently – villages and towns. People began to specialise in their labour – the hunter, the farmer, the maker of clothes, the trader, and others.

And these people saw themselves as being in relation to the world of spirit. It was a Sun God, or the God of the Heavens, or there were many gods – the river, the mountain, the great mother, the lordly father. The gods (or God) were loved and feared.

Priests and wise men rose up to mediate with the gods. God might be an angry spirit who needed to be placated. Or the god could be the provider of food and life through the sun and the rain. There were rituals.

Let’s say we are marking the time at around 3,000 BCE. At this point, networks of villages had been augmented by larger towns and cities at occasional intervals. As well as the separate, isolated tribes of people, there were rulers – kings and governments of a sort. The reach of these kingdoms was limited but growing.

Early cities developed in a number of regions, from Mesopotamia to Asia and the Americas. The very first cities were founded in Mesopotamia after the Neolithic Revolution, as long ago as 7,500 BCE. Mesopotamian cities included Eridu, Uruk, and Ur. At Gobekli Tepe in Turkey there is a collection of buildings signifying some kind of community dating from around 9,000 BCE. Another settlement in Turkey was Catal Huyuk, which thrived from around 7,000 BCE.

The city of Mohenjo-daro arose in the Indus Valley (present-day Pakistan) from about 2,600 BCE and had a population of 50,000. In the ancient Americas there were also early cities, in the Andes and Mesoamerica, which flourished from as long ago as 3,000 BCE and up to 1,700 BCE. This is apart from the Egyptian civilisation that was established around 3,000 BCE which produced the enormous pyramids.

Were these cities a natural development from the establishment of agriculture? Yes, but early urban centres are notable for their diversity. Some cities were primarily political capitals and did not have large populations; others were densely populated trade centres, and still other cities had a primarily religious focus.

China's cities date from around 2,000 BCE. City-states emerging at this time used geomancy to locate and plan cities, orienting their walls to the cardinal points of the compass. Symbolic cities were constructed as celestial microcosms, with the central point corresponding to the pole star, representing harmony and connection between the earthly and other realms. In Chang'an the imperial palace lay to the north, facing south, absorbing the light of the sun, and royalty slept with their heads to the north and their feet to the south.

We could ask ourselves how such ostensibly primitive people seemed to know, and understand, about earth magnetism, the cardinal directions, and the compass. It doesn’t quite square with the image of a hungry, slightly desperate man holding a spear and hoping to catch a wild animal so that he and his family can eat. It raises questions.