Questions about "human"(?) civilization

[dh...@nomail.com]

Hi,

I'm trying to get a basic understanding of the history of human civilization.
For a while I was of the opinion that modern man (homo sapiens sapiens?)
developed about 100K years ago, and that the first civilizations began about
10K years ago when people started to learn about domestication and
agriculture. Now I've heard about Pondaung Man from 40 million years ago,
and that they had settlements of some type. What differentiates settlements
from civilization?

Also, hasn't it been discovered that human origins were in some part of
Africa? If so, how did Peking man get to China 900K years ago? Were our
pre-human ancestors capable of building ships or boats?

Can anyone suggest a URL for a good timeline that shows the history of
humans and society? There are many related timelines out there, but finding
which ones give a good basic understanding has been hard to do, so I'm
hoping someone can suggest one or more in particular that are especially
good for developing a basic overall understanding.

Thanks for any help!
David
kl...@mindspring.com

[Hubbard C. Goodrich]

dh...@nomail.com wrote in message news:<3d656463....@news.mindspring.com>...

Hi.
Try
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
Hubbard C. Goodrich

[Mekon]

<dh...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:3d656463....@news.mindspring.com...

Here is a nice time line to help:

http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vwsu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor/timeline/timeli
ne.html

and another:

http://web.msu.edu/~robin400/timeline2.html

The first thing I noticed about your post is your usage of the word
"civilization" as if one can point its beginning from a precise event. You
give development of Agriculture at 10,000 BCE as a start, but what about the
first written laws 1800 BCE? Or even the first writing 2500 BCE? Or the
earliest cave art 45000 BCE? Or first burials of the dead 100,000 BCE?

To me civilization is about culture, art, law and society, all working
together to make a recognisable whole. I am not sure you can say this began
at such and such a point, just as one cannot point to the precise snowflake
that began an avalanche.

HTH

Mekon

[md]

In alt.history.ancient-worlds, <dh...@nomail.com>

> > 10K years ago when people started to learn about domestication and
> > agriculture. Now I've heard about Pondaung Man from 40 million years ago,
> > and that they had settlements of some type.

Don't get fooled by the "man" name. "Pondaung Man" was "a
tiny, squirrel-sized animal that lived 40 million years
ago".

[Mekon]

"md" <M...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.17d35172f...@news.buzzardnews.com...

I don't know why but the 40 million didn't register when I read that first.
Of course it should be brought to the original poster's attention that
humans have only been around for about six million years, and those early
ones looked a lot more like apes than us!
A colony of squirrels may be called a "settlement" I suppose, and so might a
colony of ants but neither could be called "civilization".

Mekon

[Hubbard C. Goodrich]

"Mekon" <blank...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<BXga9.10771$MC2....@news-server.bigpond.net.au>...

Here are some more sites which should clarrify the use of "man"
and "settlements". The Pondaung 'man' is a precursor to man, the
apes, and monkeys and more like a lemur than humanoid.
www.cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/bahinia.html
www.myanmar.com/primates/primate2.html
www.becominghuman.org/
www.archaeologyinfo.com/
Hubbard C. Goodrich

[Nemo]

>Also, hasn't it been discovered that human origins were in some part of
>Africa? If so, how did Peking man get to China 900K years ago? Were our
>pre-human ancestors capable of building ships or boats?

Don't panic... everyone else is confused too. Basically there is a semi
consensus about things but there is anomalous evidence which can't be
explained. There seem to be two main theories and a mad but possibly
true theory:

1. Modern man evolved in Africa
2. No, it was Asia
3. You're both wrong, he's not 100k years old, he's nearer 6 million
years old but because fossils and other evidence is generally rarer the
older they are, there's no real proof of this - only a few tantalising
bits of evidence which don't fit in the other 2 camps. Also how come we
only got the idea of farming etc so late if we were fully homo sapiens
so long ago?

Personally I think number 1 is by far the most likely but number 3 would
be brilliant if true. Lost civilisations and egg on the faces of the
established authorities etc...
--
Paul Honigmann

[Robert Cohen]

IMHO: A general anthropology course ought to be mandatory in junior/middle/high
school and college as a precursor or preface to history courses. Basic
anthropology was an elective in the liberal arts curriculum of my university,
but I didn't take it until my senior year. But if ya don't have the time nor
the opportunity for the formal anthropology course, then skim the anthropology
articles in WORLD BOOK, COMPTON'S etal. Western Civilization (as a history
copurse) was a freshman flunkout course, a prerequisite for a bachelor's
degree; while basic anthropology was not. The truth is that the contents of
liberal arts (arts, sciences and humanities) courses meld and mesh, and the
various subject distinctions or academic categories are artificial
separationist contrivances. Anthopology as the study of mankind and
civilization unifies biology, history, sociology, psychology, philosophy etal.