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The Developement of Civilization Essay

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The Developement of Civilization

According to Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, civilization is “a relatively high level of cultural and technological development, specifically the stage of cultural development at which writing and the keeping of written records is attained”. Other sources trace the meaning of civilization to political, economic, military and social structures as well as the heightened intellectual and artistic aspects of life (Spielvogel,xxxi). Civilization developed as the crises of everyday life necessitated change. As history progresses, we study our past in search of guidance and other crucial information to help us along the way. The study of civilization also plays as an agent to defer us from …show more content…

It is taken from the fossils of these people that language may well have began in this form of human (Lerner,8). They had enlarged cavities in the front of the neck. Soon different dialects would run rampant. These people, the Neanderthals, were also nomadic. They followed the herds along their migratory patterns and gathered other sustenance consisting mostly of plants and their roots along the way. It is believed that approximately 400,000 years ago, Homo erectus learned to use fire (Lerner,9). They also began to travel farther distances, for the earliest evidence of the wheel used in travel was found to be in 35,000 BCE (Calder,54). There is conflicting information as to when the Homo erectus began evolving into the Homo sapien. Some say it was in 28,000 BCE (Lerner,9), others say it was between 18,000 and 13,000 BCE (Spielvogel,3). Facts would point to the earlier years, where the Sumerian city-states, Egyptian Civilization (especially the Old Kingdom), and cuneiform began to emerge. “Groups of people advanced beyond their old hunting grounds at a rate of only two or three miles per generation (Spielvogel,3).” They began making waterproof shelters of their own. With this new advance in addition to the discovery and use of fire, man was able to move to climates other than the reasonably comfortable settlements of

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