Early humans & Rise of Civilization

Early humans

Measurements indicate that the genetic lineage of great apes leading to Homo sapiens diverged from the line leading to chimpanzees (the closest living relative of modern man) around five million years. It is believed that the Australopithecus genus, which were probably the first apes to walk upright, gave rise to Homo genus. Anatomically modern humans arose in Africa about 200,000 years ago and it has reached behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.
Modern humans spread rapidly from Africa in frost-free areas of Europe and Asia, there are about 60,000 years old. The rapid expansion of humanity in North America and Oceania took place at the height of the last Ice Age, when temperate regions of today are extremely inhospitable. However, humans have colonized almost all the free ice pieces on the planet by the end of the Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago. Other hominids such as Homo erectus had used simple wooden and stone tools for millennia, but over time, the tools have become more sophisticated and complex. At some point, humans began to use fire for heating and cooking. They also developed language in the Palaeolithic period and a conceptual repertoire that included systematic burial of the dead and the adornment of life. Early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures in wood and bone. During this period, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers, and were generally nomadic.

Rise of civilization

The Neolithic Revolution, beginning about 8000 BCE, saw the development of agriculture, which has radically changed the human life. Agriculture allowed denser populations present, which in time organized into states. Agriculture also created food surpluses that could help people not directly involved in food production. The development of agriculture has led to the creation of the first cities. They are centers of trade, manufacture and political power with nearly no agricultural production of their own. Cities established a symbiosis with their surrounding countryside, absorbing agricultural products and providing, in return, manufactures and degrees of military control and protection variables.
Urban development has been synonymous with the rise of civilization. The early civilizations first appeared in lower Mesopotamia (3500 BC), followed by Egyptian civilization along the Nile (3300 BCE) and the Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley (now in Pakistan, 3300 BCE). These companies have developed a number of common features, including a central government, a complex economy and social structure, the sophisticated language and writing systems, and different cultures and religions. Writing was another important development in human history, as it was the city administration and the expression of ideas much easier.
As complex civilizations arose, as complex religions, and the first of its kind have originated during this period.Inanimate entities such as the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the sky and the sea were often deified. Developed Sanctuaries, which evolved into temple establishments, complete with a complex hierarchy of priests and priestesses, and other officials. Typical of the Neolithic period tends to worship anthropomorphic deities. Some of the earliest surviving written religious scriptures are the Pyramid Texts, produced by the Egyptians, the oldest of which dates between 2400 and 2300 BCE. Some archaeologists suggest, based on ongoing excavations of a temple complex at Göbekli Tepe ("Potbelly Hill") in the south of Turkey, dating from c. 11,500 years ago, that religion prior to the Agricultural Revolution rather than following in its wake, as had been generally assumed.