Beyond The Grave And Afterlife

From the earliest times people refused to accept death as the end of everything.Even Neanderthals who were a branch of Homo sapiens and became extinct about 35,000 years ago,organized funeral for their deceased.In some cases they put flowers on grave.Later,hunters from ice age,sometimes buried their dead with ornaments and weapons for use in the afterlife, and sprinkled them with red ocher, which is perhaps supposed to symbolize the blood of the new birth.In some farming communities, the body of the deceased would have been exposed to them completely clean by vultures to the bone, and then the bones were buried in the ovaries of family houses.In Pre-Dinastyc Egypt, the custom was to dig the dead in the desert where the sand prevente decay and preserve the skin and hair.That perhaps pointed Egyptians to the practice of mummification.

Image Source : Wikipedia

The Origins of Cities - Ancient History

In 1961st Archaeologists in southern Turkey have discovered and investigate Catal Hüyük, one of theoldest cities in the world.It was built 8000. years ago by the farmers and cattle prods, which worked at daylight on the plains outside the city walls, and in the evening they returned to their city without streets and slept in their homes on the platforms below which bones of their ancestors were bueried.Houses had simple outside walls without windows.But interior walls were richly decorated.The objects they found in them, like the shrine of deity in the form of a bull and another dedicated to the goddess of birth, evidence of the existence of the fertility cult.Third sanctuary, which may be dedicated to the deity of death, is painted with depictions of vultures that completely cleaned the bones of the dead.In Catal Hüyük lived a few skilled craftsmen, and some of them made mirrors and knives of obsidian, dark volcanic glass traded across Middle East.

Law and Order

The first human communities were small and didn't require complex systems of management.Many societies have developed a rich cultural life, but customs and traditions were enough to manage their affairs and settle their way of life.Dominion was probably in the hands of senior members of the group or priest.Rise of agricultural communities involved tasks which required the cooperation of the entire community, which created the need for a more formal shape of control.Because of that the elected leaders were people wich were able to control many works such as irrigation systems,employees management, taking care of storing and distributing food and paying to masters who made tools and other necessary things.Royal honor could eventually passed on to those who have led their people in battle with others because of land or rights to water and thus increase personal authority.

Spirit World

Little is known about early human religion, but preserved statues tell us that for at least 10,000 years, people believed in the existence of supernatural beings or spirits.Some of these beings have been associated with animals that people hunted, while the other deities of fertility whose worship was crucial in ensuring the fertility of fields and herds.

Image Source : Dunabe Diety
Around 6400 BC
Dunabe river

When did animals became best friends of mankind?

The first domesticated animals were the offspring of the wolf trained to find prey and to act like a guard.Domestification of cattle may have started because of a desire to capture animals males and females were supposed to give birth.Peaople have observed that the animals carry the inherent qualities of his decendants.They have figured how to affect the following generations by sparing animals with qualities such as tameness and higher yields of milk, meat or wool.Until 6000th BC farm animals have already existed in distant areas as Mesopotamia and China.

Herd grazing cave painting,5000. BC
Source: Albabblog

Harvesting of the first race

The transition from a way of life based on collecting and a way of life based on farming probably began when a group of people, instead of collecting wild grains and keep going, encountered a particularly large area where these plants grow and decided to stay at that point and wait for the next harvest.ith time they started to plant seed in order to ensure the harvest and build permanent shelters to preserve their investment.They become landworkers.Until 5000th BC experiments have prompted domestification of many plants, which still constitute the basic food: wheat and barley in the Middle East, in Central America, maize, rice in China in and potatoes in South America.Water channels for irrigation increased yields and provided support for larger numbers of people.



Harvest Scene - Tomb Painting Fresco
Artist Unknown (Egyptian)
Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Egypt
15.th century BC
Source:Nina Wemyss

Revolution - from agriculture to appliances

Although agriculture required much more work,it was bringing much more food for people in some area.Population grew and built the first villages and small towns, which were often surrounded by thick walls that were used for the overnight closure of livestock and to protect stored grain from thieves.Rivers and water sources were secured to these communities, which could have a population of 2000 people,and became merchant centers in that area.
The development of villages and towns meant that people no longer move around as their ancestors did.That spurred the production of new, major appliances, such as pottery vessels that were too brittle and heavy to carry on the longer distances.Cheramic vessels were primarily used as storage, but probably brought a revolution in cooking.In the same time processing of materials such as stone and bone has become very sophisticated in accordance with the development of awareness of the wealth and property.

Magic of Hunters

During more than 10 000 years, while the ice age was still at its peak, early artists painted on the walls of caves with living representations of animals that were hunted.Te frescoes were painted in the deepest corners and may have played a role in magic rituals that were supposed to ensure success in hunt.That would explain the views of arrows and mesh patterns that may show some kind of trap, in some of these paintings.Many characters are beautifully painted, sometimes in several colors ranging from black to yellow to red brown ochers.Other characters were are scratched or carved into the walls of caves, or on portable pieces of stone or bone.

Succes of early people

Succes of early people was relly impressive considering that there was an Ice Age.However about 15 000 years ago,climate started to change to better and Ice plates started to melt.Face of earth started to change while plants and animals spreaded to areas that were empty till then and human society started to experiment with new ways of life.In next couple of thousand of years on Middle East,in north China,Mexico and Peru small landworking villages appeared.This way of life quickly spreaded to close areas.From that we can conclude that the basis of human life was landwork,not haunting and collecting.That was the basic change that had drastic and irreversible consequences like : Development of cities,the invention of letters and birth of history.

Homo Habilis

Homo Habilis
Source: rst.gsfc.nasa.gov

Homo habilis in the beginning lived as haunters and vultures,but they also had new skills which were improved trough period of few thousand years as human barin size was increasing.About one million years ago,people who belonged to the species with larger brain size called Homo Erectus learned how fire works,how to make clothes and primitve shelters,which enabled them to spread outside of Africa and populate other areas.Around 100 000 years ago our species appeared, Homo Sapiens,which could think and talk like we do,and just about 10 000 years ago those men practicly suceeded to populate the entire world.