Sunday, July 12, 2009

Lost Human Time

With everything we know today about human prehistory, seems safe to say we have been around for a long time, in our terms. A couple of million years evolving into Homo. Then some 150-200 thousand years ago, some crucial mutations occurred and the consciousness of a very capable ape – homo erectus/neanderthalis – was able to climb to the next level -- Homo sapiens sapiens (us). Over the next thousands of years language evolved gradually giving consciousness the tools to understand and master the world. Eventually those groups with the most capable languages established local supremacy. 8000-9000 years ago, people began farming in the Crescent. 7500 years ago it came together in Sumer where language became writing and farming became agriculture and both together became empire. Sumer lasted 15 centuries. People like us hunted in Europe for 30 thousand years before the first farmers. Think about the centuries of fully human life lost to us. What was that like? What might have risen, been lived and then disappeared lost in the mists of the past?

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