Where This Civilization is Going: A Dangerous Trend

Ivanni Delgado

Where This Civilization Is Going

A Dangerous Trend

Where This Civilization Is Going

Author: Ivanni Delgado

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COPYRIGHT © 2020 BY Ivanni Delgado

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First Edition

To the People

For his prominence in building our civilization

I WANT TO DEDICATE this book to the people, who have been the great protagonists of our civilization and those who really have the power to keep it alive. We the people are all of us living together in towns, cities, countries, or the whole world.

Thanks to their talent and thinking, the people have been heavily involved in everything crucial to humanity’s progress. After discovering agriculture, they managed to build wealth. After they invented writing, they developed science. And in developing authority, they gave rise to power.

The people have developed revolutions, cultures, wars, cities, empires. They took civilization from Mesopotamia to Egypt, India, China, and the rest of the world. In Greece, they invented philosophical thought based on reason and knowledge for the purpose of understanding their world—and they succeeded, thanks to philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. It was this thought that paved the way for science with the participation of Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras, and Archimedes. It was also in Greece, right in Athens, that power ceased to belong to a ruling elite and passed into the hands of the people with the rise of democracy. We now realize that people must always stand by their democracy and defend it to preserve their power and enforce their human rights.

With agriculture and wealth, the market economy later emerged as the economic system that provides the most benefits to the people by generating better incomes for a better life. The people now had their two great allies: democracy and the market economy, which are perfectly compatible.

However, neither democracy nor the market economy is perfect, and today both present many problems and threats. Perhaps the most critical problems are social problems and corruption, while the most serious threats could be left-wing politicians and the media.

To curb the problems and threats of democracy and the market economy, people must better prepare to defend them—and to do so, people must be involved in politics, economy, and the history of their country and the rest of the world. People must participate in solving social problems and fighting against corruption. They must choose prepared democratic politicians who have clear plans to solve social problems, and those politicians must be honest enough to curb corruption and to ensure the continuity of democracy and the market economy.

In order to preserve democracy, people must also be more involved in matters related to their society, such as investigating the management of public money. The fight against corruption must be frontal to prevent it from continuing to undermine the foundations of democracy and the market economy, which could eventually lead to total collapse. In addition, people must raise their voices to reverse the negative effects of the media and help in the fight against the problems and threats of democracy and the market economy.

All the problems of our civilization today show a clear dangerous trend. For this reason, I decided to write Where This Civilization Is Going so that together, we the people can avoid its collapse.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1

CIVILIZATION: ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION

1.1 NEOLITHIC REVOLUCION

1.2 FIRST SETTLEMENTS

AND TOWNS

1.3 TOWARDS CIVILIZATION

1.4 FLOURISHING OF CIVILIZATION

1.5 FIRST CITIES

2

FIRST CIVILIZATIONS

2.1 MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATION

2. 2 EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION

2. 3 INDIAN CIVILIZATION

2. 4 CHINESE CIVILIZATION

2. 5 OTHER CULTURES AND CIVILIZATIONS

3

WRITING AND SCIENCE

3.1 WRITING

3.2  THE FIRST WRITING SYSTEMS

3.3 SCIENCE

3.4 THE FIRST OBSERVATIONS

3.5 THE FIRST OBSERVATORIES

4

WEALTH AND POWER

4.1 WEALTH

4.2 CAPITALISM

4.3 THE POWER

4. 4 RELIGION AND POWER

4.5 STRUGGLE FOR POWER

5

CURRENT WORLD:

A DANGEROUS TREND

5.1 GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION

5.2 DECAY OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM

5.3 COLLAPSE OF THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM

5.4 SOCIAL PROBLEMS

5.5 HOW TO AVOID THE COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks go to every person who has served in some way to inspire me in writing this book. Thanks to all those authors who have written about where this civilization is going. And thanks to all institutions—such as the Discovery Science Channel,™ the History Channel,™ and the National Geographic Channel™—that have served as a means to bring a message of knowledge to all people everywhere. I also want to thank my entire family for their great support in the writing of the book.

INTRODUCTION

Prehistory is the time of human evolution ranging from the emergence of the first beings in Africa to the invention of writing. It is divided into the Stone Age and the Metal Age.

The Stone Age is the time when our ancestors first used stone in its natural state and later carved it to make their first utensils. The stone age is divided into the Paleolithic Period and the Neolithic Period. The Paleolithic covers 99 percent of human history and ranges from about 2.6 million years ago to about 12,000 years ago. During the Paleolithic, our ancestors learned to use stone and knew and learned to use and control fire. They lived in caves in groups that subsisted on hunting, fishing, and fruit harvesting. At the end of the Paleolithic, they rendered the first artistic manifestations, mainly through rock art.

The Neolithic Period began at the end of the Paleolithic Period and lasted until about 6,000 years ago. During the Neolithic, our ancestors used carved and polished stone; discovered agriculture and livestock; made the first ceramics; and built the first stable towns.

The Metal Age is the time when metal objects began to be made, and it ranged from about 6,000 to some 3,000 years ago. It is divided into three periods according to which metal was predominantly used: the age of copper, the age of bronze, and the age of iron. The earliest civilizations appeared during the Metal Age, and writing began to be used in some more complex societies.

The invention of writing ended Prehistory and signaled the beginning of the History of Humanity. Imitating nature, humans managed to develop agriculture and then build the first civilizations and everything they would require to sustain themselves. Thanks to contact between the citizens of the world, those early civilizations combined into one: our civilization.

In our world, however, we now encounter a number of problems and threats that, if we do nothing, could jeopardize all the immense work and effort of our ancestors. This book will explain the history of civilization and outline what all of us can do to prevent its collapse, because the current trend is dangerous.

The book consists of five chapters, each of which contains five subchapters. The first chapter, Civilization: Origin and Evolution, begins with the origin and evolution of humans who left Africa during Prehistory in search of food and water; these people had to travel long distances to reach the Fertile Crescent (in the current-day Middle East), where their lives would change forever as they found abundant food and began to become sedentary. The chapter details the events that led to the construction of civilization: the Neolithic revolution, the first settlements and towns, the flourishing of civilization, and the first cities. Included is the development of pottery and ceramics, the discovery of metals, the development of urban culture that laid the foundations of the first cities, and the flourishing of the first civilizations.

The second chapter, The First Civilizations, presents each of the first civilizations since their origin in Mesopotamia and their propagation to Egypt, India, China, and the rest of the world, eventually reaching the West. Advancements in these civilizations included political, economic, and social development—including development of the first empires—as well as development of religion, science, and arts.

The third chapter, Writing and Science, explores the origin of writing and science as well as the first observatories built by our ancestors to deepen their knowledge. Included is an examination of the contributions to writing and science made by the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Phoenicians.

The fourth chapter, Wealth and Power, discusses wealth, capitalism, religion, and the struggle for power. This chapter details how our ancestors were able to create wealth with the development of agriculture and breeding, trade, economics, finance, and capitalism. With production, trade, transport, and consumption emerged the basics of the economy and the emergence of finance. The economy later became a science encompassing different economic systems such as capitalism and the principle of free market.

With wealth came power too, and ever since then people have been in a constant struggle to have it. Since its inception with the development of human beings in Prehistory, people have invented wars, governments, and many other things for power.

The fifth  chapter, The Current World: A Dangerous Trend, examines today’s geopolitical situation, including the threat of coronavirus; the decay of the  political system and institutions for world peace; the collapse of the  economic system; social problems; and how to avoid the collapse of civilization.

In our world today, the main political systems in most countries of the world are democracy and dictatorship. The basic difference between these two systems is freedoms and respect for human rights, which exist in democracy but not in dictatorship. The main economic systems today are the market economy or capitalism typical of democracy and the state planning system of socialist or communist countries. The basic difference between these two systems is private property, which exists in democracy but not in socialism or communism (with the exception of some countries such as China and Russia that had to adopt market economies to prevent their collapse).

In our present world there are also many institutions for world peace, such as the United Nations, that show clear signs of decline as they deflect the goals for which they were created and instead embrace other interests and ideologies.

Finally, the arrival of the coronavirus only accelerated the problems democracy has already been plagued with, in large part by politicians with socialist or communist ideas supported by the media.

All these trends threaten a collapse of our civilization. However, if we act in time, we can prevent such a collapse. We must address the problems confronting our society as soon as possible, and as we succeed, we can avoid the  collapse that threatens our civilization.

1

CIVILIZATION: ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION

Our ancestors in Prehistory survived by hunting, fishing, and collecting wild fruits. They consistently moved in search of food and water, walking from place to place as nomads; they stayed in one place only as long as they had water and food. As soon as resources were depleted, they went on their way to find another place with the resources that provided them with subsistence.

The belief developed throughout their lives gave them the faith to move forward in search of their livelihood. They believed that all things that existed in their world, including they themselves, were made up of spirits with some power, and that there were supreme powers they called gods. They created rituals accompanied by music to ask for favors from those gods; at first they used their voices to imitate the sounds of nature, and eventually they developed musical instruments. As they sang and played, they also danced.

The culture of these people developed during the Paleolithic Period. With much of the environment still frozen from the last glaciation of the Quaternary era, our ancestors of 20,000 years ago wandered around the African continent in search of sustenance. Wherever they found plenty of water, fruits, and animals, they remained in place until resources ran out.

Thus, they began to settle and build temporary settlements. In some cases, resources were reproduced before the previous resources were depleted, allowing the people to stay in one place longer. During these situations, they built stable camps, thus raising the first villages dedicated to fruit harvesting and hunting and adopting a sedentary lifestyle.

Over time, a group of our ancestors from Africa arrived in a region of the Middle East known today as the Fertile Crescent. There life would go through a series of changes that eventually culminated in where we are today.

The Fertile Crescent was a fertile, crescent-shaped region. It started in Egypt, passed through Israel, and followed a route from southward Syria to ancient Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and finally to the Persian Gulf.

With that, our ancestors entered the Neolithic Period, which began at the end of the last glaciation and was characterized by a warm climate and an abundance of water. In the Fertile Crescent, this new scenario caused nature to produce more fruits and animals to eat, and our ancestors became even more sedentary.

However, a short glacial period known as the Younger Dryas appeared; the resulting glaciers absorbed most of the water. With that, the wild fruits and animals our ancestors ate also began to be scarce, eventually resulting in a cycle of famine.

To survive, our ancestors had to again become nomadic, moving frequently to seek water and food. In their search, they found a region on Lake Galilee in the Fertile Crescent; although it did have water, there were no edible plants—only pasture. Using their intellect, humans achieved one of their greatest discoveries: agriculture. After the end of Younger Dryas, the drought ended, and conditions greatly improved.

During the Neolithic, megalithic art also emerged; immense monuments were formed by large, carved stones about 11,000 years ago, a thousand years before the discovery of agriculture. An example of this is the great temple of Gobekli Tepe in present-day Turkey. Meanwhile, some 6,000 years later, our ancestors in Europe built the Stonehenge monument in Britain out of large, rough stones.

Important events emerged during the Neolithic Period that had great impact on the way of life of our ancestors. Those same events have an immense influence on the way modern humans live today.

1.1 NEOLITHIC REVOLUCION

Agroup of our ancestors called the Natufians were the protagonists of the Neolithic Revolution that began in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. It was a region of important rivers, including the Nile in Egypt, the Jordan in Israel, and the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia.

The Natufians led a nomadic life as the Neolithic Period began, when major changes impacted their lifestyle. Once nomads, they became sedentary and lived on the food provided to them by nature. Eventually, they began to produce their own food with the discovery of agriculture; initial crops were cereals such as wheat and barley.

Agriculture began in the vicinity of what is now Israel, later arriving in Mesopotamia and Egypt, where it made great progress. With time, agriculture spread throughout India, China, Europe, America, and the rest of the world.

Agriculture was possible with the efforts of many people, who built their houses near their crops; villages, and later towns, emerged. With agriculture came the knowledge of plants, fruits, soils, irrigation, plowing, and eventually trading. Later, this knowledge deepened with progress toward better agricultural systems and tools.

Along with developing agriculture, our ancestors learned to domesticate animals. At first that involved taming the wolf, and then they used dogs in domesticating other animals; among the first were goats, sheep, and cows. During the huge drought of the Younger Dryas that brought with it huge shortages of food, our ancestors used dogs to help them contain live animals in a corral so they could eat their meat when necessary.

During the Neolithic Period, humans developed various objects, ideas, and customs that helped them survive and improve their lives. This is known as Neolithic culture and includes various advances toward prosperity such as the wheel, better tools, and increasingly sophisticated clothing. The development of basketry, pottery, and ceramics provided them with vessels to store, transport, eat, and drink their beer. With the surplus of agriculture, breeding, and craft activities, trade arose, and the first settlements and towns emerged.

The Natufians

The last glaciation of the four quaternary-era glaciations, also called the Ice Age, lasted about 100,000 years; it ended 12,000 years ago, marking the end of the Paleolithic Period and the beginning of the Neolithic Period. During this glaciation about 20,000 years ago, our ancestors—Homo Sapiens—still led an errant or nomadic life in search of food and water in that cold climate. Their lives were based on hunting, fishing, and harvesting wild fruit. They stayed wherever they found food until the resources ran out. Then they moved on in search of what they needed to sustain life.

About 15,000 years ago, when the glaciers were melting and the climate was improving, a group of those nomadic gatherers and hunters known today as the Natufians reached a region with a variety of mostly edible plants and an abundance of animals. The region also had plenty of water. With its rich resources, it was like nothing our ancestors had ever seen before. Forced to live off what nature provided them, the Natufians regarded this region—which had everything they needed to survive—a paradise. Today we know it as the Fertile Crescent, the region in the Middle East that runs from Egypt in northeastern Africa to Mesopotamia in western Asia.

The name Natufians was given to these people in 1932 after British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod excavated an archaeological site in the valley of Wadi an-Natuf and found a body that had been buried 12,000 years earlier. Natufian literally means those who lived in Natuf. This place is in what is now Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range over the Mediterranean Sea in Israel.

In the Fertile Crescent, the Natufians discovered the herbs that produced dried grains, which were very nutritious and could last for a long time without perishing. That allowed them to store the dried grains to guarantee their livelihood for an extended time—something that would change life forever and begin the great progress of humanity.

These dry seeds, which we today call cereals (such as wheat and barley), were very abundant in this region and could yield another harvest before the previous harvest. As a result, our ancestors stored the surplus and ate it later when necessary. They stored the grains in holes they dug in the ground. When they had to take the grains from one place to another, they used containers such as leather bags or pumpkin containers.

The abundance and consequent storage of food led the Natufians to stay much longer in one place, which made them start a more sedentary kind of life. They began to form the first settlements, which initially consisted of small numbers; the settlements included huts of branches and straw where they also stored the grain. This represented a substantial change from their previous practice of living in caves, which they also used to store their belongings and food and even occasionally as burial sites.

Over time, the Natufians learned to make flour by crushing the grains and by adding a little water to make bread. It was a kind of pita bread they cooked on hot stones in a campfire.

The Natufians didn’t live on bread alone. They also collected fresh sweet fruits and meat from animals they hunted. Among the animals they hunted were their favorite, the gazelles. In search of animals to hunt, they moved according to the seasons and walked for weeks.

The sedentary lifestyle of the Natufians resulted in many changes for our ancestors; one of the first was the sense of ownership. As nomads, they wandered around all the time and no one owned anything. The sedentary, on the other hand, possessed everything they achieved and defended it, even with their own lives if necessary. Such a change would have serious implications in the future. But it also came with a great advantage: the people focused on making their lives easier and tried to ensure their livelihood.

When they were neither collecting fruits nor hunting, the Natufians were engaged in the manufacture of weapons made with flint, stone, sticks, and bones. They developed an oz with a double-blade horn handle for more efficiency in cutting plants and harvesting cereals. They also made their blades, mortars, and even stone figurines with faces of people and animals. They also used shells, bones, and animal teeth to make ornaments, necklaces, and other garments very aesthetic.

As they stored cereals, the Natufians observed that some of the grains in the storage hole and those that fell to the ground on the way to the hole germinated and formed new plants, just as when these grains fell naturally from the plant to wet soil. This observation later led to the development of agriculture.

The Natufians led a rather prosperous life for about 2,500 years until the weather once again began to worsen. After the last glaciation, a short period of glaciation called the Younger Dryas appeared about 13,000 years ago and lasted just over a millennium. This new climate change adversely impacted the lives of our ancestors; as glaciers formed, water diminished. Food became scarce, including the fruits they collected and the animals they hunted.

Almost the entire Earth became cold; a great drought and corresponding cycle of famine forced the Natufians to abandon their settlements around what is known as Jericho in present-day Israel. Although some perished during the evacuation, others did achieve their goals. To survive, the Natufians had to once again spread as nomads in search of water and food. They managed to find a new opportunity to survive on a lake in the Jordan Valley in a fertile region on the shores of Lake Galilee.

There the Natufians took refuge and tried to start over. Although they found abundant water and a fertile soil, there were no plants with fruits—just a little pasture. Thanks to the observation they made about how the new plants were born after the grains fell into the wet soil, they were able to plant crops.

To sow their plants, they couldn’t eat the grains they carried in their leather bags; instead, they used the grains as seeds, putting them in holes they hollowed out with sticks. They watered the plants with lake water carried in their bags. With that, the Natufians became the first farmers of the world. This simple act was the beginning of a new way of life that would transform the face of the Earth.

Meanwhile, the Natufians continued to adapt to their new conditions, which they did very impressively. Not only did they survive the Younger Dryas drought, but they also progressed during this period of calamity. After the drought ended, everything was as good as before. The region where the Natufians had settled now had very favorable conditions for the development of agriculture.

The Natufians had begun to understand the importance of dry grains in their diet, as well as the great importance of choosing the best soils in which to grow them. With that purpose in mind, the Natufians spread throughout the area that went from the Jordan to the Euphrates Valley in search of soils in which their crops would best thrive. It is likely that the Natufians used irrigation channels for their agriculture. The truth is that this area allowed our ancestors large crops of their cereals with a more productive grain.

Agriculture meant quite intense work. All tasks—from sowing to harvesting—required teamwork, but that teamwork was well worth the effort. The abundance of the harvest caused the storage of dry grain to be more organized; along with specialized barns, the first silos emerged. Because the people had