CITIES (Mesopotamia, 6,000-5,000 BCE)
Most of us take for granted an early, important human innovation: the City. After all, the earliest cities we know of, in Mesopotamia, emerged some eight (or so) millennia ago. Though somewhat dated--after all, the book is nearly 70 years old--the slim little volume titled History Begins at Sumer, by the Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer, records 39 "firsts" of that long-ago civilization. Some of these are the first schools, the first "international" stand-off, the first law codes, the first "scientific" farming, the first flood story (and other Bible parallels), the first epic literature, the first aquarium, and many more. Notice that these go beyond mere survival into the finer aspects of what we consider civilization today--and this was starting in the 6th and 5th millennium BCE!
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
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