Introduction
It is clear to everyone that the world had a long and complex way of transformation before it became similar to the world we live in now. Everything changed including people, their traditions and their way of life. These changes depended on many various factors, such as: geographical location, religion, beliefs, traditions and many others.
Even our prehistoric ancestors left us the evidence of their life style and cultural growth. They painted on the walls of caves, for example, and those paintings reflect what was happening hundreds and even thousands years ago. In their paintings many cultures showed their attitude to animals by drawing pictures of hunting. Some animals were sacred, though, like a cow in India. It is hard to believe that after so many years Indians still consider cow as a sacred animal. These shows how past beliefs can influence future. It is also becomes obvious from various murals and paintings that people were pigeons and religious issue was extremely important for them.
Main body
Egyptian culture was probably the most religious one. It had hundreds of gods and reflected their existence on the walls of different temples and tombs. Karnak temple, the biggest and one of the oldest in Egypt, shows how developed Egyptian civilization was. Architectural wonders and archeological excavations proof that Egyptians were developed in all spheres of life: medicine, architecture, legal system, economy, literature, scripts and, of course religion. Scientists are still looking for clue to how people of those times performed craniotomy, which is considered to be one of the hardest operations nowadays. It is well- known that this civilization was the first who practiced mummification and some techniques of making faience and glass that are still being used. Egypt is also the most mysterious civilization. Many scientists are still trying to find out how was it possible for people who lived five thousand years ago to use techniques of building famous pyramids. The Tutankhamen mask is still considered to be one of the most valuable works of art.
There are many other prominent civilizations that had influenced modern world and revolutionized the way we live and work today. Mesopotamia was a cradle of civilization in the Southwest Asia. Countries of this region brought an intensive year- round agriculture. The first writing system came from this region as well as law codes. Mesopotamia is famous for its Babylonian philosophy. Many scientists think that the last one is a mother of a Greek philosophy, which became the most popular around the world. All the spheres of the social life were developed in the North east, including slavery and social stratification. I think these regimes in early world had influenced the way people live in this region now.
As for East Asia, Chinese civilization was probably the most prosperous one in that region. There was a large body of oracle bone writings provided by archeological finding. It belonged to a Shang Dynasty in the thirteenth century BC. Oracle bone, a record on the shells or bones of animals, gave us the evidence that Chinese people were developed in their writing skills and their writing resembled hieroglyphs that this nation uses today.
American civilization had its own peculiarity. Due to its geographical location, American inhabitants were isolated and were not influenced by other civilizations for more than four thousand years. There were several flourished communities in Mesoamerica, such as Olmecs, Mayans and Aztecs. They progressed in building unique temples and pyramids, succeeded in astronomy, medicine and mathematics. Therefore, I think that Americans inherited this independent way of life from their ancestors.
Europe brought many outstanding civilizations as well. Everyone knows today about the Greek philosophers, Roman architecture, poetry of Homer, whose Iliad is now considered to be the best literature masterpiece of the ancient world, and many other wonders of the ancient Europe. This were the most developed and flourished communities of that time, where all the spheres of human lives were developed as well.
It is very important for the modern society that all the world’s main religions came from the early world. There is no doubt that such religions as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and many others transformed, but they have many common features with those religions that exist in present. There are holy scripts that brought us the evidence of religious situations in different parts of the world and due to these scripts people know what people believed in many years ago.
Conclusion
All the evidence we have about the early world is important. It helps us to come to realization of who our ancestors were and who we are now. However, using a variety of evidence helps us to understand early history much better. Archeological materials help us to understand how the world looked thousands years ago. Due to archeology, we can visualize many things our ancestors used. Similarly, scripts help us to find out more about cultural and religious aspects from another angle. Oral traditions show us our ancestors from another point of view. We study ancient philosophy to find out more about ourselves and to understand how the world revolutionized after so many years.