Populating the world was something that tool many thousands years, our ancestors moved from place to place and in those migrating days many people separated, those who wanted to stay, stayed and the one who wanted to find a new place to live moved and made a home somewhere else leaving behind many people and populating the world slowly. Our ancestor had to develop new ways of living and had to adapt to their new environments giving way to the differences in physical appearances that we have now with people from different places, our bodies have to adapt to the environment in which we put it, of do not adapt we do not survive. As Spencer Wells explains in his documentary The Journey of Man , our ancestors had to go through great challenges to get where we are today. Fernandez- Armesto explains in his book The World how People went from being hunter- gatherers to an agricultural society with rulers, Gods, and different worshiping figures. Although most of us might see the change from hunting and gathering as a good thing or as evolution from primitive to evolved human beings, agriculture was not a step forward, nor am I saying that it was a step back, but people had to put in extra effort to be able to get food and also they invited diseases from animals into the human system. People also had to learn how to cook what they were now using for food to be able to digest the it. Agriculture was much more work and very little pay off.
Dr. Spencer Wells in his documentary The Journey of Man takes the on the challenge of tracking down the first ancestor and the steps taken from when they first came out of Africa to populating the new world. He travels all around the world and takes the DNA of many different groups of people to find which group is most related to the first ancestor, so he can tell the story of how we all came to be who we are today. He finds a few particular people who have DNA that is very similar to that of our ancestor he goes from Africa. to India, to Australia, to Khasakstan and finally made it to America. This journey shows us how our skin color and out facial features change from one place to another according to to the environment in which we live.
This documentary shows that there really is no such things as an elite race, we all come from the same ancestor, we all have the the same root DNA of course it varies because along the way we mix with one and other so the DNA pattern must change, But we really are one big family who came from Africa and has populated the world and turned it into what is is today. Searching for the descendants of the ancestor took a lot of work and time, because even though we all come from the same roots they are direct descendants from that one first person who decided to migrate to other places and explore what was outside of Africa. They are the very descendants of the first peoples from their own countries or their tribes. We are one family of many descendants spread around the world.
Although migrating to other places took many years for our ancestors, one could consider that is was much easier to do it by feet since they did not have all the luxuries that we have today for transportation. Today even if we tried to make this journey by feet it would be practically impossible since the earth has shifted and separated the land masses that make today's continents. Back when the world was being populated the earth was one big land mass that could be traveled by foot from place to place. If the earth would have been separated like it is today the population of the earth would have taken even longer, modern day can not compare because now we have great technologies like the airplane or ships that can make this journey in just a few days, where as to our ancestors took thousands of years to go around the globe populating and making new civilizations.
As I have said before we all come from Africa, from the San People, the oldest living people, the people we come from. When they migrated they started new civilizations and new countries rose from those ancient civilizations. After the spreading of the people around the world people changed physically and those people who were grouped together and had similar physical features were now a civilization. Many new civilizations arose from this in the the Middle East, Europe, and Eurasia this were some of the first people to appear in the beginning of what we call today Western Civilization. The Middle East, Greece, Italy, Anatolia ( Turkey) had great impact on our development.
Economic development increased due to agriculture, people now had more to trade and they also wanted more things, the idea of luxuries could come into play now. People now new how to grow crops and how to harvest, they also learned to cook the things they were harvesting, this type of new developments made life much more complex, yet they had more variety of foods rather than just the gathering and the hunting they had before. Trading with the new growing civilizations gave way to economic growth for certain people. People who made other people believe they were better than them, the Elites collected goods to increase their properties and have more power over the people who had less. The elites have always made people of lower classes work for them making them even more rich. The average people work for their elites for religious reasons, because they believe that these people who rule them were sent by their God to be their mediator between the mortals and the Godly spirits.
Economics also increased because there was new ways to transport things from one place to another, the rivers in the Middle East and Europe played a major role in the economic development of the ancient civilizations. New trade routes that could take and bring new goods to different peoples. They also had newer technologies in which other peoples were interested in. Trading goods for goods always increases the economic development of a civilization.
Political system had to be developed, as in every developing civilization there had to be a ruler who kept the people at peace with each other and some whom the people could look up to for solutions to their problems as a living community. People developed the idea of Pharaohs, monarchs, priests, they had to have some one whom they could worship, at this time religion played a major role in the ruling of civilizations, Christianity, Islam, Judaism all played major roles in the development of many civilizations. At this period of time only the religious leaders could manage the people and make decisions about what was to happen in the community. Politics is one of the reasons why we have different social classes, someone wanted to be worshiped so they had to get someone who would worship them. Taking all power to themselves and ruling the people.
Cultural diffusion happened as it happens all the time. People migrate, trade, share and learn from each other. Ancient peoples traded and migrated to different places taking with them their culture and sharing them with the new people they meet, they also learn from that new culture. The development of trade made cultural diffusion much easier. The rivers were the main gate ways to cultural diffusion because people traveled by river to get to their destination and on that journey they would trade their things for the things they found along the way. Culture as we all know is not something that we are born with, but rather something we learn as we grow. People made up their own cultures and religions influenced on the parts of the world in which they were living, all cultures are influenced by each other, every one takes a small part of what they like from a culture and include it in their own, there is no unique culture because we all have the same ideals as humans beings. We all want the same things and it is this way that our cultures merge and become our own in different ways.
We have learned that we all came from the same ancestor, there is no elite race or skin color. Human beings change because we have to adapt to our surroundings and if that means changing color, changing height, changing facial features than the body must do it, we must adapt to survive, if we do not we will get left behind and the others will move along. We also know that we learn culture, all of our cultures intertwine there is no unique culture so there is no reason to think we are better then someone else because of our culture. Politics has always been run by those smarter than others, those who can grab the power and tell other what to do, and those less smart will follow no matter what because if they are not leaders they are followers and need to be led the way. Politicians will always make one believe the most obvious lies if the society is completely lost and need some one to tell them what to do. Economy has all to do with culture, without culture there is no economy, because why would we want to trade what we have for what we already have? Cultural diffusion means economic growth and political exchange as well. Ideas from one powerful to the other to keep the people in line, so that they can keep the power. People change, the earth changes, the environment changes. Evolution is happening as we read this, we do not realize, but we are evolving everyday. We have influences from all over the world that make us who we are today and what out generations will be tomorrow. We are not more than or less than any other people, we're one big family that keeps on changing everyday.
Bibliography
Armesto-Fernandez, Felipe The World 2011. (ch. 1,2, and 3)
Wells, Spencer The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey PBS.com, 2002
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBJDGzzrMyQ
