‘Civilizations’ Archives
Akapana Pyramid
Akapana Pyramid One thousand years before Columbus they were pyramid builders, warriors, the architects of an empire in South America. The Tiwanaku lived in the valley of lake Titicaca for 15 hundred years and then their civilization vanished leaving behind only stone ruins and the enduring mystery of their passing. The center piece of [...]
Maya Gods and Kings
THE DAWN OF MAYA GODS AND KINGS A stunning 2,000-year-old mural at Guatemala's San Bartolo site is rewriting Maya history. The two artists worked by torchlight and morning sunshine. Perhaps they were twins, like the twin artist-scribes of Maya myth, although their styles were distinct. Certainly they had trained for their task since youth, [...]
Ancient China
The rise of Ancient China Beginnings along the Yellow River By 5000 BCE agricultural communities had spread through much of what is now called China, and there were agricultural villages from the Wei River Valley eastward, parallel with the great Yellow River (Huang Ho), which flowed out of the Kunlun Mountains to the diciduous-forest and [...]
Africa and Egypt
Africa and Egypt Early Agriculture and Herding Between 9000 and 4000 BCE, northern Africa and the Sahara were grass and woodland with an abundance of rainfall, rivers, lakes, fish and other aquatic life. Anthropologists speculate that from North Africa's Mediterranean coast, people migrated into the Sahara and that people migrated into the [...]
The Sumerians
The Sumerians Writing and Religion By 7,000 BCE, in what is called the Fertile Crescent, in West Asia, where hunter-gatherers had roamed, planting had grown into the major source of food. There, true farming had begun, with the growing of wheat and barley, the domestication of animals and people permanently settled. By 4500 BCE a people [...]
