Other hominids, such as Homo erectus, had been using simple tools for many millennia, but as time progressed, tools became far more refined and complex. At some point, humans began using fire for heat and for cooking. They also developed language in the Palaeolithic period and a conceptual repertoire that included systematic burial of the dead and adornment of the living. During this period, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers, and were generally nomadic.
Modern humans spread rapidly from Africa into the frost-free zones of Europe and Asia. The rapid expansion of humankind to North America and Oceania took place at the climax of the most recent Ice Age, when temperate regions of today were extremely inhospitable. Yet, humans had colonised nearly all the ice-free parts of the globe by the end of the Ice Age, some 12,000 years ago.
The Agricultural Revolution, beginning about 8,000 BCE, saw the development of agriculture. Farming permitted far denser populations, which in time organised into states. Agriculture also created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production. The development of agriculture permitted the creation of the first cities. These were centres of trade, manufacturing and political power with nearly no agricultural production of their own. Cities established a symbiosis with their surrounding countrysides, absorbing agricultural products and providing, in return, manufactured goods and varying degrees of military control and protection.[30][31][32]
The development of cities was synonymous with the rise of civilization.[33] In about 40,000 BCE, before the age of cities, there is evidence of people living in man-made shelter huts in northern Punjab and central Asia (Bactria). By 7000 BCE, there is evidence of people growing barley in this area, and raising sheep and goats. Around this time, people began living in mud-brick dwellings in villages, some of which still exist. Early cities arose first in lower Mesopotamia (3500 BCE),[34][35] followed by Egyptian civilization along the Nile (3300 BCE)[12] and Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley (3300 BCE).[36][37] Elaborate cities grew up, with high levels of social and economic complexity. Each of these civilizations was so different from the others that they almost certainly originated independently. Writing and extensive trade developed to meet the needs of cities.
This period also saw the apparent origins of complex religion.[38][39][40] Religious belief in this period commonly consisted in the worship of a Mother Goddess, a Sky Father, and of the Sun and Moon as deities.[41] (See also: Sun worship.) Shrines developed, which evolved into temple establishments, complete with a complex hierarchy of priests and priestesses and other functionaries. Typical of the Neolithic was a tendency to worship anthropomorphic deities. Some of the earliest surviving written religious scriptures are the Pyramid Texts, produced by the Egyptians, the oldest of which date to between 2400 and 2300 BCE.[42] Some archaeologists suggest, based on ongoing excavations of a temple complex at Göbekli Tepe ("Potbelly Hill") in southern Turkey, dating from c. 11,500 years ago, that religion predated the Agricultural Revolution rather than following in its wake, as had generally been assumed.[43]
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