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Before the Sumerians: What Happened in the 100,000 Years Before Civilization?
Before the Sumerians and Writing: How Humans Lived for 100,000 Years

Explore the deep human past before writing and cities existed. This documentary traces human evolution, prehistoric adaptation, and the scientific evidence behind the 100,000-year gap before Sumer, based on archaeology, genetics, and climate science.

Knowledge about the 100,000-year period preceding the rise of Sumerian civilization is derived entirely from archaeology, paleoanthropology, genetics, and paleoclimatology, rather than written records. Anatomically modern humans are documented in Africa by at least 300,000 years ago, based on fossil evidence from sites such as Jebel Irhoud (Morocco) and Omo Kibish (Ethiopia).

Human dispersal out of Africa is reconstructed through genomic analyses, including mitochondrial DNA and whole-genome sequencing, which indicate major expansion events between 70,000 and 60,000 years ago. Key contributions come from research conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, notably work by Svante Pääbo and colleagues.

Material culture and behavior are inferred from stratified archaeological sites such as Blombos Cave, Klasies River, and Levantine Middle Paleolithic assemblages, which provide evidence of tool production, symbolic behavior, and subsistence strategies. Radiometric dating methods, including radiocarbon, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), and uranium-series dating, establish chronological frameworks.

Environmental context is reconstructed using ice core data, marine sediment records, and stable isotope analysis, revealing strong correlations between climate fluctuations and human population dynamics. Syntheses by researchers such as Brian Fagan and Peter Bellwood integrate these datasets to explain the transition from mobile foraging societies to sedentary agricultural systems after the last Ice Age.

The absence of writing prior to ~3200 BCE reflects technological and administrative thresholds, not cognitive or cultural limitations. All conclusions are grounded in peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary evidence.

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#HumanOrigins #Prehistory #Archaeology