It always sounded strange to me when I learnt in high school that the "earliest" civilization had rock structures, ziggurats, temples and the like. It gives an impression that human suddenly that converged together at some point, decided to have priests and kings, and construct large structures for no practical worldly reason.
Take the discovery of fire. It is not like some ape suddenly discovered fire and suddenly learnt how to cook. It probably took thousand of years of "consistently being able to create fire" before realizing that it can be used for cooking. The ability to create fire also implies that the prehistoric human was already able to think of risk/benefit. Since fire is obviously dangerous it leads me to think that they already have some sort of culture/philoshopy. Critical thinking cannot exist in a vacuum i.e. they have to had to used it for other purposes as well.
This is obviously unscientific and extremely speculative, but I just think that these things cannot exist in a vacuum is all.
Take the discovery of fire. It is not like some ape suddenly discovered fire and suddenly learnt how to cook. It probably took thousand of years of "consistently being able to create fire" before realizing that it can be used for cooking. The ability to create fire also implies that the prehistoric human was already able to think of risk/benefit. Since fire is obviously dangerous it leads me to think that they already have some sort of culture/philoshopy. Critical thinking cannot exist in a vacuum i.e. they have to had to used it for other purposes as well.
This is obviously unscientific and extremely speculative, but I just think that these things cannot exist in a vacuum is all.