How Far Back is 6,000 Years?

I now find myself interested in the topic I mentioned yesterday. Studying the ebb and flow of civilizations does not really make much sense as a youngster. For one thing, the geography involved is pretty meaningless until one has done a lot of traveling. I suppose this means that regardless of age, homebodies may never be able to fathom the concepts even with an expensive globe at hand. Secondly, there is an enormous problem with the whole idea of time.

This quote was pulled from the 11/16/05 entry of this blog:

"Initially, children do not have any real concept of history. They cannot distinguish between yesterday and eons ago. Everything that isn't right now becomes compartmentalized as past. At this stage, last evening's dinner occupies the same cognitive niche as last summer's time at the beach.

Later, as kids learn about things that may have happened before their own birth, there's not much separation between those things that happened last year and those which occurred during the last millennium. Supposedly, we get a handle on these time things as adults."

Rather recently I'm interested in studying the four ancient river civilizations that invented forms of writing. As well as the two societies mentioned yesterday, there were the Indus Valley in the Indian Subcontinent and Yellow River valley in China.


Jay and I visited Nalanda near Patna, India. It is considered one
of the world's first universities. That was only 1,000 to 1,500
years ago which is a far cry from the earliest writings from the
area. We were there in 1994.

I wish I could find a comparison chart showing major differences between the four cultures I've mentioned. The criteria could include various aspects of human endeavor. For example, mathematics would be one category. Did you know that we get our sixty minute hour and 360 degree circle from ancient Mesopotamians!