Talk:The Early Humans and The Neolithic Revolution

I'd like to note somewhere that this section covers prehistory, and is thus somewhat speculative and less important to learn. While a familiarity of the topics covered in this section are helpful to give a greater perspective, I'd consider this section "optional". Your thoughts? The Jade Knight (d'viser) 09:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I disagree. To begin with, as this is not a course that one would be tested on, any part of it may be skipped by the potential student if he/she thinks that is boring or irrelevant. On the other hand, this section gives the student an idea of what is roughly the current state of our scientific knowledge on the origins of the human race and why there were humans in the Near East and Egypt before they arrived in Europe. Speculation exists only in the specifics of prehistory. The general picture is clear and can be read by the student in the selections.


 * The reason I have included paragraphs from the books by Darwin as well as the key phrases “natural selection” and “the survival of the fittest” is that this will help students later on to understand the conflict beginning in England in the 18th c., spread to Europe and later to the States between evolutionaries and creationists. Also, they will understand, the pretext of the "survival of the fittest" used as an excuse for European imperialism in the 19th c. This part is extremely important and valuable for later on in the History of Europe.


 * Every topic, reading, map, artifact etc in this course has a reason of existence here. I do not just put here whatever I find available. The structure and the content are very carefully selected and used for the purpose of giving the student the full picture of European History and civilization, its origins and cultural exchanges. Dilos1 17:56, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I am aware that you make your selections deliberately (and that you are clearly knowledgeable about the subject matter). In this case, I happen to find this section, while interesting and useful in general, unnecessary to any study of European history.  It may certainly be appropriate to bring Darwin and his writings in at a later point when discussing Social Darwinism or the conflict between creationists and evolutionists.  However, neither of those are elements of ancient European History.  The fact that remains that the specifics of this sort of history (which, as being unrecorded, is not properly history in the more specific technical sense) are still highly speculative, even if decent idea about the generalities are known.  However, I think we should start learners in stuff better well-known than this, and in history; this chapter could easily belong to an Anthropology course.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 06:13, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. We have different conceptions of the background that one needs in order to study proper ancient history. The truth is that you do not need the pre-history of proper Europe to study the Middle Ages but you may need it in order to study the Celts, for example.
 * However, as you will come up with a condensed version of the whole “Emergence of Civilization” section and we place links together on the main page, this resolves the issue. Dilos1 06:57, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I edited this page to simplify it. Dilos1 07:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * And here is the record of what you had previously added, so it may be easily accessed in case someone wishes to expand on it in the future. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 07:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)