ABSTRACT
For eons, humans lived a relatively simple lifestyle, gathering the available resources of the land and hunting and shing. And then, around 10,000 years ago, something extraordinary happened. In several places around the world, some of these groups of people began to settle down, live in villages, and tend crops and animals. This idea caught on and spread far and wide. Then, in a just a few places, beginning around 5,000 years ago or so, some societies that were signicantly more culturally complex began to emerge from this agricultural foundation. Egypt was one of them, and the explanations for these changes continue to challenge archaeologists.
