Geography
Geography can explain the evolution of humans all over the world by the means of comparing their lifestyles and identifying the common features of all societies. One of the geographical methods includes the location analysis of the first people. The prehistoric people have not had any specific technologies that could help them survive in hostile conditions. Thus, first people could prosper only in regions that had propitious environment and the close location of the water supplies such as a river or a stream. Therefore, if one looks at the map, he will find out that all first settlements were located in the similar places, near the biggest rivers where the life could exist.
All human societies have the similar features that can be generalized to the particular groups and classes. The example is the social structure. Every tribe or a civilized town had a leader or a council, which was a necessary element in order to rule other people and make decisions that require special knowledge, skills and wisdom. In different cultures a leader or a council was named in various ways and had many responsibilities. The leader was a shaman in Indian tribes, a thane in Vikings’ clans, a council in ancient Rome, a pharaoh in Egypt culture or an ataman in Slavic tribes (National Research Council, 1997). The leaders had different manner of ruling, but their main function was the same around the world; they were the most powerful persons in a social structure and they were responsible for the life of their communities.
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Another similar feature of all cultures is religion. Every human society has deity, whom they worship. The first cultures had the cult of gods which consisted of many supernatural beings both good and evil. The examples of polytheism include the Greek gods who lived on Olympus, the Scandinavian gods of Asgard, or the pantheon of Slavic gods. All aforementioned cults of gods have the similar features. The first similarity is one main God such as Zeus, Odin and Perun. People had to make altarages in order to please the gods or ask for help. Thus, the concept of the religion was the same in all cultures; the major difference is the names of the gods and their behavior (Dodgshon, 1998). Later, the cult of gods was displaced by the monotheism tendency; and one god was accepted in the majority of the developed cultures. Since that time there was only one god such as Allah, Jesus, Buddha and others. The only god performed the same role in building the religion. Moreover, their existence has been proved by some holy books such as Koran or the Bible.
The way of living was comparable in different cultures, but it was mainly influenced by the environment conditions. All humans used to build places where they could hide from the bad weather, storage their supplies, feel safe to sleep. The places of shelter were called houses and though the structures and the designs of the houses were different, they served the same main function. The varieties were caused by the environmental conditions in the majority of cases. For instance, people who lived in locations with cold climate had a need to build solid houses which were warm enough to save people from low temperatures. At the same time, those who lived in the subtropical area had the opposite goals.
The only explanation why people who lived and evolved far from each other have so many in common is that all individuals have similar behavior and motivations, and the human nature overpowers other factors. The nations were developing in different places with dissimilar conditions, but their way of evolving was practically the same. Without a doubt, the cultures had different perception of the world, they had particular traditions that may seem barbaric to others, but the main concepts of the society building were always the same.