unique in the Earth's history as the Alpine folding the birth of civilization in the Near East. We could translate the last phrase in Toynbee's metaphor and say the emergence of a new species of society or, more precisely but still metaphorically, the creation of a new kind of culture. In any case, it can be called an event only in the same sense as the Alpine folding or the establishment of a new species by mutation and selection of mutants ; for it was a long process, though the culmination, the critical point in the transformation of quantity into quality, can be defined rather more precisely: in archaeological terms, this was reached during Dynasties o-I in Egypt and during the Protoliterate a-b (Uruk) period in lower Mesopotamia. It was unique in that what happened altered the whole human situation; other civilizations were indeed subsequently born, but all can be regarded as more or less descended from those of Egypt and Sumer confidently in the case of India, the Mediterranean and China, plausibly even in the case of Central America and Peru.
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