Human History and the Age of Humankind

Humankind survived on Earth in the form of living organisms until at last, two million years ago, Homo erectus — a mammalian (milk-drinking), upright (standing) higher organism, the forefather of Paleolithic humans — appeared in Africa. Their fossil remains can be seen in many places around the world except the North and South American continents. If we think of this period as humankind's gestation, it resembles the process in which the mother receives the father's single-celled sperm and it evolves within the womb until at last the form of a baby appears; the Earth possessed a mother's physiology. Astonishingly, these Paleolithic people used wood and stone as tools for living, made fire to warm their caves, and cooked their food.

According to recently published genetic tracing of human bloodlines, the modern humans living on Earth were born in East Africa 100,000 years ago. From this point on, the history of humankind begins in the form of one person's infancy. Just as a baby drinks its mother's milk and grows in its mother's arms, humans began to dwell in places endowed with a natural environment where the natural food produced on Earth was abundant and the climate was easy. Population grew toward the south and west of the African continent, and at last people migrated out to the southern part of the Asian continent. At this time Europe, except for the Mediterranean coast, was covered with ice-age ice, a condition that lasted until as recently as 12,000 years ago.

It was 60,000 years ago that modern humans left Africa and arrived in Southeast Asia and Australia, and the region of Southeast Asia, with a climate similar to Africa's and abundant food, was like a mother's bosom in humankind's infancy. At that time the Indonesian islands were one great peninsula (Sundaland), part of the Southeast Asian mainland connected to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. As clan society grew in Southeast Asia, the language of infancy began, intelligence grew, and as their energy and range of activity expanded, humankind grew into childhood.

The process of changing from a life of gathering natural plants, dependent on the mother's milk, to an agricultural life of collecting seeds, planting them and growing food to eat, was the process of being weaned from the mother's milk and growing from infant humankind into child humankind. The climate and natural conditions of Southeast Asia were a nest well suited to the increase of the human population. Many peoples who left Southeast Asia failed to adapt to climate change and perished, but Southeast Asia kept increasing its population and supplied people to places rich in water in every region of the world, so that clan societies could become stable.

Thirty-five thousand years ago, child humankind in Southeast Asia divided along the coastline into southern Asia and eastern Asia, and at this time the world's humankind split into two groups and grew. There is the southern human lineage that advanced into Thailand, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Western Europe; and there is the northern human lineage connected to Vietnam, eastern China, Korea, Japan, eastern Russia, and the North and South American continents, and linked through Mongolia and Tibet all the way to Eastern Europe. The beginnings of Southeast Asian language divide into Austronesian of the southern humankind and Austroasiatic of the northern humankind. The linguist Johanna Nichols explained the historical relationship of three language types: the two ordered language forms of "subject–verb–modifier" and "subject–modifier–verb," plus a disordered, unorganized language form. She explained that the origin of the world's languages lay in Southeast Asia.

Child humankind, with vigorous energy and strong curiosity, loved to explore, and the distribution of humankind across the Earth expanded fastest at this time. The southern and northern humankind that advanced inland mixed in Central Asia. From this time on, the human constitution adapted to its surroundings, and people began to look different. Humankind, which began with black skin in Africa, turned red (the skin color of the native peoples of the Americas) while it stayed in Southeast Asia; then the northern peoples who left for the north, going through the four seasons of East Asia, began to turn white-skinned, and their eyes and noses began to grow smaller. Among the southern peoples who moved west, those who met the dry climate of Southwest Asia developed larger noses, and the people who migrated onto the coasts of glacial Europe, grown used to living underground, began to turn white-skinned, with their hair turning yellow and their eyes turning blue.

Humankind, having begun an agricultural life in Southeast Asia, increased its population rapidly, just as a child's body grows. They raised chickens, pigs, ducks, dogs, sheep, goats and so on, eating both plants and meat, and began raising cattle to use their labor, and so changed from a life of moving in search of food to a settled life of producing food. The concept of ownership was established, and clan society developed, securing a population of family and relatives, and land and property. Religious rites such as birthdays, weddings and ancestral rites appeared in human life as forms of culture. Just as a child's emotional life grows, human culture began in Southeast Asia.

The climates of Africa and South Asia guaranteed humankind an easy life, but among the northern peoples, the Great Han people [the Korean people] who arrived along the East Asian coast at the Shandong Peninsula, the Liaodong Peninsula and the Korean Peninsula penetrated inland from 35,000 years ago and grew into nomads reaching Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet. Settling into agricultural life at the mouths of the Yangtze, the Yellow River and the many rivers of the Korean Peninsula, they became, among the modern humans of the Neolithic age, the first to adapt to the four seasons and began a hardened life of competing with nomadic peoples. Coastal peoples who kept migrating from Southeast Asia passed the Korean Peninsula and migrated out to the Pacific coasts of North and South America, and from the river basins around the Yellow Sea they penetrated inland along the rivers.

Because Shandong, Liaodong and the Korean Peninsula became the busiest crossroads in the human history of the Neolithic age, the culture of earth — digging embankments to make ponds to collect water, and building mounds (earth mounds) and tombs to hold ancestral rites — and the dolmen culture of hauling great stones from afar to raise temples are more densely concentrated here than anywhere else in the world. In its growing childhood, humankind loved to draw pictures and to sing and dance. It loved to run and play tirelessly and was full of curiosity, wanting to see, touch and know everything. The more so, the faster its intellect grew; it had more and more to say and many questions to ask, so conversation with neighbors grew lively, which helped human village societies grow quickly into city-states. Here competition among clans made larger clan societies that took the form of states, and competition between farming and nomadic peoples resulted in the making of empires. The process of humankind growing from a young child into a teenager began at the time knowledge developed in East Asia. The building of the Great Wall as the symbol of a competitive society also began here and grew inland.

World culture began in the matrilineal society of Southeast Asia's gathering and farming life, and world civilization began in the competitive society of East Asia's farming and nomadic peoples, who had grown accustomed to a life of metal tools. Because human instinct consists of the capacity to seek out and eat food and the capacity of men and women to associate, bear children and raise them, love became the source of culture, and the struggle for survival became the source of civilization. While coastal peoples spun hemp to make cloth to wear, and then made silk clothes from silkworm cocoons, nomads made their clothes from animal hides. Among that region's underground resources, coal gave the capacity to mass-produce metal, and various metal techniques and products brought revolutionary change to the tools of daily life and to military weapons, and so world civilization began here.

A life adapted to the four seasons required the regular effort and discipline of preparing necessities such as food, clothing, housing and fuel before winter came. With metal tools they built large houses and large ships; wheels fitted with metal axles allowed the mass production of chariots that ran fast and far, and wagons were made to carry heavy loads, so that all industries flourished together with the transport industry. Magnetism was discovered and the iron-needle compass invented, so ocean navigation developed; paper was made, so written records flourished, and the exchange of information and the linking of records transcended the limits of place and time. As a large population lived on a broad and vast continent from tens of thousands of years earlier, all the inventions and discoveries of ancient society began in Southeast Asia and were then applied in the competitive society of East Asia.

The culture of building earth mounds and the culture of hauling great stones to raise dolmens combined, and in the Yalu River basin the custom and technique of raising stone-mound tombs (pyramids) developed. The pyramid culture that appeared as a mutation at the mouth of the Nile in Egypt, and the pyramids of the Sun and Moon in Central America, and the stepped pyramids raised on the Pacific coast of the South American continent — all make us suppose that their roots lie in a Neolithic culture that evolved in the Yalu River basin and the Xi'an region. East Asian culture was passed on to the Indus basin and Mesopotamia, and after the last 10,000 years it was passed on to the Mediterranean coast, and Greece's Minoan culture began. As an extension of the Zhou dynasty culture of East Asia, the Buddhist culture of eastern India and the Greek culture of the Mediterranean were established; in the aftermath of the Eastern Zhou and the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period, the Roman state was founded, and the Mediterranean basin grew alongside East Asia's Han and Tang dynasties.

The primitive nature religion of Southeast Asia laid a foundation of thousands of years through East Asia's yin-yang thought and Taoism, a celestial religion; Confucianism, with its ancestor worship; and Hinduism in eastern India. While the imperial religion, Buddhism, was formed in eastern India and propagated to western India and East Asia, Greek kings of the Mediterranean came to the Buddhist temples of India and East Asia and trained as Buddhist monks. The Buddhist records of India and China explain that kings and nobles of Greek city-states learned Asian philosophy and culture and took them home. Christianity was born 600 years after that, so early Christianity and Buddhism have much in common. Judaism is the religion of the Old Testament, and that Islam began from the Old Testament another 600 years later also shows that the roots of the world's religions lie in the basins of the Yellow River and the Ganges.

The Huns of East Asia invaded Central Asia, India's Gupta Empire and Europe's Rome, so that Europe fell asleep in the medieval Dark Ages while East Asia continued to grow with the cultures of the Sui and Song dynasties. As Southwest Asia passed from Persia to Byzantium and in Southeast Asia the Khmer Empire grew in Cambodia, the world's humankind acquired the intellect and emotions of teenage boys and girls. Then in the twelfth century, as the Mongols of East Asia reenacted the world invasion that the Huns — the ancestors of East Asia's northern nomads — had achieved, humankind entered adolescence. The Mongol Empire's unification of the world showed the process by which humankind, in its growth, changed into the adolescent age of teenage boys and girls. The character of that period was that, just as a boy and a girl feel attracted to the opposite sex they are seeing for the first time, Asia saw and felt attracted to the populated regions of other continents including Europe and Africa, and Europe for the first time saw Asia and was attracted to it. The changes of adolescence are the period of the most violent change, physically and emotionally. From the Mongol invasion on, world history shows that side and that character.

Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, took power and for 34 years further expanded his territory in Southwest Asia and Europe, made every invaded nation pay tribute, and named his state the Yuan dynasty. He moved the capital to Dadu (Beijing), enlarged the Forbidden City, re-established the world capital that Chang'an (Xi'an) had enjoyed in the Tang dynasty, and made it once more the center of world culture and civilization. European nations paid tribute, and merchants came and went from every continent of the world. Among them, Marco Polo and his father, who came bearing a letter from the Pope in Rome, worked as Kublai Khan's servants and, traveling back and forth to their homeland, introduced the culture and civilization of East Asia to Western Europe.

In East Asia, people wore cloth woven from cotton, silk thread and wool, and paper and woodblock printing developed, so knowledge and information were exchanged. The maritime industry thrived; they explored the world's geography and developed sea routes, received tribute from continents and island nations, and Marco Polo visited Sri Lanka and brought back Mongol taxes. Later, in the Ming dynasty, world navigation charts were drawn up, which, together with the compass, resulted in East Asian navigational technology spreading to Europe, spurring the maritime industry of Western Europe. Mongol soldiers developed the cannon by means of gunpowder explosions, which was passed on to Europe and brought change to the history of military warfare. Woodblock printing, and later metal movable-type printing developed in Korea, were for a long time East Asia's means of developing culture and civilization. The printing technology passed on to Western Europe at this time resulted in bringing the Renaissance to Europe. This led on to the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution; humanist thought drove out imperialism, and democratic society, the capitalist economy and the socialist economy began. With Western Europe taking the lead, a social religion that broke away from the Catholicism of Eastern Europe — Protestantism — began.

Meanwhile the Chinese Han of Central Asia, who had suffered the Mongol invasion, recovered and founded the Ming dynasty. The Ming inherited the culture of the Yuan and reorganized all the decayed government policies and facilities. The British naval explorer Gavin Menzies explained in his book "1421" that the ships Zheng He, the Ming naval admiral, used on his world expeditions under the command of the Ming Yongle Emperor were huge vessels 151 m long and 61 m wide; that leading some 200 escort ships and more than 27,000 men, he left Taicang in Jiangsu Province in 1405, passed through India and Africa, and arrived in the Americas in 1421. After returning home, it is said, he carried on and completed his seventh expedition in 1433 and made navigation charts. In 1525 the Ming closed down all maritime industry and established a closed-door policy. This navigational information spread to Europe, and at this point East Asia handed world supremacy over to Europe, and the modern history of East Asia's decline began.

In 1493 the Portuguese navigator Columbus crossed the Atlantic and reached the North American continent, and in 1598 Vasco da Gama passed Africa and arrived in India, and Europe opened its eyes to the world. The competitive society among the nations of East Asia was now passed on to Europe, and fierce civil wars and reforms in politics, society and economy continued in Europe. In a competitive society, urban populations increase, specialized fields develop, education, industry, trade and finance grow rapidly, and nations advance overseas. By 1650, expeditions and trading ships from Spain, England, Holland, France, Portugal and other countries were traveling to North America, Central America, South America, Africa, India, China and many island nations of Southeast Asia. Asian silk, porcelain, furs and various precious metals were imported into Europe, and the plow that the farmer's ox drags to dig the soil, along with seeds of vegetables, fruits and grains, came in, and the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution took place in Europe.

With the world's knowledge concentrated in Europe, science and invention flourished; industries such as textiles, transport and military weapons developed; the east coast of North America was divided into the thirteen colonies, and England, France, Spain and Russia divided up the continent and bought and sold ownership. At last, the Europeans who had immigrated to America established the American government, and in 1775 George Washington was elevated as the first president. Britain colonized India, Australia and New Zealand and grew into a world empire. Russia expanded its territory to take possession of all of Siberia, and the map of Europe and the world changed greatly. With the expansion of farmland, the business of kidnapping Africans and selling them as slaves to regions needing labor flourished.

Native peoples who had dwelt there for tens of thousands of years were mercilessly slaughtered, driven from their homelands and confined to restricted areas — the greatest tragedy in human history, they became the victims of European whites' expansion of land. This phenomenon was the violent emotional change undergone in humankind's adolescence as it grew, and the rapid growth of the world's population entering the seventeenth century was a phenomenon showing the physical growth of adolescence. The Civil War on the North American continent was a clash between appetite and conscience. The Union won, and slavery was ended. Edison discovered electricity, and electrical communication and electric machine power, together with the railway links of the steam locomotive, brought the modern world to show the appearance of a fully grown human adult.

The growth of humankind's adolescence continued, and there were also signs of violence. Ford invented the automobile, and cars that moved by burning oil crossed the continent on highways. Mass production linking supply and demand brought the gap between rich and poor into the capitalist economy, and in contrast to it communism and socialism appeared too. The European consciousness of territorial expansion appeared in Germany and Italy as the First World War within Europe, and failed under the sanctions of America, England, France and the surrounding countries; then in 1939 the Second World War began. In East Asia, Japan took up European expansionism and modernized 60 years ahead while Korea and China kept their closed-door policies, and succeeded in occupying and colonizing Korea and Chinese Manchuria. Intending to expand into Southeast Asia, Japan joined Germany in the Second World War and challenged American territory in Hawaii.

Nurhaci, born at Baekdusan on the upper reaches of the Yalu River, founded the Qing dynasty in the Manchurian region and in 1644 invaded the Ming; what the Xiongnu and Mongols of the north had done in seizing the leadership from the Chinese Han, this time the Dongyi people — the Manchurian and Korean Peninsula peoples — repeated once again. On the Korean Peninsula, Silla had suffered invasion by Goryeo, and the Jin dynasty founded by Silla's royal family on the old Goguryeo territory had destroyed the Northern Song; and Genghis Khan of Mongolia had first of all joined the Jin to the Mongol Empire. After the Qing unified China, rebellions around its borders and within the country continued again, and the Japanese Wa raiders started the Imjin War on the Korean Peninsula and continued to harass the Qing coastal regions. The closed-door policy established under the Ming continued under the Qing, and the long history of East Asia's connection to the world ended here.

The Second World War, in which Germany and Japan attempted expansion, came to an end in 1945, and humankind's mature adolescence shows a new face. The British Empire came to an end, America appeared as a great power based on a capitalist free-market economy, and the Soviet Union, putting forward the socialist Communist Party, stood against America with an imperialist system that included many nations of Eastern Europe. Aviation technology, which the two Wright brothers began in Dayton, Ohio, developed rapidly during the world wars, and computer technology — begun at a calculating-machine company in the same city in order to decipher the wartime communication codes of Germany and Japan — was transferred to the IBM company and brought a revolution in worldwide information storage and connection. Medicine developed and life was prolonged; space flight developed and astronauts arrived on the moon; and the human living range came to occupy most of the Earth.

The Soviet Union's imperialist Communist Party economy collapsed, and China's Communist Party system opened to capitalism and, following Japan and Korea, joined the world free-market economy. Germany and Japan, the defeated nations, joined the American economic system and rose as economic powers, and while America's military and economic power was overwhelming, the United Nations was established within America, in the international city of New York. Putting Protestantism forward to evangelize the world, owning the most cars, and importing from Islamic nations the heavy oil and diesel needed for heavy and light industry, America came to meet the resistance of the Islamic nations.

The personality of humankind at the age of mature adolescence appears in many ways. Since humankind was born on Earth it had depended on God and clung to religion as to a parent, but around now it came out crying "God is dead," showing the face of rebellion against its parents. The possibility of conceiving and producing a new space traveler as a modified human, as blood research and in-vitro fertilization technology develop, shows the reproductive capacity of mature adolescence. The phenomenon of launching satellites and sending humans into the space of the universe is likened to the phenomenon of a man ejaculating sperm from his sexual organ. That Europe and America seemed to lead the world on their own and then entered into dealings with Southeast Asia gives the feeling of a man and a woman dating. Time goes ever faster, and the life of adolescence is running short of time. In the twenty-first century, human life will enter a human family life of bearing and raising space travelers, and it will bring the happiest period of human life on Earth.

The poem introduced next is one I wrote on greeting the dawn of 2000.

The Dawn of 2000

The comet flowing on,
flinging its light through vast space,
does not know that time exists
on the Earth where we live

History is formed and recorded, and when
buried in the soil becomes fossil, and the rock remembers

Among the animals, humankind learned language,
invented writing, changed the face
of the Earth, and now, riding the computer,
sets sail toward the universe

Shrinking this legend of two million years to two hours,
the first baby's cry of a humankind born again
wakes the dawn of this year 2000

Culture, religion, civilization, race, nation………
all joined together, now
open a new chapter in our destiny

Lord of all creation

From today the Creator raises a torch
before the path of cosmic humankind that will flow on, living forever,
and the sun of the new millennium rises

Oh! this morning, shining brilliantly

When the dawn spreads, flying with the sunlight,
into a space without end, a thousand light-years,
this conversation between me and the Creator
echoes and resounds among the galaxies