THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN 99 



B.C., Menes, chieftain of the falcon clan, became the sov- 

 ereign of all Egypt. Subsequent pharaohs developed and 

 favored a religion with the usual temple, priests and ritual. 

 These empires brought some sort of peace and order out of 

 chaos, just as the establishment of a "peck order" in hens 

 minimizes conflict. 



Other empires arose, humans were multiplying, territories 

 became overcrowded, rulers and people of the favored class 

 were too stupidly selfish and extravagant, and the struggle 

 was renewed and renewed again. To escape overpopulation 

 and the consequent economic impasse, man migrated to 

 form colonies; the colonies became crowded, and people 

 were pushed out to form new colonies, until over the whole 

 earth there was hardly a spot without its colony. Man muhi- 

 pHed, his man-against-man struggle was intensified, and his 

 problems became more and more complex; and the end is 

 not in sight. 



As the early civilizations began to appear in one area after 

 another, various backward and "fossil" cultures existed right 

 alongside them, and still do. The situation in social evolution 

 is much as it is in organic evolution where all stages of the 

 process are represented by intermediate forms. All over the 

 world today there are primitive peoples who are at varying 

 stages below the level of a true civilization. Study of these 

 cultures is the second method by which the enigma of man's 

 social evolution may be resolved. By the study of primitive 

 men, civilized man may see himself as once he probably was. 

 I One of the most primitive peoples on this earth are the 

 Bushmen of South Africa. They may once have been almost 

 in sole possession of the greater part of the Dark Continent, 

 but they are now pushed back into remote, semidesert re- 

 gions. They are segregated in clans which differ from each 

 other considerably in language, so much so as to make their 

 original unity questionable. They are yellow-faced and 

 without hair on the face and body, giving a generally child- 

 like appearance; they average only 5 feet in stature. The 



