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2 76    The Origin of Ciirflisation

The progress of the Total Culture System, as it is revealed in the archaeo-logical and historical evidence, appears to have dynamically conformed to the broad trends the theory suggests it would take. Figurę 5.6 depicts the past evolutionary cultural movement to datę as two opposing cycles. The first loop shows the global dispersion which was dominant during the Middie Palaeoiithic age, when Homo erectus was migrating widely across the Old World. The second cycle shows the trend to ewer greater global concentration. This began during the Neolithic, with the successful establishment of settled life in willages and the production of cultivated food resources.^{1 4} For Homo erectus, daughter colonies led to mass migration and global travel across Africa, Europę and Asia, until all the best living zones were fully, but sparcely occupied;¹⁷⁵ for Homo sapiens sapiens, still developing culturally during the Hesolithic, as the glaciers retreated and the huge herds of large mammals declined in number ,^17S the transition from foraging to farming ultimately took the cycle in the opposite direction.

People began to concentrate in the regions best suited for agriculture, facing a geographical circumscription of terrain. Access to the best farming sites encouraged inecjuałities in all aspects of cultural life. It fostered a social circumscription that accompanied the massing of people and led to the growth of towns at the expense of the rural areas,¹⁷⁷ until towns grew into cities, and in the modem age, cities hawe expanded into urban connurbations. These megalopolitan complexes hołd ultra-high population densities, cowering enormous acreages.¹⁷⁸ The recent mass migrations to the New World increased population density there,¹⁷⁹ acting as part of this second cycle. This is now radiating out to encompass the whole planet, as concentration of expanding populat ions with an accelerat mg cultural evolution brings us nearer to an imminent megaciwilisation which may almost be on the point of emerging.

The Emergence of a Universa) CiviHsatk>n

Wiewing culture in this rather detached exercise reveals us to be standing at a seminal juncture, therefore. We are poised at the threshold of a new cultural order - the emergence of a universal ciwilisation. But what exact-ly would such a concept entail, to mark it out as superior to the prevailing arrangements? Pre-eminently, the establishment of an international globally operating civilisation would usher in the late or fully evolved modern phase in the progressiwe stepped ascent for a ciwilisation which has been broaden-ing and deepening its rangę and leuel of competence over at least fiue centuries. Perhaps its formatiwe roots lie even further into the past. The iheoretical rationale for postulating its ewentual emergence springs from the autocatalytic naturę of cultural change, feeding on itself, to enhance the survival prospects of mankind. A late modem c i w ilisat ion would encompass a sophisticated gamut of cultural behawiour across all five subsystems. We can wisualise that it would encapsulate a fully integrated political and social

Figurę 5.6 Population Moyęments to Show the Long-Term Trends