From Encolombia.com It has often been said that history begins at Sumer. Traditionally, historians have constrained the jurisdiction of history to an arbitrary time frame. For example, a certain number of years have to pass before an event is considered history. On the other end of the timeline, history has traditionally been defined as written history. The invention of the written word, which is usually ascribed to Sumer in around 3500 BCE, is seen as the transition mark between history and what is considered prehistory. By now, because of some of the topics I've written about before , I'm sure you are well aware that my definition of history is much broader. To me, history is anything that happened in the past— from just a moment ago all the way to, until we can go farther, the Big Bang itself. To me, history is not confined to 5522 years of the written record but rather 13.8 billion years. That being said, the transition from societies without writing to societies with wr
Original art from MPI/Hulton Archive/Getty Images This article continues from the previous entry in the History of America series, "The Lost Colony: The Story of Roanoke." The English colony of Roanoke had been left alone. Their leader, John White, was stuck in England as the Anglo-Spanish War raged across the seas. But Roanoke, according to one theory, wasn’t a place of refuge where one could find peace at this moment. On the contrary, it was currently being raided and destroyed by an invading force of natives. Historically, Roanoke sat in a delicate balance of the formerly friendly Croatan tribe and the traditionally hostile Secotan tribe. But this group of natives, or American Indians, were different. They weren’t Croatan and they weren’t Secotan but they were destroying everything the English had built. In fact, though the English did not know it, this new group of invaders had already conquered and consumed the Secotans, the English colonists’ historical nemesis. Thi