These early civilisations are merely the highest point of
Neolithic culture. The Egyptian remains show a very gradual
development of pottery, ornamentation, etc., into which copper
articles are introduced in time. The dawn of civilisation is as
gradual as the dawn of the day. The whole gamut of
culture--Eolithic, Palaeolithic, Neolithic, and civilised--is
struck in the successive layers of Egyptian remains. But to give
even a summary of its historical development is neither necessary
nor possible here. The maintenance of its progress is as
intelligible as its initial advance. Unlike China, it lay in the
main region of human development, and we find that even before
6000 B.C. it developed a system of shipping and commerce which
kept it in touch with other peoples over the entire region, and
helped to promote development both in them and itself.
Equally intelligible is the development of civilisation in
Mesopotamia. The long and fertile valley which lies between the
mountainous region and the southern desert is, like the valley of
the Nile, a quite recent formation. The rivers have gradually
formed it with their deposit in the course of the last ten
thousand years.
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