Some interesting facts about the prehistory of mankind:
-Long-range trade, 12,000 B.C.E.
-Wheat cultivated in Mesopotamia, about 9,000 B.C.E.
-First agriculture-based culture, about 9,000 B.C.E.
-first signs of writing, about 3,400 B.C.E.
-First dynasty, about 2,900 B.C.E.
-Wheat cultivated along Nile River, about 9,000 B.C.E.
-First agriculture-based culture, about 6,000 B.C.E.
-First signs of writing, about 3,200 B.C.E.
-First dynasty, about 3,100 B.C.E.
-Millet cultivated along the Yangtze River, about 7,000 B.C.E.
-First agriculture-based culture, about 7,000 B.C.E.
-First signs of writing, about 6,000 B.C.E.
-First dynasty, about 2,100 B.C.E.
-Potato cultivated in Peru, about 8,000 B.C.E.
-First agriculture-based culture, about 3,000 B.C.E.
-First signs of writing, unknown
-First dynasty, about 1400
Interestingy nothing of the social structure, political structure, or religion is known in these regions until the first dynasties. Traditionally, the rise of kingships has been associated with the first civilizations. However, the definition of civilization is that a culture must have a stationary habitation, a productive agriculture, a writing system, and signs of long-range trade. In most cases, all those elements were around long before the first dynasties existed. If that is so then, in whatever form the civilizations took, civilization existed long before kingships came into being.