Cultures around the world have been building temples and tombs and cities for thousands of years; most people think of Europe, but there’s also the Americas, parts of Africa, parts of Asia. Everyone can name some famous historical buildings or ruins from multiple countries.
Why is it then that other people didn’t? I’ve never heard of or seen anything really permanent built by the Australian Aboriginals for instance – arguably the oldest culture on earth – and I’m Australian!
In: Culture
Some conditions allow for it and some don’t. The first societies that arose did so exclusively around fertile river valleys. In this case, large scale agriculture was possible and a necessity to maintain population growth. Which in then creates more labor > more people to do stuff other than growing crops > build big buildings. When these societies establish, their culture will be capable of interacting with others and trade ideas, alternatively conquer more land and build infrastructure. So basically, if one society is established, neighboring regions will be influenced by them.
Nomadic people on the other hand, usually live in conditions that don’t allow for agriculture. So for instance Mongolia or the Arabian peninsula you can’t grow shit. Hence people travelled with livestock who provide them with what they need. But they also need to travel with them so they can graze and trade with other tribes. Building permanent settlements here anywhere aside from by an oasis is not viable.
As for aborigines, they lived in Stone Age, hunter-gatherer societies, because they were more or less completely isolated from the rest of the world and the conditions weren’t favourable for agriculture.
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