Scientists are again trying to turn the history of our civilization upside down: not everything was so simple

"For almost all of humanity's existence, our species roamed the planet, living in small groups, hunting and gathering food, moving to new areas when the climate was favorable - and leaving when the climate became unfavorable.

For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors used fire to cook food and keep warm. They made tools, shelters, clothing, and jewelry, although their possessions were limited to what they could carry with them. Sometimes they encountered other hominins - such as Neanderthals - and sometimes had sex with them.

Then, around 10,000 years ago, things started to change. In several places, people started growing crops. They spent more time in the same place. They began to build villages and cities. Various unknown geniuses invented writing, money, the wheel, and the firearm. In just a few thousand years—an instant in evolutionary time—cities, empires, and factories sprung up all over the world. Today, the Earth is surrounded by satellites in orbit, and is crossed by Internet cables. Nothing like this has ever happened.

Archaeologists and anthropologists are struggling to explain why such a rapid and extraordinary transformation took place. 

Their most common narrative describes a kind of trap: Once humans began farming, there was no turning back from a cascading increase in social complexity that led inexorably to hierarchy, inequality, and environmental destruction.”