Value in Pre-urbanism and Writing Societies

The implication often made is that urbanism and writing marked the beginning of truly valuable human achievements. However, anatomically modern humans have existed for 250,000 to 350,000 years, a vast majority of human history. This period does not consider other human species like Neanderthals, with whom modern humans coexisted. The distinction between anatomically and behaviorally modern humans involves behaviors like fire usage.