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more than 150 miles from the nearest settlement,

Well, since you have traveled this far, you might as well come in.'

omething from the middle ages. Jerry-built from whatever materials came to hand, the dwelling was not much more than a burrow—"a low, soot-blackened log kennel that was as cold as a cellar," with a floor consisting of potato peel and pine-nut shells. Looking around in the dim light, the visitors saw that it consisted of a single room. It was cramped, musty and indescribably filthy, propped up by sagging joists—and, astonishingly, home to a family of five:

Have you ever eaten bread?

he daughters spoke a language distorted by a lifetime of isolation. "When the sisters talked to each other, it sounded like a slow, blurred cooing."

a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect, worshiping in a style unchanged since the 17th century.

Peter was a personal enemy and "the anti-Christ in human form"—a point he insisted had been amply proved by Tsar's campaign to modernize Russia by forcibly "chopping off the beards of Christians."

Things had only got worse for the Lykov family when the atheist Bolsheviks took power. Under the Soviets, isolated Old Believer communities that had fled to Siberia to escape persecution began to retreat ever further from civilization. During the purges of the 1930s, with Christianity itself under assault, a Communist patrol had shot Lykov's brother on the outskirts of their village while Lykov knelt working beside him. He had responded by scooping up his family and bolting into forest.

our Lykovs then—Karp;

wife, Akulina

son named Savin

Natalia, a daughter who was only 2.

wo more children had been born in the wild—Dmitry in 1940 and Agafia in 1943—

d neither of the youngest Lykov children had ever seen a human being who was not a member of their famil

new there were places called cities where humans lived crammed together in tall buildings. They had heard there were countries other than Russia. But such concepts were no more than abstractions to them. Their only reading matter was prayer books and an ancient family Bible. Akulina had used the gospels to teach her children to read and write, using sharpened birch sticks dipped into honeysuckle juice as pen and ink. When Agafia was shown a picture of a horse, she recognized it from her mother's Bible stories. "Look, papa," she exclaimed. "A steed!"

e traversed 250 kilometres [155 miles] without seeing a single human dwelling!"

They fashioned birch-bark galoshes in place of shoes. Clothes were patched and repatched until they fell apart, then replaced with hemp cloth grown from seed.

pinning wheel a

A couple of kettles served them well for many years, but when rust finally overcame them, the only replacements they could fashion came from birch bark.

heir staple diet was potato patties mixed with ground rye and hemp seeds.

bundance

stream. Stands of larch, spruce, pine and birch yielded all that anyone could take.... Bilberries and raspberries were close to hand, firewood as well, and pine nuts fell right on the roof."

rmanently on the edge of famine.

not until the late 1950s, when Dmitry reached manhood, that they first trapped animals for their meat and skins. Lacking guns and even bows, they could hunt only by digging traps or pursuing prey across the mountains until the animals collapsed from exhaustion

Agafia's unusual speech—she had a singsong voice and stretched simple words into polysyllables—convinced some of her visitors she was slow-witted; in fact she was markedly intelligent, and took charge of the difficult task, in a family that possessed no calendars, of keeping track of time. 

mitry, a

urious and perhaps the most forward-looking member of the family

Perhaps it was no surprise that he was also the most enraptured by the scientists' technology.

many happy hours in its little sawmill, marveling at how easily a circular saw and lathes could finish wood.

he Lord would provide, and she would stay, she said—as indeed she has. A quarter of a century later, now in her seventies herself, this child of the taiga lives on alone, high above the Abakan.

he Rise of the Agricultural Society

(world map during ice age)As

People started growing their own food

This was the first time farming was seen in the world. This created the first farmers in the world from the middle-east

They stayed close to any source of water and planted new fields of wheat and barley using irrigation.

Domesticatio

People were only able to live in (Domestication)numbers by becoming more productive farmers, but people now had more stable food supply because of domestication, using animals to the fullest, and keeping them secure (new way of life).

There were three political bodies where citizens gathered in numbers running into the hundreds or thousands. These are the assembly (in some cases with a quorum of 6000), the council of 500 (boule) and the courts (a minimum of 200 people, but running at least on some occasions up to 6000). Of these three bodies it is the assembly and the courts that were the true sites of power — although courts, unlike the assembly, were never simply called the demos (the People) as they were manned by a subset of the citizen body, those over thirty.

Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens. The percentage of the population (of males) that actually participated in the government was about 20%. This excluded a majority of the population, namely slaves, freed slaves, children, women and metics. The women had limited rights and privileges and were not really considered citizens. The restricted movement in public and were very segregated from the men. Also disallowed were citizens whose rights were under suspension (typically for failure to pay a debt to the city: see atimia); for some Athenians this amounted to permanent (and in fact inheritable) disqualification. Still, in contrast with oligarchical societies, there were no real property requirements limiting access

The central events of the Athenian democracy were the meetings of the assembly (ἐκκλησία ekklêsia). Unlike a parliament, the assembly's members were not elected, but attended by right when they chose. Greek democracy created at Athens was a direct, not a representative democracy: any adult male citizen of age could take part, and it was a duty to do so. The officials of the democracy were in part elected by the Assembly and in large part chosen by lot. The assembly had four main functions; it made executive pronouncements (decrees, such as deciding to go to war or granting citizenship to a foreigner); it elected some officials; it legislated; and it tried political crimes. As the system evolved these last two functions were shifted to the law courts. The standard format was that of speakers making speeches for and against a position followed by a general vote (usually by show of hands) of yes or no. Though there might be blocs of opinion, sometimes enduring, on crucial issues, there were no political parties and likewise no government or opposition (as in the Westminster system). Voting was by simple majority. In the 5th century at least there were scarcely any limits on the power exercised by the assembly. If the assembly broke the law, the only thing that might happen is that it would punish those who had made the proposal that it had agreed to

By joining together they were stronger.

This story, of course, is only a legend. The actual growth of Rome is less exotic and interesting. The city of Rome grew out of a number of settlements that existed around seven hills that were near the River Tiber. The settlements were near the river for the obvious reasons of a water supply. The Tiber was also narrow enough at this point to be bridged. However, the area also suffered because of the nearness of the river. Each settlement was separated from the other by marshland.