[SMARTY]

"...the question of why they would bother to come together in such numbers in the first place."

I bet there was a coffee house right there.

[Tom D.]

I have read and am more than willing to believe that we have civilization because of beer. (See my tagline.) Man first discovered beer and then had to get a regular source for the ingredients. Namads are not much good at growing things and neither are hunter-gatherers. With the coming of agriculture the concept of private property or at least tribal property came about because no one was going to plant and tend a field so that others could harvest the crop. Villages sprang up for common protection of the growing crops and the inhabitants.

Every evening I celebrate the founding of our civilization.