the first civilizations

This may be an odd thing to enjoy reading about, but whenever we get to sections of the book the mention Mesopotamia it just puts a smile on my face.  In seventh grade I had a history teacher who was very into the the Mesopotamian society and Star Trek.  In his class we would literally make a fake movie set, dress up and he would film us acting out early societies or Star Trek movies.  Needless to say, he is a teacher I will always remember and I will always remember Mesopotamia because of him.  I think it is crazy how fast things happened with the start of agriculture!  As soon as we had agriculture we had more food.  When people had more food they we needed structure, laws and economy, in other words, we needed to be more civilized!  Once people had civilizations things like equality issues arose, hierarchies arose and things like deforestation became a problem!  I think it is just sad that we can go back to our first civilizations and find problems we still face today like slavery, discrimination and loss of our much need natural environment.  It makes me wonder if it is even possible to ever end these problems in the world.