Out of Erris

The land we know as Europe was formed over many millions of years, the first human beings arriving within the last million years, and the last ice age ending ten thousand years ago, to be followed by the dawn of agriculture in the Near East, an event which made possible everything we now have. Populations grew, and the bounty of agriculture freed people, so they could think beyond how they would provide food for that day. They came together and built towns; they reached out and began to fill empty spaces. Their ideas of need changed, and their creativity satisfied more and more of their longings, while some material aspirations were satisfied only at the expense of others. There were those amongst them who looked beyond the material, and they opened up the human mind, not just to this world, but to something beyond our human senses. Empire succeeded empire, until Charlemagne ruled over much of a Europe which is not to remote from the one we know today.