Historians divide human history intoperiods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_by_period
I imagine all civilizations had idiomspertaining to being modern or up to date.
I believe organized civilization beganwith ancient Zog figuring out how top make and control fire, makeweapons, and store/preserve food.
If you look around the world todaythere are a few essential tools.
To me primarily two tools other thanour modern forms lof fire ike electoral power. Edged tools andcontainers. Edged tools means making other tools and hunting.Containers in the form of baskets and forms of solid containers meansstoring and transporting water and food.
We have knives, scissors, power saws,power drills...all of which are just advanced edged tools.
Containers are everywhere. Canned food.Gas tanks in cars. Cardboard boxes. Jars. Plastic containers in thekitchen.
We are on larger scale, but ild imagineearly organized civilization was not functionally not much different.Specialization of work means more efficiency and allowing enoughexcess resources to support innovation.
Some ancient thinker needed a societythat has enough extra resources like food to support his work infiguring out stabilizing arrows with feathers and testing thedesigns. For hunting spin stabilized arrows would have been a majoradvance. Greater accuracy at longer distances.
Edged tools, containers, andcontrolling heat.
I watched a great show on Meerkats .They have a complex cooperative society They share and rotateresponsibilities. Building and maintaining tunnels, watching andcaring for young, food gathering and watching for predators.
In the show there was a symbioticrelationship with a bird species. The birds made a warning sound ifit saw a predator like a snake, and the Meerkats would put out food.
I think the short answer is a combination of biological and social evolution that maximized survival.