ancient civilisations and empires in history

let's list 'em.
off the top of my head, there's ancient greece (philosophy! sculpture! tragedy!), rome (gladiators), the byzantine empire/constantinople (mosaics, awesome architecture), ancient india (uh.. elephants?), ancient egypt (pyramids and papyrus!) .. ancient china (vases, funny hats and robes), feudal japan (ninjas)

am I missing any? add please.

""not necessarily" leaves so much more room for doubt in that department than you are willing to admit."

In your little world maybe. But in my world where accepting you are wrong and criticism are not the most terrible things in the world it isn't. If by modern thinking you mean stone age thinking, then you are right. If by modern thinking you mean large scale organised civilisation then it began in 3 seperate instances in the flood plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, in South China and in Central America. If by modern thinking you mean rational philosophy then it began with the first simple use of mathematics to predict the movement of the stars, moon and sun which again occurred in several seperate instances.

The idea that modern Morrocans are mainly "anglos" is so completely absurd I will leave it up to you whether you prompt me into responding to the notion.