Mankind is millions of years old. So how many times has society annihilated it's self?

Question

We now have established history for 5000 years, but how many times have we been here before?

Every 5-6000 years does society just annihilate it's self?

Answer 1

What is "society?"

The term simply refers to a group of people that associate together for one reason or another.

Because of this, there is not just one "society." The human population of the earth is made up of millions of societal "pockets."

These pockets can be thought of as villages, towns, churches, cities, countries, religions, "races" (which is an entirely social concept), companies, families, organizations, etc. The human world is not composed of an allegorical soup called "society," but rather a stew with small chunks of "society."

So, your Question is partially on track. Societies, in general, have come and gone. Nations dissappear, only to have new ones develop in their place. Families die off, but many more bloodlines are still around. There is no possible way to calculate how many societies have "annihilated" themselves since the emergence of Homo sapiens. There is no possible way to do so even when talking about recorded history.

Answer 2

Mankind - or home sapiens - is not 'millions of years old'. The species originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, although anatomically modern humans only appear in the fossil record about 130,000 years ago,

Answer 3

we haven't annihilated ourselves once. Aren't we still here?