Changes

While there is a lot of diversity about the end times and mythology that go along with this, there are also several common themes we do see. The concept of the apocalypse was relatively recent in human history, where we do not see any evidence for this in early Bronze Age cultures. However, by the first millennium BCE, emerging Old World religions begin to incorporate belief systems that revolved around the end of the world or at least the end of the current world, with some emphasizing it as a time of judgment and the cosmic battle between good and evil.  In the New World, beliefs about the end of the world were not as central to the overall belief systems, but they also played a role in shaping practices, including human sacrifices in the Aztec culture. Placating a god from destroying life as it was known seems to have been a key critical motivation for human sacrifice. Nevertheless, these belief systems indicate a wide diversity of practices and ideas about the end of the world. Still, but they also perhaps reflect a common fear and understanding that life itself was always potentially fragile , and societies could collapse.