Cycles of Evolution

I wasn't really sure where to post this thread, so I settled on posting it here. Lately, I've had a different view on how evolution has created humans than before, I guess. My mind sort of laid out this mini cycle of creation, and I'm sure someone else has thought of this, because it seems a pretty common thought to me.

Basically, it starts out with the evolution of primitive man from whatever type of animal it actually is that humans stemmed off from. This is sort of "stage 1."

Then the evolution moves to stage 2, where humans sort of develop a little bit, began to form into small 'packs' or groups with one another but not any real tribes that communicate with signs or live in villages of any sort. Stage 2 is your sort of primitive caveman stage.

Stage 3 begins when humans begin to form more organized groups, the earliest hints of politics (leaders within villages and tribes), beginnings of language, and creation of weapons to aid in hunting - possibly more advanced than those that were used in stage 2; though I don't know much about when men used spears and such as opposed to rocks or bare hands.

Stage 4: Common languages are formed between large groups of people, politics really begin to surface among peoples, more advanced forms of travel, such as the earliest wagons, and even early cars. Industry surfaces through various intrustrial inventions that changes the way production of products is handled. Instead of just fighting with small scrabbles of people, organized wars are now fought, etc.

Stage 5. This is the stage of high mass production and consumption. This stage includes an extreme level of industrialization among most peoples of the world; common trade rules are established throughout the world; extremely organized politics and economics, creation of EXTREMELY deadly weapons, or WMDs, creation of very 'futuristic' cars, plane and jet travel, space travel, satellites, movement away from many primary jobs that once dominated the economic field, and even an eventual shift out of production jobs, and into service sector jobs. This is the stage that our world is in today.

Stage 6: This is what some would call the 'apocalypse'. The end of all human life, the end of human organization, politics, technology - at least for a while. A worldwide war, caused by the greed of power, and ended by the power of WMDs kills every human on earth.

Now there are two possibilities after Stage 6 - Either all humans are annihilated and humans "re-evolve" from the original animal that they stemmed from, or a VERY limited number of humans survive the nuclear war, perhaps in the jungles of africa, and eventually repopulate the earth. Either way, the Stages seem to restart again.

Has anyone ever thought that something like this might happen on our earth, or even that it might be common to extraterrestrial civilizations that have come before us? That all advanced species go through this stage, and eventually destroy themselves? First of all, I'm sure someone has thought of this before me, and in this thread it may sound sort of sloppy. Forgive me, it just kind of popped into my head, and I wanted to type most of it down before I forgot it. What do you guys think about such a thing, and do you think it's possible that it's commonplace for all advanced species and civilizations, and maybe that it has occured on earth, and a war between the 'humans' before us destroyed all possible remains of their existence, and prevented scientists from discovering it?

Sorry in advance for the structure of this thread.

-Omniscient