WHAT IS CIVILIZATION?
WHEN DID IT START?
Rethinking and Redefining
PLUS: Removing a conceptual obstacle
that has prevented us from fully understanding
the development of civilization
The Neolithic city of Catalhoyuk (anglicized spelling) in the Anatolia region of Turkey was founded about 9500 years ago (BP). It may be the first city with up to 10,000 residents.
A modern city in 2017.
Overview
This article is about three words:
civilization, Neolithic, and prehistoric
In each case, I redefine their meaning
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INTRODUCTION
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Rethinking and Redefining 3 words:
Civilization, Neolithic, and Prehistoric
Civilization, Neolithic, and Prehistoric
These are three important words
whose meanings have changed
whose meanings have changed
These three words have, in many ways, shaped our view of the past and also how we think of ourselves in the present, since we believe we are civilized people. These three words have a lot to do with the world we live in today and our understanding of how our world came to be. But, with new information, new discoveries, and new understandings, these words need to be updated.
For words are to thought [or conceptions]
what tools are to work;
the product depends largely on the growth of the tools.
Durant, Will. History of Civilization:
Volume 1, Chapter 5, The Mental Elements of Civilization.
Volume 1, Chapter 5, The Mental Elements of Civilization.
Why is this important?
How did the world we live in begin?
When did civilization start?
What set it in motion?
How is it that we live in a world that is primarily of our own making since virtually all of us live in urban civilized societies? And how did humans who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years in small tribes as nomadic hunter-gatherers, make the choice to settle in one place, establish villages with thousands of people, and grow crops?
The word, civilization, is something we can be proud of and its usual meaning has shaped how we think of ourselves and also what the future might bring.
However, updating the definition will give us a deeper understanding of the forces and cultural changes that occurred in the past and it might be a guide to the future.
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WHAT IS CIVILIZATION?
A REDEFINITION
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OLDER DEFINITIONS
Several words have consistently been part of the concept of civilization such as 'advanced', 'written language', and 'hierarchy' which I believe should no longer be part of the definition. A definition should be somewhat neutral. It is about how a large sedentary complex society functions given the technology that it has, no matter what the time period or location. It should not be about ranking civilizations; we can leave that to another category. As for written language, it is now clear that there were several civilizations that did not have a written language and, it is my belief, early civilizations did not have it either. As for 'hierarchy' it does seem to be part of most civilizations, nevertheless, there were some such as the Indus Valley civilization that appear to have been more egalitarian so this quality is not essential to a definition either.
TWO TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS OF CIVILIZATION THAT NEED TO BE CHANGED
Here are two definitions that have been around for a long time, but, which I believe, are no longer relevant and more importantly prevent us from considering the value and sophistication of older technologies and systems, such as the Neolithic cultures, that laid the groundwork for civilization.
"Civilization (from the Latin civis=citizen and civitas=city):
is a term applied to any society which has developed a writing system, government, production of surplus food, division of labor, and urbanization."
"A civilization: is any complex society characterized by the development of the state, social stratification, urbanization, and...a writing system."
Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (2001). Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-1650-0. Archived from the original on 1 April 2021. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
Quoted in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization
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So here is my definition of 'civilization':
Civilization:
"A large sedentary society whose complex of ideas, beliefs, customs, and technologies create a state of social organization."
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LEFT: A view of ancient Babylon.
RIGHT: Pompeii.
My definition would cover the Middle to Late Neolithic, the Inca civilization in South America, and the Mississippian culture in North America because all of these did not have a written language.
It also might cover civilizations that we are just learning about and that have been ignored such as the Kingdom of Aksum, an ancient Ethiopian civilization whose incredible Aksum Obelisk (known also as the Rome Stele) shows remarkable skill in craftmanship and design -- although we don't know much more. Clearly, this civilization needs to be studied.
But it would exclude hunter-gatherer groups and large nomadic tribes.
About definitions of specific concepts:
Crafting a definition, especially about a concept is tricky. If it is too general it includes too many communities or cultures that should not be included. If it is too specific, it excludes communities that should be included. So I have tried to walk that fine line with my definition.
LEFT: The Great Mud Mosque, Djenné, Mali
RIGHT: From the city of Petra in Jordan. The columns were carved directly from the solid rock behind the columns.
For example: The recent discovery of a vast community in the Amazon that was described by the Journal Nature clearly describes a civilization, based on my definition.
"Ancient Amazonian cities discovered
A civilization of interconnected cities — including houses, plazas, roads, and canals — has been found hidden under vegetation in Ecuador." LIDAR imaging reveals settlements that are at least 2,500 years old and comparable in size to Mayan cities in Mexico and Central America.
HERE ARE SOME DEFINITIONS BY RESPECTED SOURCES THAT I THINK ARE TOO GENERAL
Definition of civilization by the Oxford/English Dictionary:
"An advanced state of social organization."
Quoted in: Secrets of the Ancient Empires S1: E1
"A civilization is a complex human society that may have certain characteristics of cultural and technological development."
Read the full article that describes the history of the word "civilization" and how it was used.
Encyclopedic Entry: Civilizations
The Aksum Obelisk (known also as The Rome Stele) in Aksum (Tigray Region, Ethiopia).
BTW: The term 'civilization' is probably not the best word to describe the new way of living that Homo sapiens adopted. They left a lifestyle in which small tribes of nomadic foragers lived in the wilderness and replaced it with urban living with manmade crowded cities. However, we are stuck with this word. I did a search for college courses with the word 'civilization' and hundreds showed up.
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THE PROBLEM WITH
THE IDEA OF PREHISTORIC
THE IDEA OF PREHISTORIC
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Deep History And The Neolithic
However, there is a word that does need to be retired. It is obsolete.
That word is "prehistoric" which means the time before written records. While that is the academic definition, in most people's minds it means primitive, crude, backward, and uncivilized. This perception has been an obstacle to understanding the innovations, skills, and precision that are now evident in the Neolithic era, for example.
Before there was radiocarbon dating and modern anthropological techniques, the term prehistory, or most often prehistoric, was invented. It meant anything before the invention of writing. Thus, it dumped 99% of human history that occurred before writing into a kind of trash can that gave it less importance and less validity than the history of wars and empires when writing was available.
Now, today, there is a new movement that would like to get rid of the word *prehistory* for the following reasons. The "deep history" movement has tried to look at history from a much broader perspective than in the past. Traditional history considered the Neolithic era to be prehistoric since writing had not been invented. But from a "deep history" perspective this was an arbitrary cut-off point as it made writing a critical skill. In the past, a writing system was a kind of litmus test that separated an advanced society from a more primitive one. This meant that Neolithic societies did not 'make the cut' and were relegated to being 'primitive'.
However, this point of view ignored the many other important ideas and technologies that were created and developed in the Neolithic period and for which there is now evidence.
Furthermore, it ignored the idea that writing was not needed in smaller communities but was necessary for larger cities. So a lack of writing was not an indication of a lack of skill or primitive thinking, it just was not needed.
LEFT: Early writing tablet recording the allocation of beer; 3100-3000 BC. Example of how writing was begun for accounting purposes.
RIGHT: Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa. Neo-Assyrian period. Removing the term prehistoric in no way reduces the importance of written records such as this incredibly valuable cuneiform tablet.
This is "the record of astronomical positions for Venus, as preserved in numerous cuneiform tablets dating from the first millennium BC."
Also, many people have not understood the basic purpose of writing. Writing was not initially invented to write great myths or poems or histories, it was invented for accounting purposes such as receipts for port deliveries. So its initial reason was quite mundane but necessary for large complex societies. Furthermore, when history was written down, it was usually done by the powerful and the rich, so the story told was often not reliable or it was biased.
PREHISTORIC MIXUPS:You've probably seen stories where stone age people live in the wilderness with dinosaurs, even fighting with them at times. Well, after all, both are prehistoric, i.e., before written history, right?. The only problem is that dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago and stone age people 50,000 years ago never would have lived with dinosaurs roaming around. But in popular culture both are prehistoric so they can be put together.
Here is what one proponent of 'deep history' had to say about the ideas of 'prehistory':
"The proponents of “deep history” seek to upend the discipline’s [the study of history today] most precious precept and method: the reliance on the written record of the past. “No documents, no history,” a manual of historical study commanded in 1898. Everything that came before is shunted into the category of prehistory. [MY COMMENT: So prehistory for humankind is about three million years ago, up until about 6000 years ago, or about 99.8% of human history.]
"The 10 authors of [the book] “Deep History” want to ELIMINATE PREHISTORY AS A CATEGORY [ED: my caps] and unchain historians from the word. “We want to change what counts as evidence,” Mr. Shryock said. “There are all kinds of materials that leave traces and can serve as evidence,” he added, naming fossils, tools, household items, pictures, structures, ecological changes and genetic variations."
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By Patricia Cohen, Sept. 26, 2011
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ABOUT THE NEOLITHIC
AS THE START OF CIVILIZATION
AS THE START OF CIVILIZATION
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I propose that civilization started with the Neolithic which created the foundation for the later great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt
Middle to Late Neolithic = Civilization 1.0
Egypt and Mesopotamia = Civilization 2.0
SUPPORT FOR MY IDEAS
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"The Neolithic Revolution was ultimately necessary to the rise of modern civilization by creating the foundation for the later process of industrialization and sustained economic growth."
Weisdorf, Jacob L. (September 2005). "From Foraging To Farming: Explaining The Neolithic Revolution" (PDF). Journal of Economic Surveys. 19 (4): 561–586. doi:10.1111/j.0950-0804.2005.00259.x. S2CID 42777045. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 July 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
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"The big neolithic story is the domestication of plants and animals, the so-called agricultural revolution. Agriculture may not sound like much of a story, but the agricultural revolution changed almost everything.
"By domesticating plants and animals, we harnessed other living things to serve our purposes, and, through selective breeding, even reshaped them to serve us better. In so doing, we took a decisive step toward material abundance and world domination. The ancient Hebrews thanked their creator God for giving people dominion over other living things. Modern people can credit the Agricultural Revolution."
Chasteen, John Charles. How the Neolithic Age Marked the Beginning of the Modern World: On When Homo Sapiens Became Human, For Better and For Worse. December 4, 2023. Excerpted from After Eden: A Short History of the World by John Charles Chasteen. Copyright © 2023. Available from W.W. Norton & Company.
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In this article, I argue that Middle to Late Neolithic societies were well-developed civilizations. This is important because it means that the roots of civilization in the West go back much further, about 4000-6000 years further in the case of Mesopotamia for example, than our histories have indicated.
If we are to understand our current 'civilizations', i.e., the modern civilizations where we live today, we need to understand how they evolved and became the world we live in today. And it started in the Neolithic.
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From my point of view:
Saying the Neolithic era should not be thought of as early civilization would be like saying that Ford's early mechanized vehicle, the Model-T, should not be considered an automobile because it did not have power steering, or power brakes or an automatic transmission.
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So here is my definition of Neolithic:
The Neolithic Era:
The first stage of modern human behavior and modern societies which was the beginning of civilization. Large numbers of people lived in permanent houses and villages and developed agriculture instead of living in small tribes as nomadic hunter-gatherers which they had done for hundreds of thousands of years.
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MORE ABOUT THE NEOLITHIC ERA
This era had less in common with the Old Stone Age and more in common with the rise of the great civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia and also the Bronze Age. These later civilizations were built on a Neolithic foundation because the great civilizations adopted most of the Neolithic technology and developed it further.
Most historians do not understand that Neolithic technology was often innovative, creative, skilled, and precise. However, this has not been recognized because Neolithic means "New Stone Age" and with that 'stone age' label most researchers assumed that the cultures were primitive.
There are many instances of Neolithic engineering abilities. For example, during the Neolithic era, complex advanced intensive agriculture was mastered so that it produced a surplus which made the rise of the later civilizations possible. They also invented a sophisticated long-term storage system.
LEFT: Cucuteni (a Neolithic Culture) kiln reconstruction, Cucuteni Neolithic Art Museum, Piatra Neamt, Romania. The invention of the kiln was as important as the invention of pottery. It allowed high sustained temperatures which later would be modified for the smelting of metals.
RIGHT: A Neolithic (Ubaid) pottery jar in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Dated to about 4500-4000 BCE, it is from Southern Iraq in the Late Ubaid period.
Also, pottery was invented, a variety of animals were domesticated for a variety of purposes, and flax was grown to make linen, thus bringing the skill of textiles to a high point of development. All of these technologies were passed on to the great civilizations who developed them further.
The domestication of animals began in the Neolithic era. Donkeys were used as pack animals and still are today. Other domesticated animals were used as work animals to plow the fields and there were animals for wool and for meat.
And just as importantly, the Neolithic societies had a different point of view about life. They no longer lived in the natural environment, but instead engineered an environment for themselves. For example, they took reeds that grew wild and in abundance in Mesopotamia and made complex comfortable large and small houses entirely out of reeds and a variety of boats.
LEFT: A reed community center made entirely out of reeds including the rope. This design is believed to be a Neolithic design. Large centers such as this and small homes could be made with reeds.
RIGHT: It is believed that reed boats large and small were developed in the Neolithic era. This picture is of a contemporary reed boat used in Bolivia.
While the 'New Stone Age' was given that name due to the abundance of polished stone tools that were found, no one understood why the tools were polished until recently. Researchers assumed they were only a slight advance over Old Stone Age tools. And stone tools, according to accepted thinking, were at best crude and primitive.
LEFT: Paleolithic 'flake tools'.
RICHT: Neolithic polished tools.
Page 280, Volume 15 of the German illustrated encyclopedia Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4th edition (1885-1890).
However, we now know these tools were sophisticated implements that were a major advance over the Old Stone Age tools. In a real-world test using an actual ancient tool that had not been sharpened in thousands of years, researchers were able to fell trees with great efficiency. It turned out that these tools were well-designed, available, and inexpensive, moreover, they continued to be used long after the establishment of the later civilizations and many were used all through the Bronze Age.
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THE WORLD'S FIRST CITY?
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CATALHOYUK (anglicized spelling)
Çatalhöyük (Turkish spelling)
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The Neolithic town Çatalhöyük (CATALHOYUK) in the Anatolia region of Turkey was perhaps the first city in the world, founded about 9500 years ago (BP) [1]. At its height, 8,000-10,000 people may have lived there. Houses were built right next to each other with no streets; people navigated by walking across the rooftops. Homes were entered from the roof as well. The community was also egalitarian with no signs of distinction between the homes. And it was technologically advanced with evidence of the first looms for weaving, the oldest cloth, and the oldest evidence of fermented bread [2]. Sophisticated basket weaving and pottery were also present. Furthermore, the cloth was not made from flax or wool as researchers assumed, it was cleverly made from fibers from oak trees which was a process that modern people were unaware of.
So my question is simple. Does this qualify as a civilization? And if not why not? And if it does qualify, it pushes back the start of civilization by about 4000 years.
The excavation of Catalhoyuk.
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AFTERWORD
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CIVILIZATION CAN DEVELOP IN UNUSUAL WAYS
HOW MARRIAGE WITH LOVE BECAME PART OF OUR CIVILIZATION
HOW MARRIAGE WITH LOVE BECAME PART OF OUR CIVILIZATION
"Love and Marriage" song
"Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage
You can't have one without the other
Try, try, try to separate them
It's an illusion"
Sung originally by Frank Sinatra.
Medieval Life: From the month of July, "Labors of the months in Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry."
Many historians have considered the Middle Ages or the medieval period, i.e., the time from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance or about 1,000 years, to be a step backward in the development of Western Civilization. They are often called the Dark Ages. People lived in small independent communities, not unlike the Neolithic era and life was static although communities were interconnected through markets, trading, and various events. This era has generally been dismissed as unimportant for the development of civilization.
Since we humans invented civilization, we believe we can control it. But this is often not the case. Civilization can have its own dynamic. Some things take on a life of their own and affect how a civilization develops, such as the following.
While not well understood, the Medieval era contributed and unleashed a powerful force into Western Civilization. It was/is a force that humans would have to contend with right up to the present day. I am talking about LOVE.
Until recently marriages were mostly arranged or handled like a business transaction and a wife was often regarded as a man's property. Love was not part of marriage. The popular late 12th-century author Andreas Capellanus wrote "Love can have no place between husband and wife," in his book De amore ("Concerning Love").
LEFT: A typical Occitania village in what is today Southern France where the tradition of a traveling troubadour originated.
RIGHT: A troubadour in the 13th Century.
The Medieval 'dialogue' about love (so to speak) began with traveling musicians called troubadours who sang songs about idealized love by a noble man for a noble woman, love that was mostly Platonic. But troubadours also sang a few other songs that were erotic.
Then around 1200 C.E. the passionate romantic and sexual legend of the illicit love affair between Prince Tristan and Princess Isolde, which was based on a Celtic legend, became a sensation. The legend was, at first, sung by traveling troubadours. Later there were epic stories and songs, at least one major opera, paintings, stained glass depictions, and even floor tiles that told the story. Today you would say it went viral. It clearly struck a cord that resonated throughout Western Europe and became a central legend for the next 700 years.
LEFT: A carving: "Tristan and Isolde at the fountain, King Mark spying upon them, detail from a casket panel. Ivory, Paris, 1340–1350."
RIGHT: Stained Glass (1862) designed by leading Pre Raphaelites "Sir Tristram and la Belle Ysoude drink the potion"
The lovers had not begun this affair out of choice; they mistakenly both took a love potion which caused them to fall hopelessly in love. In other words, their passion was not their fault but it was nevertheless undeniable. For hundreds of years throughout Western Europe this narrative was retold in different ways and in vernacular languages, the spoken language of ordinary people in each region, rather than the formal literary language, Latin. These many versions examined love from various angles both moral and immoral, angry and sympathetic, and the choice between duty and passion.
In any case, a dialogue about the strong mutual feelings that all men and women could have for each other was unleashed although in the beginning it mostly applied to the nobility. And it had another effect. It significantly elevated the status of women as love was now seen as a two-way emotion, with a woman's feelings as important as that of the man.
"Earthenware floor tile. Scene from the story of Tristan on 13th-century tiles from Chertsey Abbey. Representation of Tristan and Isolde on board. the ship taking them to Cornwall." Late 13th Century.
Today we assume that most people want to find love, It is, for example, the main subject of thousands of songs, which indicates that the influence of this Medieval thinking continues to this day. Recently in 2006, a full length 2 hour major motion picture was made about the legend.
And even the central symbol of the Medieval era, the "knight in shining armor" is part of today's culture. The modern idea of a chivalrous man comes directly from that tradition.
Tristan in his armor with Isolde and the Potion.
What does this have to do with civilization? It affects the tone and expectations of today's civilizations. But more importantly, each generation now is a result of the love matches between men and women. The societies we have today and the people who live in them came about due to this relatively new feeling.
The knight in shining armor who is about to go into battle
is given a loving farewell by a fair maiden. God Speed! (1900)
is given a loving farewell by a fair maiden. God Speed! (1900)
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NOTES
[1]
Catalhoyuk Models
Above Stills -- First Four Images
From Video Of Catalhoyuk Model Recreation.
WWW.ZDF.DE: Catalhöyük: humanity's first large-scale settlement (CC BY 4.0). Video with Creative Commons license for free use.
The producer, ZDF, (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen) is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate.
Recreation Of A Room In Catalhoyuk
On-site restoration of a typical interior. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.
Long Shot Of The City Of Catalhoyuk
Model of the Neolithic settlement (7300 BC) of Catal Höyük (Turkey). Weimar (Thuringia). Museum for Prehistory in Thuringia.
See Also:
Museum Of Anatolian Civilizations
[2]
The Warp-Weighted Loom, Worldwide, 7000 BCE
by Kristy Beauchesne, Sun Eoh and Kate McClosky
Anatolian Neolithic Weavers At Çatalhöyük Used Trees to Make The Oldest Cloth
Çatalhöyük Weavers Made The Oldest Cloth Artifacts Ever
Archaeologists discover what may be the oldest known piece of bread
Microscopic imaging confirmed that the dough was fermented.
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