What Was The First 'civilisation'?

[Rameses the Great]

True ... the difference is, with the exception of a handful of remarkable sites like Ur, one of only a few centuries and a gap that is closed very rapidly by the Egyptians. By about 3100BC they are neck and neck in terms of development, and this is before either of them have begun building pyramids or ziggurats. Both develop writing around the same time, both begin monumental construction around the same time, and Egypt is the first to achieve lasting political unity in the form of a stable state, under Narmer (c. 3000BC). Mesopotamia doesn't get there until Sargon's unification under the Akkadian Empire (c. 2300BC) and that doesn't last long.

 

The only real difference is that the first cities sprung up in and around Mesopotamia, and there are really only a handful of those in 4000BC.

 

Fair enough.

Edited February 23, 2007 by Rameses the Great

[caldrail]

Doesn't this depend on how you define civilisation? At what point to you cease being a barbaric tribesman and become a civilised man? For me, reading and writing must be considered an important step but then primitive societies sometimes evolve ways to record ideas even in an unsophisticated fashion. Or is it urban living that defines it? At what point does a village of mud huts progress to a civilised town?

[Ursus]

Doesn't this depend on how you define civilisation? At what point to you cease being a barbaric tribesman and become a civilised man? For me, reading and writing must be considered an important step but then primitive societies sometimes evolve ways to record ideas even in an unsophisticated fashion. Or is it urban living that defines it? At what point does a village of mud huts progress to a civilised town?

 

 

I think it largely does depend on how you define it. Urban living and literacy should be counted as indicators. And while libertarians may object, I think the invention of government (beyond tribal chieftans and village witch doctors) is also a large factor.

[edgewaters]

Or is it urban living that defines it? At what point does a village of mud huts progress to a civilised town?

 

 

When specialization becomes apparent. Instead of the populace being hunter-gatherers and maybe part-time horticulturalists who craft their own tools (as at Catal Hayuk), a truly urban society has people who specialize in a single task; as a craftsman, farmer, hunter, builder, trader, and so on.

[Gracchi]

indus valley, hurrians,. , atlantis in the andes, rice in china

 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/kurdish/htdocs/facts/history.html

 

also intresting the earliest agriculture was at high levels well above sea level

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture

 

the sahara desert has dired up not just the last once, acting like a pump effect, pushing people out from africa at different times.

 

just giving some more ideas, thats all.