In the past, the word “civilization” has had many value-laden connotations. It often brought to mind a view that material civilization was of great value in itself and that it could be a sign of progress in human evolution. It also tended to carry a sense of superiority, implying that one was civilized if he or she lived a life free from the savagery of nature. Such a sense has since been replaced by a more nuanced and less value-laden understanding of the term. Civilization is simply a stage of human development where people live with a reasonable degree of comfort and can devote time to cultural pursuits.
People in all parts of the world have achieved varying degrees of civilization, but some societies are more advanced than others. We can define civilization broadly, as a form of advanced human development, to include all aspects of culture that distinguish humans from other animals. This includes art and education, but also a sense of community that makes a society a civilization, such as a religious faith, morality, or even just a shared language. Civilization can be found around the globe, from the ancient Egyptians and Mayans to modern Western societies.
The beginnings of civilization involve the first groupings of people into villages, towns, and cities. This enables people to work together to make a good living and frees up time for cultural pursuits, such as art, music, and education. Eventually, these early communities began to grow food in the form of crops and to cultivate animal herds. People then developed tools to aid their work, enabling them to build more and better houses, dig irrigation ditches, and construct other useful buildings and utensils. These tools became an important part of their culture, and they allowed people to expand their farming and production beyond what could be accomplished by hand labor alone.
Civilizations usually grew up in river valleys because these areas were fertile and accessible to fresh water. As they developed, the earliest cities required a dependable water supply so that their inhabitants would not die of thirst. In addition, the availability of a reliable water source made it possible to cultivate food and produce surplus artifacts for trade.
These surplus artifacts and food enabled a basic level of government to develop. As governments grew more complex, the need for written records arose. The need for written records also led to the emergence of religion, which could be used to explain and guide behavior.
Big history, the study of how humans have developed throughout the world, suggests that simple states and civilizations emerged at about the same time everywhere on earth, give or take a few thousand years. It is not clear why this occurred, but one possibility is that the same process of acquiring power from above and from below occurred in several places simultaneously.
Despite the difficulties in defining “civilization,” the five essential facets of it do seem to be universally recognized: division of labor, food security, writing systems, a central government, and religion. Interestingly, the North American mound-builders of Watson Brake, Poverty Point, and Moundville and the pre-Columbian city of Cahokia all meet these criteria.