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“Civilization”
Between 4000 and 3000 B.c., significant technical developments began to transform the
Neolithic towns. The invention of writing enabled records to be kept, and the use of metals
marked a new level of human control over the environment and its resources. Already
before 4000 B.c., craftspeople had discovered that metal-bearing rocks could be heated to
liquefy metals, which could then be cast in molds to produce tools and weapons that were
more useful than stone instruments. Although copper was the first metal to be utilized in
producing tools, after 4000 B.c., craftspeople in western Asia discovered that a
combination of copper and tin produced bronze, a much harder and more durable metal
than copper. Its widespread use has led historians to speak of a Bronze Age from around
3000 to 1200 B.c., when bronze was increasingly replaced by iron. At first, Neolithic
settlements were hardly more than villages. But as their inhabitants mastered the art of
farming, they gradually began to give birth to more complex human societies. As wealth
increased, such societies began to develop armies and to build walled cities. By the
beginning of the Bronze Age, the concentration of larger numbers of people in the river
valleys of Mesopotamia and Egypt was leading to a whole new pattern for human life.
As we have seen, early human beings formed small groups that developed a simple
culture that enabled them to survive. As human societies grew and developed greater
complexity, a new form of human existence- called civilization--came into being. A
civilization is a complex culture in which large numbers of human beings share a number
of common elements. Historians have identified a number of basic characteristics of
civilizations, most of which are evident in the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations.
These include (1) an urban revolution: cities became the focal points for political,
economic, social, cultural, and religious development; (2) a distinct religious structure:
the gods were deemed crucial to the community's success, and professional priestly
classes, as stewards of the gods' property, regulated relations with the gods; (3) new
political and military structures: an organized government bureaucracy arose to meet
the administrative demands of the growing population while armies were organized to
gain land and power; (4) a new social structure based on economic power: while kings
and an upper class of priests, political leaders, and warriors dominated, there also
existed a large group of free people (farmers, artisans, craftspeople) and at the very
bottom, socially, a class of slaves; (5) the development of writing: kings, priests,
merchants, and artisans used writing to keep records; and (6) new forms of significant
artistic and intellectual activity, such as monumental architectural structures, usually
religious, occupied a prominent place in urban environments.
Why early civilizations developed remains difficult to explain. Since civilizations developed
independently in India, China, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, can general causes be identified
that would explain why all of these civilizations emerged? A number of possible
explanations of the beginning of civilization have been suggested. A theory of challenge and
response maintains that challenges forced human beings to make efforts that resulted in the
rise of civilization. Some scholars have adhered to a material explanation. Material forces,
such as the growth of food surpluses, made possible the specialization of labor and
development of large communities with bureaucratic organization. But the area of the
Fertile Crescent, in which Mesopotarnian civilization emerged, was not naturally conducive
to agriculture. Abundant food could only be produced with a massive human effort to
carefully manage the water, an effort that created the need for organization and
bureaucratic control and led to civilized cities. Some historians have argued that nonmaterial
forces, primarily religious, provided the sense of unity and purpose that made such
organized activities possible. Finally, some scholars doubt that we are capable of ever
discovering the actual causes of early civilization.

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“Civilization”

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