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. The term is difficult to define because not all \’civilizations\’ include every one of the above facets. The term is often used, therefore, to suggest a highly developed culture.
•The first civilizations include:
•Indus Valley Civilization: 7000 to 600 BCE
•Mesopotamia\’s Sumerian civilization: 6000-1750 BCE
•Egyptian civilization: c. 6000-30 BCE
Concept of Civilization
•The concept of \’civilization\’ as a state of cultural development superior to others – as the term is often used in the present day – was first developed by the Greeks. The historian Herodotus (484-425/413 BCE) famously made the distinction between \’civilized\’ Greeks and \’barbarous\’ non-Greeks in his Histories.
•The word \’civilization\’ was first used in eighteenth-century France, but the western idea of a civilized society dates back to ancient Greece and Rome. During the classical period, Greeks began to see themselves as not just different from, but better than, other peoples. When Herodotus, writing in the mid-fifth century BCE, referred to \’the barbarians\’, this was really a shorthand term for non-Greeks; but by the time of Aristotle, a hundred years later, barbarians and barbarous nations could be defined by certain types of behavior – their treatment of slaves, a barter rather than money economy – that were frowned on by the civilized Greeks. Barbarians had, through their cultural habits, become lesser people than the Greeks, who were seen by themselves, and later Europeans, as the epitome of civilization.
•This became the prevailing view in the West and, in some scholarly and political circles, still is, but \’civilization\’ is no longer understood by anthropologists and scholars as a qualifying term suggesting one culture is better than another but, rather, to define what a \’mature culture\’ is. To this end, as noted, for a culture to be regarded as a \’civilization,\’ it should have developed: Writing system, Government, surplus food, Division of labor, Urbanization
Conclusion
•\’Civilization\’ is a term that remains loosely defined, and the modern Western understanding of that term is remarkably recent. Up until the mid-19th century, no one even knew Sumer (ancient civilization founded in the Mesopotamia region) had ever existed outside of a mention in the Bible. Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mesopotamian cuneiform were not deciphered until the 1820s and 1850s, respectively, and the Indus Valley Civilization\’s city of Harappa was only discovered in 1829 and left unexcavated and undefined until 1924-1925. Prior to these advances, Western scholars considered Greece the \’cradle of civilization\’ whose culture was adapted and developed by Rome, but, in reality, Greece and Rome were latecomers in the development of civilization. Many civilizations went unrecognized up through the 20th century, such as the African Kingdom of Zimbabwe, whose capital, Great Zimbabwe (1100 to 1550), is understood today as an architectural masterpiece.
•The West African kingdoms, including the Yoruba with their capital at Ife (founded c. 500), were also ignored as they did not conform to the definition of \’civilization\’ as it was understood at the time. As more information has come to light, and long-held nationalistic and racialist narratives have been rejected, the definition of \’civilization\’ has changed and become far more inclusive. The five essential facets defining a civilization in the present day will most likely be modified and revised in the next 100 years as they have already been challenged and continue to be.
