What
is Civilization?
To decide what a civilization
might look like, first, we must decide what “civilization” means.
Too often such a
fundamental question gets skipped over, as if we already know the answer.
But we don’t.
This confusion owes partly
to the fact “civilization” has both a popular and an academic definition.
How we use the term in casual conversation—“That wasn’t very civilized”—isn’t
how anthropologists and historians employ it.
Not to mention even anthropologists and historians can’t fully agree on
a definition, as ideas about civilization have evolved over the past hundred-plus
years or so. We’ve learned more about the
rise of civilization in various places around the globe, which includes new
discoveries that challenge previous assumptions.
Some might think
history a very static discipline, never changing…after all, it’s history, right? How can the past change?
Yet history is fluid
because—if the past may not change—what we know about it does. New discoveries pop
up, new questions are asked, and new perspectives reorient our research.
To quantify
“civilization,” then, is tricky. At
times, I’d like to throw out the term altogether because it drags along so much
horrific historical baggage. Nonetheless,
we’re stuck with it, so historians and anthropologists/sociologists look for
the best (most generic) way to define it.
A civilization
coalesces when a complex culture reaches such a level of development that specialization
of work is created, and social hierarchy emerges. As part of this, civilizations may (often do)
exert control over neighboring territories in order to access needed resources.
This is nicely broad—but
some civilizations defy even such generic parameters. Take the Hohokum Pueblo peoples of the
American Southwest. These cultures focused
inward, not outward, and as such, did not practice regional dominance. The why has been debated, but whatever the
cause, some would say they don’t qualify as a “civilization.” Yet anyone who’s actually seen Pueblo Benito
(et al.) might find it astonishing not to
label such an advanced and diverse society as a civilization.
So it’s important, I
think, to allow a certain amount of flexibility
in our definitions. We should never
underestimate the importance of geography on human historical development. Ergo, we should not be surprised to find
great diversity in human civilization, just as we have vast diversity in global
environments.
Let’s pick apart, then,
the basics of “civilization.”
First, why settlements,
then civilizations developed is a point of contention. V. Gordon Childe once theorized that full
agriculture was necessary for permanent settlements. As the world warmed and environments became
increasingly hostile, or at least difficult (Holocene period), humans needed to
know where their next meal was coming from.
Abandoning hunting-gathering lifestyles, they began to farm, first using
horticulture, then full-fledged agriculture.
These farmers stayed put, settlements grew in size, and eventually, in select
river-valley areas, the first cities emerged.
The path to civilization thus seemed set and logical…
…until discoveries such
as the temple at Göbekli Tepe and the Natufian civilization of the Levant and
Syria threw a spanner in the works.
At Göbekli Tepe, a
temple was built around the same time as or even before farming developed in
the Ancient Near East. (The earliest
structures date c. 12,000-11,500 BCE.) More
curiously, the temple wasn’t part of any settlement or city. It’s just…there. Çatalhöyük is (sorta) next door, but it
developed later than the earliest structures at Göbekli Tepe, and lacks ritual
centers. Did it emerge as a sort of Neolithic
suburbia for those who worshiped at Göbekli Tepe? Perhaps the two are related; perhaps they’re
not. We don’t have enough evidence to
say. But certainly the temple calls into
question Childe’s idea that farming was invented, settlements followed, and
then public projects such as temples and palaces were constructed as
settlements grew.
The earliest known
temple in the world, with very fine carvings and precise astronomical layout
(it’s not “primitive” by any stretch), was constructed in the middle of nowhere
and associated with no town. It seems to
be a site of pilgrimage.
So did agriculture birth
cities and religion, or did religion
birth agriculture?
Likewise, the Natufians
in the same basic region maintained a hunting-gathering lifestyle even while
settling down in places such Damascus or Jerico (the oldest continually
inhabited site in the world). Farming
came later.
So did agriculture
birth settlement, or did settlement birth
agriculture?
The answer owes to the
peculiarities of each unique environment.
In short, there’s not ONE
answer. Chicken, egg, chicken-god—they all came first, at least somewhere. It’s not that Childe was wrong, but that his
theory was too constrictive. The real
story is BIGGER.
When
it comes to history, we lock ourselves on a collision course with error when we
insist on a single cause or single outcome. Human beings do things for a lot of
reasons—sometimes even mutually contradictory reasons—and it behooves us to
remember that.
Back to “civilization.”
The two most consistent
elements seem to be 1) specialization of work, and 2) stratification of
society. If everything else might look
different, these two things lie at the heart of the definition of a
civilization.
Specialization of work
requires the ability to produce food in enough abundance to feed even those
members of a society who are not directly involved in food acquisition. That means food SURPLUS and food STORAGE. These are very basic requirements, and don’t
seem to change, whatever else a civilization may look like. Such a society must then find a means to redistribute the food surplus to those
involved in tasks other than food production.
That generally means taxation in some form. (Death and taxes….)
Yet taxes need not equate
to the suppression of the masses under the heel of a privileged elite. Again, we must allow for nuance. Most of these early elites lacked the means
to enforce any crippling inequality. (That came later, with armies.) Still, social hierarchy did emerge.
With specialization of
work, human nature seems inclined to create a value system related to that
work. Which jobs matter more? The farmer growing the barley/wheat/millet/maize,
or the priest who convinces the gods to bring annual floods or rain that allow those
fields to produce? Most early societies
favored the priest over the farmer, because gods were more powerful than human
beings. Ergo, in the majority of early
civilizations, priests (not warlords) occupied the top echelon.
But not in all
(exceptions, exceptions). And even in
those where priests did dominate initially, rule transitioned from priests, to
priest-kings, to warrior kings, or tribal chieftains establishing dynasties of
rule-by-clan. Occasionally kings became
gods (Pharaoh), or the Son of Heaven (the Zhou). And sometimes civilizations defied all of
these to develop oligarchic councils where rule was shared among elite
families.
Human
societies develop according to the needs of their environment and historical
situation. At the root
of it, we’re practical survivalists.
We’re also glorious in our sheer variety.
Yet this is also why we
cannot define “civilization” by specifics, nor isolate a single trajectory that
leads to it. Too many possible rivers
feed that ocean.
Finally, we should
address the tendency for civilizations to exercise dominance over
neighbors. As mentioned above, such
dominance should not, I think, be integral to defining a group as a
civilization. Yet dominance, or attempts
at it (more or less successful), is a characteristic of most civilizations.
Sometimes that dominance
was expressed militarily, by putting neighbors under vassalage and demanding tribute. But sometimes dominance was expressed via
economics.
We think of the latter
less often when we talk about control/influence, yet the earliest (known) large
city—Uruk in Sumer (Mesopotamia)—dominated the Euphrates and Tigris by trade.
Uruk exported Sumerian culture along with trade goods, carried by
merchants on river boats. It resulted in
what we call the First Urbanization. And
no armies strong-armed anybody. Military
dominance had to wait for Sargon of Akkad.
Likewise in the
Americas, for a variety of reasons, wars were fought for captives—not land control. The major cultures of Mesoamerica, such
Teotihuacan and the Maya, or of North America, such as Cahokia on the
Mississippi, dominated their neighbors via trade. They, too, exported their culture with goods,
just as Uruk had long before them.
We could even say modern
US dominance is fueled as much by the American economy as by the military industrial complex. McDonalds, Apple, and Coca-Cola rule the
world more effectively than the Marines.
(Don’t tell the Marines that.)
In fact, throughout
history, trade creates more effective bonds between civilization centers and
their client kingdoms than military suppression. The latter is built on fear and intimidation
(which only goes so far), while the former is built on desire (to acquire). In
short, trade is positive, war is negative.
Or as my mother used to say, “You catch more flies with honey than
vinegar.”
Cultures work the same
way.
So when thinking about
cultural construction in alternate worlds, history can be one’s friend, as long
as we recognize the wide variety that history has to offer.
Programmatic History
(that which seeks a single model, explanation, or driving force) is positivist
and simplistic, and breaks apart on the cliffs of our vast human variety. As a historian, I am continually amazed by human
ingenuity and creativity. When facing
obstacles of environment or situation, we excel at finding a way around, over,
or under it. Humanity doesn’t listen to
“No” well. I think that’s a virtue more
often than it’s a fault.
And it leads to a lot
of shapes that “civilization” might take around the globe throughout history.
