“Civilation” = writing as communication
Mesop has some of the earliest evidence of writing
ping
“Gobekli Tepe, in Turkey, was a temple was built along a grand geometric plan in 9000 BC.”
The place is amazing and they haven’t excavated all of it yet.
Because the Mesotopmanians were always out on their front steps yelling at kids to stay off their lawns.
This is Graham Hancock’s field. There’s plenty of evidence of Ice Age civilizations that are currently under water off the coasts of India and Japan.
It’s because there weren’t simply a few potamians, there was a whole Mesopotamians
Listen dude, you don’t wanna mess with the Potamians.
History, like science, is constantly being revised. Stuff we read about in the News and even some history publications either reflects cor orthodox view, or its conjecture about how new facts might fit into a new orthodoxy.
You sent me down the rabbit hole and I ended up here - https://www.ancienthistorylists.com/ancient-civilizations/10-oldest-ancient-civilizations-ever-existed/.
There is a great discussion in the comments on what defines a civilization. Might be a place to check out.
They were the first to brew beer. You can’t have a civilization without beer.
I see the earth as an old painting in this way: Sometimes a painting would be put to canvas, only to be whitewashed and another painting would be put on top of it.
I see the surface of the earth as a canvas upon which God created something. He then “whitewashed it” and put something new on it. And we have no idea how many iterations took place.
Our particular painting began with all the writings and artifacts we find on or near the surface. However, if we carefully peal away the top painting, we find one under it. And one under that one. And eventually we find a layer with things likd Dinosaurs, and we go deeper to find more.
And to be clear, if our modern planet was to be hit with a large enough cosmic event, though the planet may survive, all remnant of modern technology would be wiped out. Or virtually all remnant. This may explain some OOP artifacts.
So, though we know a lot, do we really have any clue how long ago there may have actually have been technological societies on this very planet? Our forefathers didn’t know North and south america existed, nor were they privy to the significantly advanced culture in North America. What do we not yet know about the distant history of our plenet and civilizations that preceded us.
The bible shares information back to Genesis 1:2, but we have no clue what happened in the time period of indeterminant length between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. We can only speculate, and let archeological discovery lead the way.
Probably the best place to start is the Bible which places the beginning of civilization around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq which I think is considered where Mesopotamia was.
In short, common culture, literacy, property; generally rising from religion, trade, and law. Each, respectively, tends to enhance the other, e.g., trade is good for literacy and literacy is good for trade. Similarly, religion, trade and law are all mutually reinforcing.
There seems to be a critical number for human organization, a theory advanced by, among others, Antony Jay in Corporation Man. A good working number for a committee, a mammoth hunt, a board of directiors, a corporation, a municipality, etc. It's this I'm referring to when I say "grows beyond the range of a tribe." Beyond a certain level of complexity, you need abstract thinking. It also helps to have a vehicle -- horse, wheel, boat. And finally you need to be successful in colonizing (spreading your common culture).
That's the best I can do before lunch!
I see it as the definite beginning of Western Civilization. I don’t know the early dates for China, but they ‘were a far away land’ and unknown to the Mesopotamians, as far as we current know. And as Cuban Leaf said, we trace, though the Bible our beginnings there.
As far as we know currently, Gobekli Tepe was not a part of any civilization. Mesopotamia had a network of cities bound (loosely by our standards) by culture and trade.
That said, I suspect those creatures depicted on the GT pillars were totem animals, representing not prey but tribes of humans. This would suggest GT was a meeting place, a primitive “summit.”
We still do totems, and not just for sports; it may be pre-installed in us.
Check your taskbar or dock, count the animal icons :)
“Civilization” apparently implies urbanization, political organization and writing. If I understand correctly, Gobekli Tepe and Catalhoyuk didn’t have writing or much of a political organization. I wonder if territorial extension also matters. Sumerian civilization was composed of many independent city states spread out over the Tigris/Euphrates valley. If Gobekli Tepe is a one-off it’s less likely to be considered a civilization.
One of the definitions of civilization is the process by which a society or place reaches an advanced stage of social and cultural development and organization. I’m not quite sure how the people that determined the existence of a civilization defined it. What is an advanced stage? For all intents and purposes the garden of Eden, if you follow religion, could be considered a civilization because it flourished and was self containing but had no culture as it was not needed. Yet two people flourished in it.
Is an existence of anything but the ability to survive safely required to call it a civilization? If that’s the case, the first two resemblance of people that came from the sea would be one for as long as they survived. So we’re back beyond Cro-Magnon and down on all fours. Need a better, single definition of civilization to consider the answer to the question.
wy69
One of the definitions of civilization is the process by which a society or place reaches an advanced stage of social and cultural development and organization. I’m not quite sure how the people that determined the existence of a civilization defined it. What is an advanced stage? For all intents and purposes the garden of Eden, if you follow religion, could be considered a civilization because it flourished and was self containing but had no culture as it was not needed. Yet two people flourished in it.
Is an existence of anything but the ability to survive safely required to call it a civilization? If that’s the case, the first two resemblance of people that came from the sea would be one for as long as they survived. So we’re back beyond Cro-Magnon and down on all fours. Need a better, single definition of civilization to consider the answer to the question.
wy69
In college introductory archaeology class, I dimly recall learning the definition of civilization according to Australian archaeologist V. Gordon Childe:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/urban-revolution
Childe identified 10 formal criteria that, according to his system, indicate the development of urban civilization: increased settlement size, concentration of wealth, large-scale public works, writing, representational art, knowledge of science and engineering, foreign trade, full-time specialists in nonsubsistence activities, class-stratified society, and political organization based on residence rather than kinship. He saw the underlying causes of the urban revolution as the cumulative growth of technology and the increasing availability of food surpluses as capital.
(However, I can easily imagine that this definition has undergone significant tweaking by TPTB in recent decades...)