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To: MNDude
“I'm curious what is the criteria to be considered a civilization?”

In my opinion civilization does not require writing. For example Slavic or Scandinavian states/petty kingdoms hadn't use writing until they accepted Christianity in 9-11th century AD. Nevertheless, some of them were fairly strong and well organized. Does it require cities ? I guess it depends how you define a city. It definitely requires a sort of urban permanent settlements + control over territory + the structure of power.

In short, civilization should somehow resemble contemporary era countries. Göbekli Tepe is fascinating but (unless they find out something totally new over there) it wasn't a civilization, more like a place of occasional gatherings. In the last decades we learned that people living 5-10 thousand years ago were not as primitive as previously thought but still they weren't really creating civilizations, they were more like a missing link between primitive hunters/gatherers and civilizations.

Regarding the ice age civilizations and so on... never say never but for now there's nothing indicating that they existed. They are domain of new age cults / conspiracy nutjobs, who generate a lot of fake information. Actually, many archeologists would straight away give their kidney for the opportunity to discover some unknown ancient civilization.

74 posted on 02/19/2022 12:13:51 PM PST by Grzegorz 246
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To: Grzegorz 246

Norse runes originated about the beginning of the Christian era, circa 0 AD or BC.


77 posted on 02/19/2022 12:17:58 PM PST by marktwain (Amazing people can read a persons entire personality and character from one photograph.)
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To: Grzegorz 246
In my opinion civilization does not require writing

When I mentioned literacy, I was deliberately trying to avoid mention of writing, as we generally understand the term. A better -- but longer -- way to put it is, "the ability to convey abstractions with symbols."

FWIW, the earliest extant writing specimens are the works of ancient bookkeepers.

83 posted on 02/19/2022 12:34:27 PM PST by Buttons12 ( )
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To: Grzegorz 246
"Regarding the ice age civilizations and so on... never say never but for now there's nothing indicating that they existed. They are domain of new age cults / conspiracy nutjobs" and Canadians.
91 posted on 02/19/2022 1:50:49 PM PST by outofsalt (If history teaches us anything, it's that history rarely teaches anything.)
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