Community Vs Civilization

A civilization, by dictionary definition, is a relatively high level of cultural and technological development. However, this does not give a clear boundary between communities that are civilizations and those that are not. [I will be using community or civilization in quotes to refer to a group of people that is not yet considered a civilization.] Generally, a community is a civilization if it has a government, a system of belief, and a system of writing, among others. However, I would like to argue that the most important aspect of a civilization is its ability to keep a record of its own history. Just as convention distinguishes history from prehistory by the ability of people to read, write, and keep stories about themselves, a civilization

At this point in human evolution, the text states that humans have already developed the use of the tongue and throat for language. This gives way to the start of oral tradition. These first groups of humans were nomadic, moving from one place to another to look for food. However, as these humans developed the use of tools in hunting, they could do so more efficiently, thus slowing their nomadism. Over time, this community may develop certain things that are important to a civilization—an organized government, a belief system, and communication—and eventually settle. However, as described in the text, diseases moved with humans. Once humans have settled, these diseases will acclimatize and have the potential to spread rapidly throughout the community, gradually evolving in line with any medical development in these communities. When humans cannot cope with these diseases anymore, the community dies along with the

Eventually, writing systems or something similar to writing systems may have been developed by early humans to facilitate better communication. When this trend of writing things down starts, the communities humans formed may have formed a system of organization and belief—proto-government and proto-religion/science. At one point in this “knowledge expansion,” early humans may realize that they need to write down their story. This is the point where humans have become aware that there will be people ahead of them that may come across their culture in one way or another and that they need to say “Hello; we existed” much like how we broadcast radio waves and send plaques to space in the hope of interacting with extraterrestrial life. This is the point where this group of humans can already be called a civilization.

This ultimately falls down into human subjectivity and how our concept of a civilization evolves over time. It is we who define what a community must have to be considered a civilization. If we do not know that a “civilization” existed somewhere, we will not be able to study it, thus it will not be considered a civilization. Therefore, I believe that a civilization must have the capacity to create and keep records of their own history in order for us to study them and ultimately decide that they