Quote:
Originally posted by preciousjeni
slight hijack - This is a particularly interesting debate for me! I'm glad you brought it up. /slight hijack
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Well the first major hurdle is agreeing on what constitutes "civilization" - so then you can look for markers or traces that can be attributed to that definition of "civilization". Scholars used to argue that "civilization" begins with historical records (writing, pictograms, hieroglyphs, etc)... but then that obviously excludes cultures that a) never developed a method of material recording (say cultures with extensive oral traditions), or b) we have no evidence of a method of material recording. Now most scholarly research is devoted towards the analysis and interpretation of faunal, floral, remains and artefacts - and how these can show evidence of an organized social group.... of which there are four major groupings:
Mobile Hunter-Gatherer Groups (sometimes called "bands")
Segmentary Society (sometimes called "tribes")
Chiefdom
State
Now personally I believe "civilization" begins when society makes the transition from the "tribal" grouping to a "chiefdom" because of the social-cultural structures that must be developed when more than one "tribal" group is interacting.... but that's my opinion; many per-historic archaeologists will argue that "civilization" begins when society expands to encompass more than a family or clan group (ie. the Mobile Hunter-Gather Groups).
However as you can imagine there is some debate behind the definition of “civilization” as the political and cultural connections associated with claiming ownership of the past are pretty intense…
Hybrid Mode
