Early Civilization: Meaning, History, Similarities & More

The term civilization refers to a complex human society, which combines together human settlements with certain characteristic cultural and technological developments. This commonly refers to urban settlements. Human civilization began with some agricultural settlements for producing surplus food and allowing people to trade for economic development. It helped people to increase their food production, trade, non-agricultural works, and other social stratification. A huge population gathered and created their settlements, where the geographical location was suitable for them. 

Later, administrations and states emerged to control the population of large areas. People practiced certain religions and certain languages for communication. Later, they started having laws and cultural practices for enhancing themselves. This article will explain the introduction of civilization and its geographical location in detail. 

Introduction of Civilization- Degrees of Complexity

Ancient people would choose a place for a civilization based on the availability of food sources. Even nowadays people will relocate to new locations only for the resources. Thousands of years ago, the first civilization began. People created the first civilization for the agricultural produces, social hierarchy, allowing for specialized labour,  and the establishment of cities. The identities of each civilization are its monumental architecture, complex religion, writing, and centralized political power. 

Historians will usually think civilization is an advanced stage for the progression of human cultural evolution. If society remains different and disconnected from others then, historians or anthropologists have represented the society in terms of ‘civilization’. The civilization shows a wide variety of social structures and levels of complexity. 

First Civilizations

The 1st civilization developed from the major river valleys because the floodplains had rich soil and the river provided all the required water for agriculture. Also, the river was used for transportation. The basic civilizations developed urbanization and complexity without the influence of the outside world. Other ancient civilizations either borrowed elements or built on or incorporated them with other civilizations. The early societies arose independently and other ancient civilizations followed them. Historians and archaeologists did various research on different civilizations including the first civilization in the world. The only geographical structure cannot explain the rise of the first civilizations. People who entered the early civilization processed agriculture for thousands of years and developed their own culture and religion.

Similarities Among Ancient Civilizations?

The various features which shows similarities among the ancient civilizations are as under:

Presence of Cities

• The centre of all early civilizations has a city.  

• People from the entire civilization will come to cities for life, work and trade. 

• The people from civilization have their own government, religion, and language for facilitating the people, who are living in the particular civilization. 

• The cities were mainly concentrated on religious, political, and social institutions. 

• Later, they were subdivided into small separate communities. 

Political and Social Structure

• People who belonged to a certain state were kept under a single political structure. 

• Here, the larger communities were connected under a common political system.  

• Because the political structure of civilization plays an important role in rising civilizations. 

• As the political structure of civilization mainly attracts a huge population towards them for labour and resources. 

Religion

• The first civilization in the world was unified by religion with other civilizations. 

• As many people practising the set of beliefs and behaviour, they were kept under the common ground and have mutual trust and respect with each other. 

Politics and Religion

• Politics and religion created huge connections among people in certain civilizations.  

• The political leaders and the religious leaders belong to early civilizations that work for the development of civilization. 

• Also, religious leaders always support political leaders. So, both the political and religious organizations joined hands together to create and reinforce social hierarchies. 

• This was provided with the distinction among individual people and between different groups. 

• The political leaders had rights and the ability to decide on entire societies regarding war, administration etc. 

• The religious leaders in cities took care of society and made communication between people and god. 

Different Classes and Economic Production

• Artisans of early civilization were provided goods and services. 

• Merchants got engaged with the trade of goods. 

• The lower classes labourers of early civilization were involved to do work for high-class people and they were mainly treated as slaves. 

• All the mentioned classes are involved in the economic production of a city.  

Writing

• People in early civilization started writing and maintaining records for managing complex institutions in a better way. 

• Early Mesopotamia have Cuneiform writings, which helped historians to track their economic exchange. 

• Ancient China civilization has Oracle bone inscriptions, which helped to predict the future and spiritual associations. 

• Perform calculations of South America were kept as records for Quipu—knotted strings. 

• The writings of particular civilizations were only eligible for a particular population.  

• Writings also helped to adopt and maintain new laws and orders. 

• The Code of Ur-Nammu from Sumer was the first legal code or written collection of laws, which was written from 2100 to 2050 BCE. 

• Around 1760 BCE, the Code of Hammurabi from Babylon was written. 

• All these written laws helped people to have a consistent legal system. 

• Written information also created significant developments in civilization. 

• So, many civilizations maintained consistent and shared records and laws. A literate population also increases the strength of civilization. 

Architecture

• Different civilizations have another notable feature, that was monumental architecture. 

• The monumental architectures were mainly created for political or religious purposes and sometimes for the public. 

• The pyramids present in Egypt were constructed to preserve the body of the dead ruler. 

• The Pyramids and ziggurats of Mesopotamia were from American societies and became a platform for temples. 

• Defensive walls and sewer systems were constructed for defense and sanitation. 

• For the monumental architecture, many other organizations came forward and constructed large structures. 

Many ancient civilizations had many common features. Agrarian communities of the civilizations took responsibility for providing enough food for all other peoples. Ancient civilization cities also followed the social hierarchies based on gender, wealth, and labour decisions.  Some states also developed powerful states and armies and collected taxes from the public for maintaining them. 

Knowing complete information about the civilization is very difficult and classifying the civilizations according to it is also impossible. Because, the people belong to the Niger River Valley in West Africa said to have achieved urbanization, agricultural surplus, and some specialization of labour. But they never had strong social hierarchies, political structures, or written language. Each civilization was an expert in different areas. 

Conclusion

This article gives you complete information about the early societies and how different civilizations developed in detail and major similarities found in the early civilizations of the world.