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RESOURCE A RT I C L E

Key Components of Civilization

Civilization describes a complex way of life characterized by urban areas,
shared methods of communication, administrative infrastructure, and
division of labor.

GRADES SUBJECTS
9 - 12+ Arts and Music, Geography, Human Geography, Social Studies,
Civics, World History

P H OTO G R A P H

Assyria
Flood plains have historically been ideal places
to develop human settlements. Rivers provide
both a natural transportation network and
source of water for irrigation and industry. The
relatively level land can be developed either as
agricultural fields or sites for habitation or
business. The ancient cultures of Mesopotamia
(such as Assyria, above) thrived in the fertile
flood plains between the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers in Southwest Asia.

I L L U S T R A T I O N B Y H . M . H E R G E T,

N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

P H OTO G R A P H P H OTO G R A P H P H OTO G R A P H P H OTO G R A P H P H OTO G R A P H P H OTO G R A P H

A RT I C L E VO C A B U L A RY

Civilization describes a complex way of life that came about as people

began to develop networks of urban settlements. The earliest civilizations
developed between 4000 and 3000 B.C.E., when the rise of agriculture and
trade allowed people to have surplus food and economic stability. Many
people no longer had to practice farming, allowing a diverse array of
professions and interests to flourish in a relatively confined area.
Civilizations first appeared in Mesopotamia (what is now Iraq) and later in
Egypt. Civilizations thrived in the Indus Valley by about 2500 B.C.E., in China
by about 1500 B.C.E. and in Central America (what is now Mexico) by about
1200 B.C.E. Civilizations ultimately developed on every continent except
Antarctica.

Characteristics of Civilization

All civilizations have certain characteristics. These include: large

population centers; monumental architecture and unique art styles; shared
communication strategies; systems for administering territories; a complex
division of labor; and the division of people into social and economic
classes.
Urban Areas

Large population centers, or urban areas, allow civilizations to develop,

although people who live outside these urban centers are still part of that
region’s civilization. Rural residents of civilizations may include farmers,
fishers, and traders, who regularly sell their goods and services to urban
residents. The huge urban center of Teotihuacan, in modern-day Mexico,
for example, had as many as 200,000 residents between 300 and 600 C.E.

The development of the Teotihuacano civilization was made possible in

part by the rich agricultural land surrounding the city. As land was
cultivated, fewer farmers could supply more food staples, such as corn and
beans, to more people. Trade also played a part in Teotihuacan’s urban
development. Much of the wealth and power of Teotihuacan was due to
excavating and trading the rich deposits of obsidian around the city.
Obsidian is a hard volcanic rock that was highly valued as a cutting tool.
Teotihuacano merchants traded (exported) obsidian to surrounding
cultures in exchange for goods and services imported to Teotihuacano
settlements.

Monuments

All civilizations work to preserve their legacy by building large monuments

and structures. This is as true today as it was thousands of years ago. For
example, the ancient monuments at Great Zimbabwe are still consistently
used as a symbol of political power in the modern nation of Zimbabwe.
Great Zimbabwe, constructed between 1100 and 1450, describes the ruins
of the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe. At its peak, Great Zimbabwe
was inhabited by more than 10,000 people and was part of a trading
network that extended from the Maghreb, through the eastern coast of
Africa, and as far east as India and China.

Great Zimbabwe is a testament to the sophistication and ingenuity of

ancestors of the local Shona people. Politicians like Robert Mugabe, the
president who led Zimbabwe for nearly 40 years in the 20th and 21st
centuries, built their entire political identities by associating themselves
with the ancient civilization’s monumental architecture. Buildings are not
the only monuments that define civilizations. The distinct artistic style of
Great Zimbabwe included representations of native animals carved in
soapstone. The stylized stone sculptures known as “Zimbabwe Birds”, for
example, remain an emblem of Zimbabwe, appearing on the nation’s flag,
currency, and coats of arms.

Shared Communication

Shared communication is another element that all civilizations share. Shared

communication may include spoken language; alphabets; numeric systems;
signs, ideas, and symbols; and illustration and representation. Shared
communication allows the infrastructure necessary for technology, trade,
cultural exchange, and government to be developed and shared
throughout the civilization. The Inca civilization, for example, had no
written script that we know of, but its complex khipu system of accounting
allowed the government to conduct censuses of its population and
production across the vast stretch of the Andes. A khipu is a recording
device made of a series of strings knotted in particular patterns and colors.
Written language in particular allows civilizations to record their own
history and everyday events—crucial for understanding ancient cultures.
The world's oldest known written language is Sumerian, which developed in
Mesopotamia around 3100 B.C.E. The most familiar form of early Sumerian
writing was called cuneiform, and was made up of different collections of
wedge (triangle) shapes. The earliest Sumerian writing was record-keeping.
Just like written records of modern civilizations, Sumerian cuneiform kept
track of taxes, grocery bills, and laws for things like theft.

Written language was a key part of shared communication during the

Islamic Golden Age, which flourished in southern Europe, northern Africa,
and western Asia from the seventh to the 13th centuries. So-called
“Arabic numerals” and the Arabic language were shared communications
that allowed diverse cultures across the Arabic world to contribute the
dazzling advances in mathematics, science, technology, and the arts.

Infrastructure and Administration

All civilizations rely on government administration—bureaucracy. Perhaps

no civilization better exemplifies this than ancient Rome. The word
“civilization” itself comes from the Latin word civis, meaning "citizen." Latin
was the language of ancient Rome, whose territory stretched from the
Mediterranean basin all the way to parts of Great Britain in the north and
the Black Sea to the east. To rule an area that large, the Romans, based in
what is now central Italy, needed an effective system of government
administration and infrastructure. Romans used a variety of methods to
administer their republic and, later, empire.

Engineering, for instance, was a key part of Roman administration. Romans

built a network of roads so that communication between far-away
territories was as efficient as possible. Roads also made travel by the Roman
military much easier. Romans built structures of their civilization
everywhere they went: aqueducts supplied freshwater to towns for
improved sanitation and hygiene, for example.

Language also played a part in Roman infrastructure. Romans spread the

Latin language throughout southern Europe. The so-called
"Romance languages" (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, and
Italian) are called that because they all developed from the Roman
language: Latin. Having a similar language made communication and
leadership easier for Rome in its far-flung territories. Roman leaders relied
on a series of legal codes for administration. These codes helped structure
laws between different parts of Roman territory, as well as between rich and
poor, men and women, slave and free. Roman laws included restrictions on
marriage, ownership of land, and access to professions such as priesthoods.

One of Rome’s most lasting contributions to Western Civilization was the

establishment of legal culture itself. Roman law was largely public, and
jurists created such formalities as legal language and procedure that would
define European law for centuries. In fact, “Roman law” describes the legal
system used throughout Western Europe through the 18th century.

Finally, Romans used local leaders, as well as Romans, to administer the law
in their territories. Residents were more familiar with their own leaders, and
more likely to follow their announcements. Israeli leaders worked with
Roman authorities in the Roman territory of Palestine, for example, while
British leaders often worked with Romans on the island of Great Britain.
Some people born in Roman territories eventually became Roman
emperors: The emperor Constantine, for instance, was born in what is now
Serbia; the emperor Hadrian may have been born in what is now Spain. This
interaction reduced conflict between Rome and its territories.

Division of Labor

Civilizations are marked by complex divisions of labor. This means that

different people perform specialized tasks. In a purely agricultural society,
members of the community are largely self-sufficient, and can provide food,
shelter, and clothing for themselves. In a complex civilization, farmers may
cultivate one type of crop and depend on other people for other foods,
clothing, shelter, and information. Civilizations that depend on trade are
specially marked by divisions of labor.

The city of Timbuktu, in what is now Mali, was an important trading center
for several African civilizations. Residents of Timbuktu specialized in trading
such goods as gold, ivory, or enslaved people. Other residents provided
food or shelter for trade caravans traveling on camels from the Sahara. The
urban center of Timbuktu was also a center of learning. Its division of labor
included not only merchants, but doctors, religious leaders, and artists.

Class Structure

The last element that is key to the development of civilizations is the

division of people into classes. This is a complex idea that can be broken
down into two parts: income and type of work performed. Changing classes
has traditionally been difficult and happens over generations. Classes can
mean groups of people divided by their income. This division is sometimes
characterized as “economic class.” Modern Western Civilization often
divides economic classes into wealthy, middle-class, and poor. In medieval
civilizations of Europe, there were fewer economic classes. Kings and
queens had enormous amounts of money and land. Serfs, or people who
worked the land, had almost nothing. Eventually, a merchant economic class
developed.

Class can also refer to the type of work people perform. There are many
divisions of social class. Social class is often associated with economic class,
but not strictly defined by it. In the ancient civilization of China, there were
four major types of social classes. Scholars and political leaders (known as
shi) were the most powerful social class. Farmers and agricultural workers
(nong) were the next most-powerful group. Artists (gong), who made
everything from horseshoes to silk robes, were the next order of social class.
At the bottom of the social classes were the merchants and traders, who
bought and sold goods and services. Known as shang, these merchants
were often much wealthier than the other classes but had a lower social
status.

Development of Civilization

Civilizations expand through trade, conflict, and exploration. Usually, all

three elements must be present for a civilization to grow and remain stable
for a long period of time. The physical and human geography of Southeast
Asia allowed these attributes to develop in the Khmer civilization. The
Khmer flourished in parts of what are now Cambodia, Thailand, Laos,
Vietnam, and Myanmar between 800 and 1400.

Trade

The Khmer maintained vibrant trading relationships throughout East Asia,

the Indian subcontinent, and even Europe and Africa through the Silk Road,
a collection of both overland and maritime trade routes. The Silk Road
linked the spice and silk markets of Asia with the merchants of Europe.
Southeast Asia’s extensive network of waterways facilitated trade, with the
Khmer capital of Angkor being built on the shores of Southeast Asia’s
largest freshwater lake, Tonle Sap. The outflowing Tonle Sap River is a
tributary of the mighty Mekong River, which connects Southeast Asia with
the Tibetan Plateau in the north and the South China Sea in the south. In
addition to material goods, the Khmer civilization facilitated a powerful
trade in ideas. In particular, the Khmer were instrumental in spreading the
influence of Buddhist and Hindu cultures from the Indian subcontinent to
Southeast and East Asia.

Conflict

The primary conflicts of the Khmer civilization were waged with

neighboring communities—the Cham, the Vietnamese, and the Thai. The
Cham were a collection of kingdoms in what is today central and southern
Vietnam, while the ancient Vietnamese influence extended through what is
today northern Vietnam. Thai kingdoms such as Sukothai and Ayutthaya
flourished in what are now Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia. The Khmer
civilization was founded on the consistent resistance of political pressure
from the Cham and Vietnamese, but it ultimately could not withstand
pressure from Thai civilizations. Thousands of Thai peoples migrated from
the north (what is now the Yunnan region of China), establishing small
kingdoms in the southwest of the Khmer Empire. Eventually, these
kingdoms became strong enough to annex Khmer territory, leading to
Ayutthaya’s conquest of the Khmer capital of Angkor in 1431.

Exploration and Innovation

The Khmer civilization relied heavily on rice farming, and developed a

complex irrigation system to take advantage of the rivers and wetlands that
dotted their territory. An efficient series of irrigation canals and reservoirs,
called barays, allowed fewer farmers to produce more rice. This, in turn,
allowed more people to pursue nonagricultural lifestyles and migrate to
great urban areas, such as Angkor. Angkor, the capital of the ancient Khmer
civilization, is home to one of the largest most distinctive religious
monuments in the world, Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat was originally constructed as a series of shrines to the Hindu

god Vishnu in the early 12th century, although it became a Buddhist temple
complex less than a hundred years later. Angkor Wat and its sister complex,
Angkor Thom, are beautiful examples of classic Khmer architecture. The
towering, stepped pyramid towers of Angkor Wat are called “temple
mountains.” The towers are surrounded by open gallery walkways, and the
entire structure is enclosed by a wall and square moat. The thousands of
square meters of wall space at Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are decorated
by thousands of bas-reliefs and sculptures depicting Hindu stories and
characters. The Khmer monument at Angkor Wat helps define the modern
nation of Cambodia today. It is the nation’s primary tourist attraction, a
World Heritage Site, and even appears on the Cambodian flag.

Fall of Civilizations

Many civilizations have flourished and then failed or fell apart. There are
many reasons for this, but many historians point to three patterns in the fall
of civilizations: internal change, external pressure, and environmental
collapse. The fall of civilizations is never the result of a single event or
pattern. Sometimes, civilizations seem to “disappear” entirely.

Internal Change

Population dynamics are the most pervasive forces of internal change to a

civilization. A sudden population shift or a shift in demographics may force
a civilization’s infrastructure to break down. Populations may grow, due to
migration or a period of unusual health. Populations may shrink, due to
disease, extreme weather, or other environmental factors. Finally,
populations may redefine themselves. As civilizations grow, cities may grow
larger and become more culturally distinct from rural, agricultural areas.
Large empires may extend across such large regions that languages,
cultures, and customs may dilute the identity of the empire’s residents.

Internal changes contributed to the collapse of the Maya civilization, which

had thrived in Mesoamerica for more than a thousand years. The “Classic
Maya” collapse happened relatively quickly in the 800s. Diseases such as
dysentery and lethal hemorrhagic fevers killed and disabled thousands of
Mayans. Millions more were forced to relocate from cities to more
rural areas. Such huge population shifts reduced the ability of the Maya to
communicate, administrate, and unite against outside forces and
natural disasters (such as drought).

External Pressure

The clearest example of external pressure on a civilization is foreign

invasion or sustained warfare. Protecting a civilization’s borders can be
extremely expensive and demand a strong military at the expense of
developing or maintaining other aspects of a civilization. External pressure
can lead to the relatively abrupt end of a civilization (and, often, the
adoption of another). The fall of the Aztec Empire with the arrival of
European conquistadores is such an example.

External pressures can also lead to the gradual diminishing of a civilization.

The “fall” of what we often think of as Ancient Egypt is a good example of
how external pressures can redefine a civilization over hundreds of years.
Egypt had faced longstanding, intermittent conflict on its borders, with
competing civilizations such as the Nubians (to the south), the Assyrians (in
the Middle East), and the Libyans (to the west). Later, Egypt encountered
the civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome, and eventually became part
of the Roman Empire. Ancient Egypt also faced external pressures not
directly associated with armed conflict. The powerful forces of Christianity
and Islam influenced the eradication of both hieroglyphics, the writing
system of Ancient Egypt, and its polytheistic religion.

Environmental Collapse
Some anthropologists think that both natural disasters and misuse of the
environment contributed to the decline of many civilizations. Natural
hazards such as drought, floods, and tsunamis, become natural disasters as
they impact civilizations. Drought contributed to the fall of civilizations such
as the Maya and the Indus Valley or Harappan civilization.

The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization in what is now
Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. The Indus Valley Civilization depended on
seasonal monsoon rains to supply water for drinking, hygiene, and
irrigation. Climate change made monsoons much more unpredictable and
seasonal flooding less reliable. Harappans suffered from water-borne
diseases and were unable to effectively irrigate their crops. The collapse of
Minoan civilization, a major influence on Ancient Greece, is often associated
with a catastrophic eruption of the Thera volcano on the island of what is
now Santorini. The eruption caused a massive tsunami that reduced the
population, trading capabilities, and influence of the Minoans.

Human activity can also strain the environment to the point of a

civilization’s collapse. One of several factors contributing to the collapse of
the Viking outpost in Greenland, for instance, was the failure of European
settlers to adapt to Greenland’s climate and soil. Farming methods that
were successful in the rich, loamy soils of Northern Europe were ill-suited to
Greenland’s colder, thinner soil and shorter growing seasons. The land could
not support the crops necessary to sustain Viking livestock, including goats,
cattle, and sheep. In addition, the land itself was harvested for peat, the
outpost’s primary construction material. The Vikings in Greenland also
faced internal pressures, such as a weak trading system with Europe, and
external pressures, such as a hostile relationship with their Inuit neighbors.

‘Lost Civilizations’

History and myth are rich with “lost civilizations,” entire ways of life that
seemed to flourish and then disappear from the historical record. The
disappearance of the Ancestral Puebloan civilization is one such mystery.
Ancestral Puebloan civilization thrived in what is now the Four Corners
region of the United States: the states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and
Arizona.

Ancestral Puebloan civilization developed around 1200 B.C.E. and thrived

for more than a thousand years. Ancestral Puebloan civilization was marked
by monumental architecture in the form of apartment-like cliff dwellings
and large urban areas known as pueblos. Culturally diverse Ancestral
Puebloans were connected by a complex road system, a standard style of
religious worship, and a unique art style evidenced by pottery and
petroglyphs.

Ancestral Puebloans seem to have abandoned their urban areas around

1300 C.E. The disappearance of this civilization remains a mystery, although
most scientists say Ancestral Puebloans engaged in warfare with their
Navajo neighbors, internal groups competed for land and resources, and
sustained droughts reduced Ancestral Puebloan ability to irrigate crops in
the arid Southwest. The Pueblo people never disappeared, of course:
Diverse groups developed their own, competing civilizations after the
Ancestral Puebloans migrated or fell apart. These groups include the Zuni
and Hopi civilizations.