When people use the word “civilization” today, they usually mean an advanced state of human society in which a high level of culture, science, industry and government has been reached. This is a definition that anthropologists and historians find problematic as it implies a value judgment that civilization is superior to non-civilized societies. It is also a definition that has led to an over-simplified view of civilization, one that misunderstands its importance in the evolution of the human spirit.
In his book, Collapse, Jared Diamond suggests that the decline and fall of civilizations is caused by five major factors. These include environmental damage, such as deforestation and soil erosion; climate change, such as drought or flood; dependence upon long-distance trade for needed resources; the rise of an elite family or clan that takes control of the population; and societal responses to internal and external problems, including war or invasion.
The earliest civilizations are thought to have developed around water sources. This is because prehistoric hunter-gatherers tended to settle near rivers and lakes for the fresh water they needed for survival. In addition, it is believed that civilizations first emerged from villages in which food was grown. As civilizations grew, more and more people began to live together in urban settlements. Labor was divided into specialized jobs, so that not everyone had to focus on growing their own food. This is considered a critical step in the development of civilizations. The division of labor allowed for the production of a surplus of artifacts and the growth of an economy that depended on trading with other communities. This, in turn, helped to develop a rudimentary system of government administration.
Historian Arnold J. Toynbee, in his multi-volume study of civilized and uncivilized cultures, A Study of History, traced the processes that brought a civilization to its peak and then caused it to decline or collapse. He concluded that the decline of a civilization was generally caused by the failure of its creative minority to meet some important challenge.
Other scholars have weighed in on the question of what constitutes a civilization. For example, an early anthropologist, Clyde Kluckhohn, wrote that a civilization must have a town of 5000 or more people and must have writing and monumental ceremonial centers. He is credited with defining the term as a unified cultural group that has developed a complex social organization and is characterized by the division of labor. Other scholars have suggested that a true civilization must have an enlightened ruling class, a political and religious bureaucracy, and the production of large amounts of wealth and material goods. In the modern world, technological inventions like plows and carts, pottery and writing have brought civilization within reach of many more people than would otherwise be able to enjoy it. The printing press, for example, has brought education and the fruits of scientific research to millions of people. This has made civilization available to most people, whereas in the past it was only accessible to a small class that could afford to hire coolies and rickshaws to work for them.