A civilization is a complex society that has a long history of urban life, shared views and cultural institutions. It is distinguished from an earlier stage in human development, when people lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and traveled to find food and shelter. Civilizations develop when groups of hunter-gatherers settle in semi-permanent and then permanent communities, establish agriculural practices, and organize social and political groups. People also develop tools to make food easier to grow and store, and they build permanent structures. Civilizations evolve to the point where they can sustain large populations, and as a result people have more time to dedicate to other activities, such as creating art and crafts.
It seems likely that the first human civilizations developed in river valleys, where agriculture allowed them to produce surplus food. With this food, people were able to expand their villages into the first cities. People had more spare time to focus on other activities, and this led to a division of labor in which people worked in different fields. Potters made ceramics, carpenters built houses and textile workers woven wool and flax into cloth. These advances gave people more time to think about other issues, such as religion and politics.
Many early civilizations were highly religious, and they established rules for how to live together. Religious leaders ranked highest in the social order, and they were allowed to decide whether a community should go to war or not. They also controlled access to resources such as land, water, timber and metals. This gave some elite leaders power over entire regions and made them akin to modern nation-states.
The spread of civilized behaviors also enabled humans to travel to new lands. This was aided by the invention of seafaring technologies and by an increased availability of food, which could be transported across long distances. Civilized societies were often based in large towns or cities, and they developed trade networks that enabled them to exchange goods and services.
In this way, some civilizations became incredibly rich, and they developed powerful states that could tax their citizens or send them into army service to maintain peace and keep the economy running. These states grew into empires that stretched across continents, such as the African kingdom of Great Zimbabwe and the Andean kingdom of the Inca (1438-1533). The word “civilization” has also been used to mean an advanced culture, and this sense arose during the rise of imperialism in the 19th century.
Although many people use the term civilization to refer to an ideal state of human development, others see it as a dangerous path that has brought the world to its current troubled situation. It is difficult to know if civilization ever existed outside of written records, but historians and other scholars have learned a lot about the development of early human societies by studying fossils, cave paintings and other archaeological remains. Scientists can also study the bones of ancient people to learn more about their appearance and habits, such as by looking at bone size, shape and the markings left on them by muscle attachments.