A civilization is an advanced human community with a high level of cultural and economic development. It includes many features such as a division of labor, centralized government and a complex network of urban centers, writing, standardized measurement, currency, tort-based legal systems, art, architecture, mathematics, scientific understanding, metallurgy and organized religion.
Scholars believe that civilization evolved from hunter-gatherers who began establishing semi-permanent communities. The development of agriculture gave these people a surplus of food that allowed them to live more than one life at a time and support centralized government, religious leaders and other members of society.
The earliest civilizations are thought to have developed in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt and ancient China. Scholars also believe that the Olmec and Caral-Supe civilizations of coastal Peru and Mexico may be the earliest in the Americas. Regardless of which cradles these civilizations are believed to have originated in, they all depended on agriculture for sustenance and all developed urban centers that supported a high level of cultural development including a division of labor, centralized government, writing and metallurgy.
Civilizations also developed a number of other cultural traits that distinguish them from simple hunter-gatherer or primitive agricultural societies. These include decorative arts, musical art and literature. Writing is an important feature of civilization because it enables records to be kept, and the ability to read and write allows people to communicate with each other. The ability to make pottery, textiles and other decorative objects also is a sign of a civilization.
Although there are many ways that a civilization can be assessed, scholars generally agree that a civilization has at least five essential characteristics: division of labor; central government planning and control; writing; a system of law based on contracts or torts rather than slavery or property rights; an advanced culture of arts, music, and literature; and a highly-developed metallurgy. Some historians question the validity of a checklist of this kind. They argue that it is not evenhanded to define a group of humans as a civilization when some groups such as the Inca Empire of Peru from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries CE, which had an impressive empire and well-developed architecture but did not develop a written language, are not classified as a civilization.
It is important to realize that the development of civilization is a long and complicated process, and that any checklist of its characteristics will be influenced by the judgment and point of view of its creators. Making such a list is still an interesting exercise, though, because it reveals that learning about history is a social and cultural activity. The term “civilization” reflects the triumph of the human mind over humanity’s animal nature, and of reason over instinct. It is the result of mankind’s desire to conform to a higher power that bestows goodness, truth and beauty. To become civilized means to willingly surrender self-interest for the benefit of others. To do so requires a strong faith in Christ, the Giver of all good, truth and beauty.