ABSTRACT
“Civilization” is a vague and troublesome word. Given that “civilized” commonly signifies that a society (or person) is advanced and in some ways superior, it is potentially offensive to argue that only some historical societies represent “civilization.” The earliest society known to have had cities, states, and writing developed in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) about 5,500 years ago. The author observed three attributes in Egypt and in the Indus Valley region of present-day Pakistan and India. The eastern hemisphere “civilizations” were all based along rivers and employed irrigation. Villages are a common characteristic of agricultural society. They allow farmers not only to socialize but to cooperate in such matters as digging wells for water. Cities from the beginning were sites of occupational specialization. Cities were the usual site of the pottery and metalworking that soon followed the development of agriculture – or nearby, if too much heat and pollution were involved.
