What is Civilization? | Daily Bellringer

[0:00]Today we're looking at what is civilization. Hello, welcome to the Daily Bellringer World History. Please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at the questions down in the description. Also don't forget to check out dailybellringer.com where you'll find more resources that go with many of the Bellringer videos. As we look through the history of mankind, one word continually comes up, civilization. But what is civilization? There are several definitions for the term including civilization meaning a complex society and the stage of human social and cultural development in which people have reached their most advanced state. Those definitions are all well and good, but what does it mean to have a civilization and what are certain key features that civilizations have? When looking at ancient history and analyzing the development of early human communities as they progressed from simple farming villages to full-blown civilizations, there are several key common features that historians look for. These features include cities, job specialization, social classes, organized governments, complex religions, art and architecture, and systems of writing. Cities began to develop as people found that living in close proximity to each other offered benefits such as working together to harvest food and strength and numbers when facing attacks from rival groups or tribes. Unlike today when we think of cities having hundreds of thousands to millions of people, early cities generally numbered less than a few thousand people. Job specialization or specialization of labor occurred once a surplus of food was available. After the agricultural revolution occurred somewhere around 11,000 to 10,000 BC in which people began growing and harvesting crops. Eventually, harvests were big enough that there was more food than what was needed, or a surplus developed. This meant now that not everyone in the community had to be involved in food production. Now early people could develop skills in specialized areas such as pottery, wood carving, sewing and building or construction. One crucial area of advancement was in metal working. Once job specialization occurred, for example, an individual could spend their entire day beating on a piece of metal and shaping it into something useful such as tools or weapons. Specialization made people of these early communities more dependent upon each other as individuals developed unique skills. Social classes in which people within the civilization were officially and unofficially ranked based on their job or position within the society. Among most early civilizations, religious leaders were generally among the highest class, followed by wealthy merchants, then craftspeople, farmers, and lastly enslaved people at the bottom of the social structure. An organized government provided leadership and provided a system of making and enforcing rules for the society. As surpluses of food grew and the need to maintain and construct irrigation systems to support the growing of crops, people began to organize systems to oversee these projects. At first, religious leaders took on government roles, but soon warrior kings assumed power. Shortly after laws were issued, taxes began to be collected and systems of defenses were established. Complex religions are yet another key feature of early civilizations. The people of these early civilizations shared common spiritual beliefs and many times, as I mentioned earlier, the religious leaders also were considered leaders within the government. A majority of early civilizations were polytheistic, or in other words, they worshiped and believed in many different gods. Many of these gods were based on what they observed in nature such as wind, water, fire, and so on. Generally, they believed in order to keep their gods and goddesses satisfied, they needed to offer sacrifices and prayers to these gods. Yet another feature of civilization is art and architecture. Once early people reached the point of specialization of labor, craftspeople began to create works of art from pottery to statues to complex paintings and intricate jewelry. People began making and performing music on instruments and some began writing stories as we saw the birth of literature. Additionally, civilizations began building magnificent temples and tombs that stood hundreds of feet in the air. The last common feature we see from one early civilization to the next is a system of writing. The origin of writing can be linked to the need for ancient people to keep records of their harvest and surplus of food as well as record of what they had traded. Some of this early writing was simply pictures like hieroglyphs used by the ancient Egyptians, but others such as cuneiform used in Mesopotamia included hundreds of symbols representing different words and sounds. Not only did the development of writing aid in keeping records of crops, but it also helped keep a record of what the people of these civilizations did, or in other words, history began to be recorded. The invention of writing marked the transition from prehistory to recorded history. Civilization does not simply happen overnight, rather it required hundreds if not thousands of years of development before these early people could truly be considered civilizations. So, with that, hopefully you learned something, and thanks for watching.