Comment by dyauspitr
15 hours ago
I guess it’s unrelated to this particular find but is Turkey now the place where civilization first started or Gobekli Tepe and the other similar sites are not considered civilizations at this point?
15 hours ago
I guess it’s unrelated to this particular find but is Turkey now the place where civilization first started or Gobekli Tepe and the other similar sites are not considered civilizations at this point?
There isn’t really a settled definition of “civilization” but usually one of the requirements is developing some kind of writing system without outside influence. As far as we know the people at Gobekli Tepe did not have one.
Granted you can also argue the same about Incans and to some extent Mesoamericans, so it’s kind of debatable.
There are very few places on Earth that developed writing completely independently, without any external influence. Far fewer than "civilizations"
The parent is just failing to explain a more fully developed concept called the "urban revolution", which classically has 10 characteristics of which writing is one and not all of which need to be present [0].
This entire discussion stems from the fact that the word "civilization" is essentially defined to fit the societies people already consider civilizations. There are technologically, politically, and socially complex societies that aren't "civilizations". My recommendation is to avoid the word entirely. Trying to use it scientifically leads to confusion.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_revolution
If Göbekli Tepe doesn't count as an indication of a civilization, I don't know what does.
Requirement for a writing system is an arbitrary condition. A lot of civilizations, especially in that region, have strong oral traditions.
We have also been oblivious to other culture’s writing systems before.
Also would a knotted thread record keeping system count as writing?
One of the definitions of civilisation is the building of substantial permanent settlements. Gobekli Tepe does qualify in that sense, as does Chatal Hoyuk. Gobekli Tepe features notable sculptures too.
Probably depends on definitions but there are cave paintings in France 20,000 years older and contemporary with sites in Australia. There are also much simpler Fertile Crescent sites that are older but not much more then holes in the ground.
I think you need evidence of a system of government, agriculture, culture, laws to dispense justice predictably and a writing system to track and record aspects of the above. Hence we can have Egyptian, Indus, etc., but not prehistoric civilizations. The human organizations just didn’t have enough progress to be considered civilized. Thats not to say they were not advanced vis a vis their other contemporaries but rather didn’t meet certain milestones that mark a civilization.
A distinctly Western European perspective.
I would rate Narwala Gabarnmang as one of the earliest sites of civilization, personally.
> A distinctly Western European perspective.
Well, "civilisation" is a Western European word for a Western European concept.
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Most early civilizations arose in the East (today’s India, Egypt, China, etc., not Europe but that’s the normal take on what constitutes civilization) else we verge on saying any human organization is civilization (which I would disagree with).
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Doesn't civilization just literally mean a system of living together in a city? There doesn't need to be any written record of how they did it does there, just evidence that they did?
What counts as a city? Anyway, we're talking about a concept involving family resemblances rather than an airtight set of sufficient-and-necessary conditions.
Urbanization is one qualifier but not the only one. Plus even today we could have such chaos in a town where laws are absent and justice is that dispensed by the strongman/woman warlord and that would hardly be considered civilization.
Uncivilized does not mean stupid or brutes.
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