Start of Civilization

Neolithic Revolution (~12,000 BC)

The Neolithic (New Stone) Revolution occurred about 10,000 years ago and dramatically changed the way that early humans lived. Two important factors come out of the Neolithic Revolution:

•     The development of agriculture and
•     The domestication of animals.

These two changes allowed people to stay in one spot instead of wandering from place to place following their main food source (animals). Somehow Neolithic people learned how to plant and raise crops and keep and raise livestock for food. Now people were put in the situation of living together permanently and as a result much cooperation was needed for survival and civilizations started to arise.



Characteristics of a Civilization

With the Neolithic Revolution civilizations now began popping up in unsurprising locations - river valleys. These river valleys provided people with fertile soil due to their floods. These floods, combined with the new-found knowledge of farming and animal domestication, allowed for a stable food supply and so the Neolithic people settled down around these rivers. As these people lived together in one spot civilizations arose, which often shared theses common characteristics:

•     Advanced technical skills - Sometime around 3000 BC, the Neolithic peoples around these river valleys learned how to make and use bronze tools and weapons. This in part allowed these peoples to construct permanent shelters and homes since they no longer were nomads, following their food source and looking for caves as shelter.
•     A form of government - The floods that helped to provide the fertile soil for survival also posed a problem. The floods were sometimes massive and could wipe out an entire village if uncontrolled and farmers needed to get water to their fields during the dry season. As a result an irrigation system (dikes and canals) was necessary to control these waters. The construction of these projects required organization and cooperation among the Neolithic people on a massive scaled. So governments probably developed to direct these projects and to provide rules by which to live.
•     A division of labor - As agricultural productivity increased, fewer people were needed to work in the fields producing food (much like the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century in England). These "extra" people who weren't needed to farm could then become artisans, or merchants or traders and production of all sorts was able to increase thereby providing a better standard of living for all.
•     A calendar - Calendars were created out of the need to predict and know when the floods would arrive. Most of these early calendars were based on the cycle of the moon.
•     A form of writing - Writing systems developed to keep records, put down rules, and to pass on complex instructions (maybe for irrigation) to future generations. For example the Egyptians developed a system of writing called hieroglyphics and the Sumerians developed cuneiform.