Four Characteristics Of Civilization Essay

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3.A. What are the major characteristics that should be achieved before a social organization qualify to be considered as a civilization?
Civilization is often defined as "an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry and government has been reached." Civilization can only take place in a context of “states”. Decision making does not only takes place within a home and between family members, but it takes place in a centralized power-structures where authority is being exercised. A single person or maybe a small group of individuals are the ones making decisions and have authority over several thousands of people, consists of mostly unrelated individuals.
For a social organization to be considered as a civilization, there are five key elements to consider before making the society a legitimate civilization. These key elements are: 1. a centralized government, 2. an organized religion/belief system, 3. job specialization and social classes, 4. arts, architecture and infrastructure, and 5. writing. First, a social organization must have a centralized government. This means that a person or a small group of people
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Aside from the existing wars between the people in the civilization, drought was considered as the major contributor to the collapse of the earliest civilization. Drought first affected the Akkadian empire where people abandoned Akkadian cities and migrated to the southern areas of Mesopotamia. This caused overpopulation in the south as well as overtaxed food and shortening of water supply. Fights began everywhere because of the need to survive. This was the starting point in the “domino effect phenomena” which resulted to collapse of Mesopotamia. It is quite ironic how Mesopotamia thrived because of its fertility and abundance of water around it yet its downfall was also caused by infertility of the soil, drought, and

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