Oldest civilization in the world?

Originally posted by catch22 Jerico, estimated 10.000 b.c.

Originally posted by Vamun Tianshu How can we really know the oldest civilization,if all they mention is Asia and Eastern Europe?We canot really know for sure,becuase there were people living in America and Australia,and some experts speculate that life began in Africa.If it goes one-sided,we can never know for sure.

Edited by pinguin - 22-Nov-2008 at 23:28

Well, I am not quite sure if Norte Chico is a civilization as we conceive it today. Yes, it is a very old culture, dating from 5,000 years ago, and quite interesting, indeed. Perhaps the oldest in the Americas. However, in the Old World there are cultures of equivalent level of development since 10.000 years ago, as is the case of Jerico.

Originally posted by pinguin Well, I am not quite sure if Norte Chico is a civilization as we conceive it today. Yes, it is a very old culture, dating from 5,000 years ago, and quite interesting, indeed. Perhaps the oldest in the Americas. However, in the Old World there are cultures of equivalent level of development since 10.000 years ago, as is the case of Jerico.

Jericho in 8000 BC was not the equivalent of Caral in 3000 BC ... it was just inhabited (not a city). Alot of sites making the claim for "oldest city in the world" make their claim on the basis of being continuously inhabited (not necessarily a city) for that whole period - Jericho is one of them. 

Caral appears to have been roughly equivalent to the earliest Mesopotamian cities - trade, monumental architecture etc. Sumeria didn't just pop out of the ground fully formed! It, too, had a long period of really primitive urban centres.

Edited by edgewaters - 23-Nov-2008 at 08:29

Yes I remember reading about Catalhoyuk I heard that it was supposed to be around 10,000 years old, I beleive it lies in the Tarsus region and I think it was famous for its obsidian.

how about the Hurrians?

First, I wish people would answer the question posed.

I think we have to adequately define "civilisation" to make any sense of the question. The temple that predates the agricultural revolution above probably does constitute, as a coherent socio-cultural system is needed in order to create something like that, and, we can assume, a political. If, however, we are to consider that writing formulates a civilisation, as it presents a literary and historical heritage, as well as an awareness of their own past, we'd have to restrict the boundaries to c.3000 BC Mesopotamia and Egypt. I'm not sure if the legendary dynasties of China such as the Xia and the Shang would constitute - as I'm not that familiar with them and I don't know if they have much archeological evidence associated with them. If we are to speak of a nation state to constitute a civilisation - with the ability to exert administrative control over a large area, aside from just a city-state - we would have to state that "civilisation" must be placed with Sargon of Akkad, c.2200 BC. However, I am in favour of a socio-cultural model - the idea of a "nation state" with de-centralised power is hard to harmonise with such ancient cultures, and if we use the above model, then technically, Rome and Greece wouldn't be civilisations! The word is usually a cultural epithet - we don't hear of individual states within Greece, the levsant or Mesopotamia being reffered to as "civilisations", so I think we have to say which people had the largest cultural vibrance and most advanced society. Sorry...ramble!

The word "civilization" originally means "living in a city".