Why have humans lived so long w/o civilization?

Question

As I understand it, homo sapiens have been on this planet for at least 50K years, and perhaps for as long as 200K years. This is even when you exclude species closely related to homo sapiens, such as homo erectus and the like. So if we have lived as intelligent beings for as long as we have, why has it been so recent (only about 5-15K years) that we developed civilization? It seems like 35-45K years is a long time for a species as intelligent as ours to go w/o developing large scale civilizations?

Answer 1

This is a great question and very thought provoking. I won't say the following is a definitive answer, but here are some thoughts.

* Time erases: The lack of 20,000 year old artifacts does not prove civilizations did not exist back then. For example, there could have been many massive cities, that time simply erased. The pyramids are four thousand years old, but will they still be around 10000 years from now? They might erode, or be buried in sand. In fact, if they were not located in a desert, they might already be gone.

* The problem of metals: It seems like major civilization (large cities, roads, monuments, armies) really takes off when you can produce metal tools. Metal working probably was very hard to discover and develop for the first time. You need to achieve temperatures hotter than common fires, and then work with materials at that temperature.

* Chains of knowledge are probably pretty long: Having a horse pull a cart is easy if you have a cart. A cart is easy if you have a wheel and axle. Building a wheel and axle requires effective tools. Tools require smelting metal. My point is, things that look obvious to us are not obvious when you start from scratch, and are really built on chains of discoveries that did take thousands of years.

* Critical mass / chicken and egg: It is possible that many basic discoveries were made - and then forgotten, over and over for thousands of years. A small town starts to become civilized, grows for a few hundred years, and then is destroyed by war, disease or natural disaster. Without writing, knowledge is easily lost. Writing is not going to be invented until it is needed, and it won't be needed until cities are large enough, the mass of knowledge is large enough, and you have people with free time to invent writing and then write stuff. In other words, it takes civilization to invent - civilization!

* It's not the CPU (brain) it's the software (ideas, language, vocabulary, culture, morals). Consider this hypothetical experiment. What would happen if you did the following: Take identical twins. Raise one normally. Raise the other by himself/herself like a zoo animal, with plenty of food and exercise, but no other people, no access to books, TV, radio, tools or anything. One twin is a normal member of society. The other, with the exact same brain power, can't talk, can't read, can't use tools, and will probably never invent anything.

In other words, people 30,000 years ago might have been very similar to us in raw intelligence, but with much less language, much less abstract thought, little thought of future consequences, much less concern for each other, etc. Were they able to live together peacefully (to build a civilization)? Or did a spontaneous war break out whenever you got 50 of them together? It may have taken all those tens of thousands of years, just to build up language, knowledge, culture and morals to get to the point where thousands of people could all cooperate with each other to build a civilization.

Even looking at us today, we don't cooperate very easily, do we?

Well, I hope this helps, or at least was interesting.

Answer 2

Civalization is not necessary for survival. In fact there is always humans who seek life as from from civalization as possible.

Civalization is necessary for technology and science. So the comforts and long life you enjoy are a direct result of civalization. Subsistance survival is long hard work. If an indivdual group with limited trade produces everything they use and consume they spend huge amounts of time doing exactly that. There is no time/motivation to produce art, thought or to explore. Civalization allows people to specialize and by doing so develop talents far beyond what humans are capable of when almost every waking moment is spent obtaining necessary survival goods.

The second aspect is the Earth could not survive 1/1000th it's current population without civalization. Without the specialization and manufacturing that civalization brings we could not feed that many people. Nor would there be room for one in ten thousand to survive. Civalization allows humans to occupy far less space per individual to survive. Humans as hunter gatherers or even as subsistance agriculturalists would need tens of acres each family unit to survive. The populations of our five biggest cities would alone cover every inch of usable space in the US if civalization did not exist.

Civalizaiton while it brought war also brought peace. Before civaliziation most tribes the word for enemy and stranger were the same thing. Even if a stranger meant no harm they used up resources in their travel through a groups lands. With resources so precious they were jealously guarded and strangers generally put to death.

Ownership of anything was constantly challenged. Look at how many times the lands where Isreal now sits have changed hands. Before civalization it was the same thing on a smaller scale. If group A encountered group B then both groups would engage in battle for the resources of the other and to prevent the numbers of the enemy from becoming such that they would be forced to expand their lands. Tribe after tribe of ancient man were wiped out and made extinct by expansions from neighboring tribe until the tribes themselves became nations of a sort. The Celts, Native tribes in the Americas, Russian steppe tribes, the Mongols are all recent examples of exactly that. Did the Cherokee just magically grow land? No they took it from other Native tribes. Some likely absorbed, more driven away or killed off.

If civalization came to a sudden halt today. Then %90 of the earth's population would be dead in a year. Most of the other %10 would be starving and on the brink of death as well as being in a constant state of war. After around a century the biggest and strongest groups would eventually destroy surrounding groups until stalemates were temporarily formed. Then the first group to redevelop civilization would then develop superior technology and conquer the rest.

Simple fact, resources are limited. People will do amazing things to survive. Combine the two factors and you have life that makes the worst examples of Civilization seem downright peaceful.

Answer 3

There has basically been no need to be "civilized". civilization comes from the Greek word "civilis" which refer to those that live in cities as opposed to those that don't. Civilizations rose with the advent of agriculture. it is now thought that agriculture came up as a result of climate change and growing populations in the Middle east (Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey)Due to reminiscing food resources populations were no longer able to live as hunter/gatherers permanently and gradually started to grow crops. With permanent settlement and year round agriculture populations became sedentary and had to defend their livelihood to those populations that still roamed about and against predatory animals attracted by the concentration of livestock. In those "civilizations" specializations became possible and necessary. Classes that lived of the surplus of food became possible; scribes, kings, professional soldiers, priests. Basically they were parasites that controlled an increasing growing population. Growing populations need more space and more control. Soon the first war and mass extermination was a fact.
Civilization is now refered to as something good. This idea is driving your question. However, much can be said to the contrary. Slavery was basic in every "civilization", coercion of services to the ruling elite, mass starvation, organized warfare, taxes, long working hours, a decline in height and life-expectancy, pandemics, etc...
People often think hunter/gatherers and nomads live(d) short, miserable lives. There is much evidence that this was not always so. Early homo sapiens in Europe for example had an average height of 180 cm for man and 174 cm for women. their diet had an enormous variety. From modern sources we know that hunter/gatherers invariably worked no more than a few hours a day to get their food. The rest was (and is) spend on telling stories, spending time with their children, dancing and playing music. hunter/gatherer societies are also remarkably equal. Leaders are often chosen on the basis on their abilities to lead, their wisdom and ability to take responsibility. In "civilizations" leaders were and are chosen on the basis of lineage, powerful allies and wealth. In the end, civilization may well be the great mistake of humankind and not the product of intelligence at all.

Answer 4

I think that the big problem is that we have switched the definition of civilized from a sociological term to a technological term. As far as what used to be considered civilized, IE ethics,
morals, social responsibility, respect for others, etc. we don't know how long man has been civilized. For all we know, these principals predate humans. As far as a technological definition, the first human to use a tool was using a technology. We know for sure that the use of tools predates humans. In my opinion, the building of structures is the least indicative factor of any meaningful definition of civilized. First before we speak of civilization, we must know the definition we wish to use. Second, if you wish to exclude tools below a certain level of sophistication from the definition, you must decide at what point is a tool too simple to count. Third, if building buildings is to be the criteria, you must decide both how sophisticated it must be and weather or not all of the techniques that were developed beforehand count as civilization. In other words do we count the technological know how to build a stone building from the time we first built one or from the time we knew everything we needed to know in order to build one. Is it the stone building that we look to or is it the first stone bar-b-que pit? They require the same basic knowledge. At any rate, there is no way to define when civilization started. We don't know enough to say when civilization started. We don't even know if it is a human or a prehuman innovation. There is good evidence that no matter which definition you use, civilization came about before homo sapiens.

Answer 5

our distant ancestors, the hominids, were around even 6 million years ago, mang. xD

i think it's because an entire civilization is a difficult thing to achieve. evolution starts out with small steps and ends with huge changes, over long periods of time. we started making tools around 2.5 million years ago. different humans in different parts of the world had different tools that they used, different hunting techniques, even different primitive roots of language. all of those things, over time, form a culture. when people started to live together and create villages, that added to the growing culture. it's just a matter of time and deep thought. little by little a village turned into a city, and a city turned into an entire nation. i think once a cultural group reaches that level, it becomes a civilization, when its people and their beliefs are well defined and can easily be distinguished from the others.

Answer 6

You would think, wouldn't you? There are still some hunter-gatherer tribes extant today. Somebody developed agriculture and broke the nomadic cycle. We are really not to sure that our intelligence is for invention, which could be a spandrels effect of intelligence. It is posited that the best reason for the development of intelligence is the social life humans engage in. Much more demanding of intelligence than mere old inventions.

Answer 7

Homo habilis
Homo ergaster
Homo erectus
Homo neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens
Homo heidelbergensis
God

I seem to get the impression that the Yahoo censor NAZIS are really working over time here. Is there anyone else here that can see the word "Ho.mo"? Funny how that last word on the list didn't get covered up by astrix.

Answer 8

I have to agree that it depends on your definition of what constitutes civilization. Evidence has been found of cities that were built without agriculture being developed. One was developed around animal herding and one was even built around religion. Just because a tribal group doesn't write out their laws or customs doesn't mean they are't civilized.

Answer 9

They haven't.

The years of humanoid and hominid development are all entirely theoretical and based on extremely thin evidence.

By the time of the invention of writing, among the first thing written documents reveal is a trade empire that covered the middle east ruled from the city of Uruk.

There is no evidence that humans were NEVER civilized.