Some Theories Concerning the Development of Civilization

It is obvious that there are some striking similarities, or parallels, as well as marked differences, as humans made the transition from a Neolithic to a civilized way of life in Southwest Asia, Egypt, the Agean sea, India, China, Mesoamerica, and the Andean highlands. Prehistirians and other cultural anthropologists have been concerned for almost a century with trying to understand and interpret these cultural development parallels and differences in some meaningful scientific fashion.

At present several general theories are being debated by prehistorians concerning the development of civilization. Most such theories begin with the view that, during Neolithic times, human life was lived in small social groupings that were based primarily on kinship ties and which were characterized by being mostly egalitarian in form, that is, behavior between equals. And most such theories assume that the rapid growth of human population following 7000 B.C. and establishment of large urban centers, there was a disappearance of social groups based on kinship ties and marked by egalitarian behavior relationships, with the replacement of these features of Neolithic human life with the corresponding growth of social classes and the centralization of political and economic power in the hands of a ruling elite.

For many prehistorians, the growth of the political state is the one factor, above all the others, that led to the rise of civilization. Thus, Karl Wittgogel points out that despotic political control over irrigation systems in the Andean, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, and Southwest Asia civilizations provided ruling elites with the means to force the rapid change from kin-based and egalitarian social ties to stratified social classes.

Wittfogel’s theory has been criticized by a number of anthropologists, including William P. Mitchell. It is Mitcheli’s belief that it was not the presence of an irrigation system that led to development of the central political and economic power of the state, the appearance of social classes, and sharp decline of kin ties and egalitarian behavior in civilized societies. Mitchel notes that the most important factor in the development of civilization in societies with irrigation systems was the new social rules and coordination of social behavior that were required to build, maintain, and operate such large systems. Moreover, Robert M. Adams has proposed that the centralized political state appeared before use of large-scale irrigation systems, growth of social classes, and other features of civilized life after the Neolithic era.

On the other hand, Leslie A. White (1959) has said that the one factor crucial in any transition from one stage or level of culture to another one is the amount of energy available within a society. Thus, for White, the transition from a Neolithic to a civilized way of life can be seen as an expansion of energy provided by growing and stable surpluses of food in crops and domestic animals, and the availability of surpluses of energy through use of large domesticated animals in construction work.

Julian Steward found White’s theory for the transition from Neolithic to civilized life too simply stated and proposed instead that there were at least five regular and internally complex stages in the development of all civilizations.

Steward’s theory has been widely acclaimed by anthropologists because it moves the discussion of general theory concerning the development of civilization from "single-cause” theories, such as Wittfogel’s, to a much more sophisticated form of multiple-cause theory. However, Steward’s theory has also been criticized by some anthropologists.

Now, whatever the general theoretical explanation for the rise of civilization may be, it is possible to draw at least one broad conclusion concerning the transition from a food-producing to a civilized way of life by humankind. It is clear that from about 7000 years B.C., human capacities, including learning, cognition, and critical appraisal, began to interact with a rapidly developing system of culture in ways that led to new directions and types of change in culture.