Reading pre-coloumbian american history and comparing it to african history, you see how tribal people in america built gigantic cities that are on par with the biggest cities of african empires. Seriously, great zimbabwe is considered one of the greatest african civlizations because it was made of stone and housed over 10,000 people. But then random tribes in the mississippi had larger and more populated settlements despite being disadvantaged with the lack of old world technology This begs the question whether the standards for what counts as a civilization is lowered for africans. If so, why would academica purposefully lie?
>>16800502civilization is such a nebulous term as to mean nothing, that debate can be made so easily as to what actually counts as a civilization means that theres no rigid standards by which one can be identified, which is why archaeology has moved away from the word altogetherwhat matters in the example you provided is statehood, not necessarily urban complexitygreat zimbabwe had a system where goods were owned and distributed by a central authority and meets conditions for statehoodcahokia does not have any clear evidence of direct control of economy by a political body, a lack of evidence, however, is not evidence of a lackit is possible that cahokia could have been a state, but no evidence of such exists, and until some is found, it can not be asserted that it wasand before anyone gets pissy, its not a contest cahokia can be an interesting site, a fascinating mystery, and home to an advanced peoples without having been a state, and without needing some sort of DBZ power ranking to satisfy the map painting enthusiasts ape brain
>>16800733>and before anyone gets pissy, its not a contest
>>16800739my bad, I forgot about> & Humanities
>>16800502The Mississippi ones are likely ceremonial sites, seasonally inhabited for the purpose of large festivals and performances ruled over by some appointed play-king for the duration. They were on the way to proper, year round inhabited cities before they somehow blew it, possibly too fast centralization of power by the play-kings.
>>16800502Civilization requires only one thing: cities.Any other standard is ridiculous. Why would writing be needed for civilization? That would mean that nomadic tent dwelling Arabs are civilized today which is obviously not true. Why would culture centers be relevant? That would mean insane tribals who built weird altar things are civilized.Nah only cities matter. No city no civilization. A city? Then civilization. So yes Great Zimbabwe was a civilization as well as the Olmecs, Gobekli Tepe, the Mound Builders of North America, the Indus Valley people, The Vedic People, Uruk and Sumeria were all civilizations.
>>16800787Which mean Indo European that spread out from the steppe of first 1000 years and Mongol Empire is not really a civilizations. Cause they don't really settle on city. They are semi nomadic. Even when they conquered shit they still be moved around seasonally til they adopted their conquered culture
>>16800502It just shows that population numbers are a bit of a meme. It's a worthwhile metric, but certainly not an end-all-be-all in of itself.
>>16800748Nah the spanish and the french made contact with them and they were just normal towns with walls and everything
