In the course of human evolution, the habit of living in a union with mutual understanding and reliance has served an extremely beneficial and practical lifestyle, and from tiny isolated groups, bigger organizations have formed. Then showed up societies which in time became civilizations.
How human intellect and psychology headed to this evolution is quite a famous subject among historians and anthropologists, and a prominent discussion for another day.
Presently, let's discuss a few of the oldest civilizations to have ever prevailed in the world. We are discussing the civilizations that we know prevailed for real, unlike the ones that are covered in legend such as Atlantis, and Lemuria to list a few.
Here is a list of the oldest civilizations
The Mesopotamian Civilization
Name: Mesopotamian civilization
Period: 3500 BC 500 BC
Region: Northeast by the Zagros mountains, southeast by the Arabian plateau
Current Region: Iraq, Syria, and Turkey
The first civilization to have ever originated. The beginning of Mesopotamia dates back so far that there is no available proof of any other civilized society before them. The timeframe of bygone Mesopotamia is usually held to be from around 3300 BC to 750 BC. Mesopotamia is commonly associated with being the initial place where civilized society actually began to take shape.
It was somewhere around 8000 BC that people formulated the impression of agriculture and gradually commenced to domesticate animals for both foods and to support agriculture.
People had already been generating art sufficiently before the Mesopotamians, however, this was a portion of human culture, not human civilization. It was the Mesopotamian civilization that cultivated this, putting in to and standardizing all these systems and incorporating them to establish the initial civilization. They flourished in the areas of modern-day Iraq, then known as Babylonia, Sumer, and the Assyria Highlands.
The Indus Valley Civilization
Name: Indus Valley civilization
Period: 3300 BC 1900 BC
Region: Around the basin of the Indus river
Current Region: Northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India
One of the oldest civilizations on this list, the Indus Valley civilization sits at the very heart of succeeding civilizations that arose in the area of the Indus Valley. This civilization prospered in regions spanning from what is today northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India.
Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it prevailed as one of three early civilizations of the ancient world, and of the three, it existed extensively widespread, encompassing a territory of 1.25 million kilometers.
Whole populations were settled in the Indus river bay, one of the primary rivers in Asia, and another river called Ghaggar-Hakra which once used to stream through northeast India and eastern Pakistan.
The people of the Indus Valley civilization accomplished tremendous accuracy in scaling length, mass, and time, and established on artifacts found in excavations, it is apparent that the culture was vibrant in arts and crafts as well.
The Ancient Egyptian Civilization
Name: Egyptian civilization
Period: 3150 BC 30 BC
Region: Banks of the Nile
Current Region: Egypt
Ancient Egypt is one of the oldest and culturally affluent civilizations. The ancient Egyptian civilization, a grand civilization from the banks of the Nile, is recognized for its mighty culture, its pharaohs, the strong pyramids, and the Sphinx.
The civilization merged around 3150 BC with the political consolidation of Upper and Lower Egypt under the initial pharaoh. However, this would not have been apparent had there not already existed settlers around the Nile valley in early 3500 BC.
The past of ancient Egypt can be split up into a sequence of stable provinces segregated by periods of relative instability known as intermediate periods. Ancient Egypt bestowed us the pyramids, the mummies that conserve the ancient pharaohs to this day, hieroglyphics, and much more.
Ancient Egypt achieved its peak during the New Kingdom, when pharaohs like Ramesses the Great ruled with such administration that another popular civilization, the Nubians, furthermore entered under Egyptian rule.
The Maya Civilization
Name: Maya civilization
Period: 2600 BC 900 AD
Region: Around present-day Yucatan
Current Region: Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and south through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras
The ancient Maya civilization prospered in Central America from about 2600 BC and has been greatly discussed because the calendar is presented. Once ascertained, the Mayan civilization went on to flourish and become highly civilized with a booming population of about 19 million at its pinnacle.
By 700 BC, the Mayans had already devised their own policy of inscribing which they used to build solar calendars excavated in stone. According to them, the world was built on August 11, 3114 BC, which is the date from which their calendar starts. The supposed climax date was December 21, 2012.
The ancient Mayans lived culturally prosperous compared to various of their popular civilizations, and the Mayans and Aztecs both constructed pyramids, numerous of which are enormous than those in Egypt.
However, the abrupt plunge and sudden end of the Mayans has long existed one of ancient history's supreme intriguing mysteries: Why did the Mayans, an incredibly sophisticated civilization that consisted of more than 19 million people, abruptly collapse sometime during the eighth or ninth century?
The Maya population did not vanish entirely, however, their descendants nonetheless reside in parts of Central America.
The Chinese Civilization
Name: Chinese civilization
Period: 1600 BC 1046 BC
Region: Yellow River and Yangtze region
Current Region: Country of China
Ancient China, further known as Han China, doubtlessly has one of the greatly myriad pasts. In fact, if you assess all the regimes from the very initial to the very last that ever governed in China, a considerably large period of time demands to be encompassed.
The Yellow River civilization is told to be the beginning of the whole Chinese civilization as this is where the earliest regimes were established.
It was around 2700 BC that the celebrated Yellow Emperor commenced his rule, which later directed to the birth of various regimes that went on to govern mainland China. In 2070 BC, the Xia regime became the initial to govern the entirety of China as interpreted in ancient historical records.
From then on, there was a volume of regimes that seized supervision during several periods of time until the end of the Qing regime in 1912 AD with the Xinhai Revolution. This implied the climax of more than four millennia of ancient Chinese civilization.
By this time, nonetheless, the Chinese had provided the world few of its greatly valuable creations and commodities such as gunpowder, sheet, printing, the compass, liquor, cannons, and multiple more.
The Ancient Greek Civilization
Name: Greek civilization
Period: 2700 BC 479 BC
Region: Italy, Sicily, North Africa, and as far west as France
Current Region: Greece
The ancient Greeks may not have existed as the oldest civilization, however, they are undoubtedly one of the greatly influential. Even though the surge of ancient Greece arrived from the Cycladic and Minoan civilizations (2700 BC1500 BC), there is an indication of tombs in the Franchthi Cave in Argolid, Greece, dating back to around 7250 BC.
The past of this civilization is scattered over such a lengthy period of time that historians have allotted it into varied periods, the greatly prominent of them being the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods.
These periods saw a volume of ancient Greeks arrive into the limelight, various of whom distorted the world forever and are still prevailing discussed to this day. They arranged the foundations for modern geometry, biology, and physics.
Pythagoras, Archimedes, Socrates, Euclid, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great the history texts are full of these titles whose creations, concepts, convictions, and heroics have had a crucial consequence on successive civilizations.
The Persian Civilization
Name: Persian civilization
Period: 550 BC 331 BC
Region: Egypt in the west to Turkey in the north, and through Mesopotamia to the Indus River in the east
Current Region: Modern-day Iran
There prevailed a period when the ancient Persian civilization was, in fact, the considerably powerful regime in the world. However, just in power for a limited over 200 years, the Persians dominated lands that encircled over two million square miles.
From the southern areas of Egypt to portions of Greece and east to portions of India, the Persian Empire was recognized for its military power and smart leaders. Before they established such an enormous regime in the domain of just 200 years, before 550 BC, Persia was allocated into divisions among a volume of governors.
However, then King Cyrus II, who later on came to be known as Cyrus the Great, reached into power and united the whole Persian province before going on to dominate ancient Babylon.
In fact, his triumph was so immediate that by the end of 533 BC, he had already invaded India, distant in the east. Even after Cyrus' demise, his descendants proceeded with this brutal growth and even fought in the now celebrated fight with the brave Spartans.
All deviated when a celebrated warrior of Macedon, Alexander the Great, brought the entire Persian Empire to its knees and effectively climaxed the civilization in 330 BC
The Roman Civilization
Name: Roman civilization
Period: 550 BC 465 AD
Region: Village of the Latini
Current Region: Rome
Roman civilization developed around the sixth century BC. Even the tale behind the establishment of ancient Rome is the thing of mythology and legend.
At the pinnacle of its power, the Roman Empire ruled over an enormous piece of land, and all the present-day Mediterranean nations were portion of ancient Rome.
Early Rome was regulated by kings, but after just seven of them had commanded, the people grabbed supervision over their own town and governed themselves. They initiated a council known as the Senate which governed over them. From this step, Rome was pertained to as the Roman Republic.
Rome furthermore saw the surge and plunge of some of the incredible emperors in human narrative, like Julius Caesar, Trajan, and Augustus. However ultimately, the regime became so enormous that it was totally not practical to bring it under solitary regulation.
The Aztec Civilization
Name: Aztec civilization
Period: 1345 AD 1521 AD
Region: Southcentral region of pre-Columbian Mexico
Current Region: Mexico
The Aztecs appeared on the scene pretty much around the time when the Incas were arising as influential challengers in South America. Around the 1200s and early 1300s, the population in present-day Mexico resided in three big rival towns Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan.
Around 1325, these rivals established a union and the new state came to overwhelm the Valley of Mexico. Back then, the population selected the name Mexica to Aztecs. The growth of the Aztecs was within a century of the plunge of another powerful civilization in Mexico and Central America the Mayans.
The town of Tenochtitlan stood as the military power base and served as a spearhead for the domination of new territory, however, the Aztec emperor didn't rule every town or territory directly.
Local governments persisted in place and were compelled to reimburse varying quantities of contribution to the Triple Alliance. In the early 1500s, the Aztec civilization was certainly at the pinnacle of its power. However then, the Spanish appeared.
This steered to a massive battle between the Incas and the Spanish conquistadors and the native supporters they had compiled directed by the famous Hernan Cortes in 1521. A downfall in this decisive battle ultimately steered to the plunge of the once-famous Aztec Empire.
The Incan Civilization
Name: Incan civilization
Period: 1438 AD1532 AD
Region: Present-day Peru
Current Region: Ecuador, Peru, and Chile
The Incan Empire was the vastest regime in South America in the pre-Columbian period. This civilization prospered in the provinces of present-day Ecuador, Peru, and Chile and retained its administrative, military, and political camp at Cusco which fabricates in modern-day Peru.
The Incan civilization existed as a well-established and prosperous civilization. The Incas were religious believers of the sun god Inti, and their king was cited as "Sapa Inca" implying the child of the sun.
The initial Incan emperor, Pachacuti, revamped the capital from a modest town into an incredible city laid out in the pattern of a puma. He proceeded to expand the convention of ancestor worship.
When the king expired, his son would obtain all the power, however, his wealth would be distributed among his different relatives, who in return would conserve his mummy and uphold his political significance.
This directed to considerable growth in the power of the Incas who went on to become outstanding builders, building fortresses and scenes like Machu Picchu and the city of Cusco that nonetheless stand to this day.
Modern-day culture and civilization owe a ton to the earliest civilizations that originated after millions of years of human evolution. Human civilization has succeeded a long way from an age when there existed no defined standards of communication and hunting was the crucial source of food.
Gradually, agriculture took over from hunting, animals were domesticated, civilizations were established and developed, and ultimately directed to the societies that we live in today. Each individual civilization recorded here provided in multiple ways: new creations, new beliefs, new cultures, ideologies, lifestyles, etc.
