Ancient Civilizations of the World

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A culture is made or destroyed, by its articulate voices. Civilization is a level of development at which people live together to form communities. Ancient civilization is the basis for later states, empires and nations which is also known as first to settle communities. The study of ancient civilization is documented in a subject termed as ancient history. The ancient history began when writing was invented. A civilization is also referred as a complex culture in which large numbers of human beings share a number of common elements. The most important six characteristics of civilizations are the cities, government, religion, social structure, writing and art. The civilization was identified when humans first decided to give up their nomadic life or a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and decided to settle at a place. The six distinct cradles of civilization can be identified as Egypt and Mesopotamia in the middle east, the Indus Valley the now Pakistan and India, The Huang He valley of China, Mexico and Peru. In this article let us check the ancient civilizations of the world.

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Ancient Civilizations of the World

Below mentioned are the few of the oldest civilization of the world.

Sl. No	Civilization	Period	Original location	Current location	Significance
1	Australian Aboriginals	50,000 B.C. – Present Day	Australia	Australia	The first known human civilization
2	The Çatalhöyük Settlement	7500 B.C. – 5700 B.C.	Southern Anatolia	Turkey	Agriculture
3	Ain Ghazal	7,200 B.C. – 5,000 B.C.	Ayn Ghazal	Modern-day Amman, Jordan	Monumental statues
4	The Jiahu Culture	7,000 B.C. – 5,700 B.C.	Henan, China	Henan Province, China	Bone flutes, earliest example of Chinese writing
5	The Indus Valley Civilization	2600 B.C. – 1900 B.C.	Around the basin of the Indus river	Northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan, and Northwest India	One of the most widespread civilizations in history
6	The Mesopotamian Civilization	6,500 B.C. – 539 B.C.	Northeast by the Zagros Mountains, southeast by the Arabian Plateau	Iraq, Syria, and Turkey	First civilization in the world
7	The Danubian Culture, or Linearbandkeramik Culture	5500 B.C. – 3500 B.C.	Europe	Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills	Goddess figurines and gold artifacts
8	The Norte Chico Civilization	3,000 B.C. – 1,800 B.C.	Peru	Andean Plateau along Peru’s west coast	Monumental architecture
9	The Ancient Egyptian Civilization	3150 B.C. – 30 B.C.	Banks of the Nile	Egypt	Construction of pyramids, mummification
10	The Mayan Civilization	2600 B.C. – 900 A.D.	Around present-day Yucatan	Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico; south through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras	Complex understanding of astronomy
11	The Chinese Civilization	1600 B.C. – 1046 B.C.	Yellow River and Yangtze region	Country of China	Invention of paper and silk
12	The Ancient Greek Civilization	2700 B.C. – 479 B.C.	Italy, Sicily, North Africa, as far west as France	Greece	Concepts of democracy, the Senate, the Olympics
13	The Persian Civilization	550 B.C. – 331 B.C.	Egypt in the west to Turkey in the north, through Mesopotamia to the Indus river in the east	Modern-day Iran	Royal road
14	The Roman Civilization	753 B.C. – 476 A.D.	The Tiber River in Italy	Rome	Monumental architecture
15	The Aztec Civilization	1325 A.D. – 1521 A.D.	South-central Mexico	Mexico	Highly advanced and complex society
16	The Incan Civilization	1438 A.D. – 1532 A.D.	Ancient Peru	Peru, Ecuador, Chile	Machu Picchu, engineering excellence

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Oldest Civilization of India

The settled life that is which involved transition from foraging to farming and pastoralism began in South Asia around 7000 BCE. By around 4,500 BCE settled life had spread widely and it had evolved into the Indus Valley Civilization on of the early civilization of the world. Indus valley civilization flourished well between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE. Due to continuous drought caused due to the population of the Indus valley civilization people scattered to villages and migrated. It was at this time of 1500 – 500 BCE the vedic period evolved.

Vedic Civilization

The Vedic period flourished between 1500 BCE to 500 BCE
The Vedic culture was seen in the north-west part of India
The Vedic Civilization flourished along the river Saraswati
The Vedas comprises of four major texts that is the Rigveda, the Samaveda, the Yajurveda, and the Atharvaveda.
Iron tools were adopted during this Vedic period.
Vedic period witnessed the emergence of a hierarchy of social classes.
Economy in the Vedic period was sustained by a combination of pastoralism and agriculture.

Indus Valley Civilization

Indus valley civilization was a bronze age civilization from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE.
Along with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia civilizations , Indus valley civilization was among three ancient civilizations of the world.
The Indus valley civilization stretched from the northeast Afghanistan , through Pakistan to the western and northwestern India
The cities of the Indus civilization was involved i urban planning
They constructed baked brick houses , elaborate drainage system and water supply systems
They involved in new techniques of handicraft including carnelian products and seal carving
The large cities of Indus valley civilization were Mohenjo- daro and Harappa
The Indus valley civilization was also known as Harappan Civilization
The five major urban sites of the Indus valley civilization are Harappa, Mohenjo daro, Dholavira, Ganeriwala, and Rakhigarhi.
It was during the Indus valley civilization where the people achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass and time
The people of Indus valley civilization involved in sculptor making . They also made anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta .
Over population and the persistent droughts were the reason to the decline of Indus Valley civilization with people migrating to different villages in the east and south.

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Ancient civilization was the base for what we witness and live now. Literature and invention of writing helped us know about the history. Civilization was the beginning of what is now. Learn more about the History of the world and appreciate it for it is what you are experiencing now.