Expert: John Shea - 4/22/2009

Question
hi.i have often wondered why did civilization(the process of building cities,armies,nation states,arts and science)evolve in the societies of asia,europe and north africa,while north america,australia and most of south america and africa did not? (by "civilization",i do not imply any moral superiority,just the conditions required for the above mentioned)p.s. i am open to correction,this is a genuine question.my only motive here is curiosity.i have asked my more learned friends only to be brushed off or accused of being racist.j.t.

Answer
Justin
If you look at a map of the world and think about the places civilizations have arisen, the only places they have not arisen are places where agriculture is difficult owing to temperature or to dense forest (Amazonia, northernmost Asia, North America, subsaharan Africa, Australia, Pacific Islands).
Keep in mind that "civilization" is a term archaeologists (and other social scientists) invented, it has no objective existence.  It is just shorthand for a bunch of behaviors that occur together in some contexts.  Some of these are connected to one another, like trade and writing, others, like metallurgy vary widely in importance among civilizations.
There is a huge literature on this issue, and no short reply in a forum like this can do justice to all of them.  My opinion is that the behaviors that comprise "civilization" are solutions to a bunch of problems people encountered after they domesticated plants and animals and stopped moving around (sedentism).  That's it.  All human populations are capable of practicing the behaviors that comprise civilization.  Differences in the degree to which the world's peoples have adopted civilization just reflects variaiton in selective pressure for long-term agriculture.
Places where you have agriculture, but no civilization in recent times are places where agriculture is not a long-term stable subsistence strategy.
Cheers,
John Shea