Cradle of Civilization - Single or Multiple Cradles

Single or Multiple Cradles

A traditional theory of the spread of civilization is that it began in the Fertile Crescent and spread out from there by influence. Scholars more generally now believe that civilizations arose independently at several locations in both hemispheres. They have observed that sociocultural developments occurred along different timeframes. "Sedentary" and "nomadic" communities continued to interact considerably; they were not strictly divided among widely different cultural groups. The concept of a cradle of civilization has a focus where the inhabitants came to build cities, to create writing systems, to experiment in techniques for making pottery and using metals, to domesticate animals, and to develop complex social structures involving class systems.

The Columbia Encyclopedia, in its article titled "Civilization," says that the earliest civilizations developed in the following parts of the world: "Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, the central Andes, and Mesoamerica." Since the 1990s, scholarship has defined Norte Chico in the coastal area of present-day Peru as another independent site of civilization.

In the United States and Canada, the AP World History teaches that the six early civilizations as the foundation of human culture are: "Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus, Shang (or Yellow River valley), Mesoamerica and Andean South America. These "civilizations" are also discussed in this article.