What are the major defining characteristics of a civilization? How has the defining characteristics of a civilization in the past been evolved to better people's lives today? Many factors have been used to develop a civilization. Some have been more effective than others have. Throughout this paper, I plan on analyzing the factors that perennial civilizations before our time used to become effective and prosperous. I will also describe what factors they had and how some of those factors became very important to today 's society. Most of the perennial civilizations have been revolutionized throughout the years to enhance the way of life even today.
             Many people have debated if civilization was evolutionary or passed down progressively with people learning from their mistakes. Some people claim other reasons for civilization to be far greater than the others. Other people claim that all of the reasons in the coming about of civilization played a balance part . I really don't know which reason were more influential than the others, but I do know that all these "theories" are hard to be proven flawless. Civilization represents the highest level of human organization. But, how did civilization get to be the impressive and astonishing way it is today?
             I will use the most prominent civilizations of the past to evaluate what the important characteristics were that helped design society as it is today and made the evolution process of civilization smoothly and successful. I will use Article #11(written by John Pfieffer, Horizon, fall 1972; Article #9 (written by Jared Diamond, Discover, June 1994); and Article #39 (written by David Landes, History Today, January 1984) to shed light on my topic. Article #11, How Man Invented Cities, talked about the rise of urbanizations in civilizations. Webster defines civilization as a relatively high level of cultural and technological development and/or the cu...