• n2burns@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    TBF, we also had millennia of historical civilization in Canada but something happened…

    • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Well … At least according to Wikipedia, one of the necessary parts of civilization was a writing system.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization?wprov=sfla1

      As far as I know there were no writing systems developed by native Americans until Sequoya invented one for the Cherokee in the 1820s.

      So there is an argument to be made that although there were native societies here first, there was no civilization.

      • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        That’s a pretty enthnocentric definition. I can’t read most of the sources, but reference #5 gets it’s definition from a book written in 1936. Modern anthropology and other social sciences have moved beyond this definition because deciding if “Civilization” exists should be more nuanced than checking boxes.