For starters, you’re going to need a marching band…

NEXT: All BioBlitz 2013 Blog Posts

The most colorful difference was the performance by traditional flag throwers in Corfi, a city dating back to before the founding of Rome. For at least 500 years, vibrant costumes and flags have combined with elements of dance and drill skills to present a distinct form of performance, based on military use of flag signals for long-distance communication.

While birds of prey, turtles, snakes, and fish are found in both parks, the topic of fortified defense is handled quite differently in each: Pantanello lies in the shadow of a medieval castle with huge stone walls, arches, and winding streets; Jean Lafitte Park’s best armament is on the armadillos, bony-plated mammals found only in the Americas.

For all their physical differences, the two BioBlitzes this weekend are in spirit the same: efforts to get adults and students together, with public and private representatives and organizations, with scientists and photographers to explore nature and get to know the wilderness around them more closely, in the hope of making the natural world a bigger part of everyone’s daily life and thoughts.

NEXT: Wild Hogs Roiling Louisiana Park

LEARN MORE: BioBlitz Italia Sito Ufficiale

In 1999, he was also a member of the Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition, on which he found the body of George Mallory, legendary climber who never returned from his 1924 attempt to be the first human to summit Everest.

Heading to the top of Everest takes more than a strong body and supplies. Your head can be your biggest asset, or your most dangerous obstacle. (Photo courtesy Conrad Anker)

While Anker has had many successful expeditions, he’s also had close calls and faced difficult questions of whether to proceed or turn back, based on countless factors, which brings up the question of risk. While there is always risk involved in such adventures, sometimes the biggest danger is your own decision making in times of stress.

Join Conrad and legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin as they discuss risk and adventure on a LIVE National Geographic Google+ Hangout Monday, May 2oth at 2 p.m. EDT (7 p.m. UTC).

Send in your questions for the explorers and they may be asked on air. You may even be invited to join the Hangout and ask your questions live. Submit your questions by:

• Posting a question on Google+ or Twitter with #LetsExplore or
• Commenting directly on this blog post below.

Learn More

Risk-takers Photo Gallery 
Quiz: Are You a Risk-taker?

Available From National Geographic Books

Buzz Aldrin: “Mission to Mars: My Vision of Space Exploration”
Conrad Anker: “The Call of Everest”

May 16th marks the feast of St. Brendan, an Irish monk from the 6th century known for establishing churches in Britain and Ireland and voyaging (with other monks) to various islands in the vicinity. According to legends and ancient descriptions, he also went a good way further than the vicinity, all in a tiny currach, a traditional Irish boat with a wooden frame wrapped in leather.

In the tradition of some older Irish myths and legends, tales grew around him and his travels, culminating around the 9th century in a book in Latin generally known as “The Voyage of St. Brendan” full of exploration, religious symbolism, and strange fantastic tales. In it, Brendan is an esteemed older monk who decides to seek the Promised Land itself, trusting that God will guide them there if it be His will. (Read about “Ireland’s Saintly Women and Holy Wells”.)

It was known widely in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, to the extent that Christopher Columbus used it as a reference to guide and support his assertion that lands were reachable across the Atlantic.

When Columbus and others returned, people began to reexamine the already ancient story of St. Brendan and look for correlations between its islands and the newly discovered lands to the west. Today, skeptics see it all as fantasy with a few coincidental similarities with the New World. Optimistic interpreters see possible evidence of the author’s knowledge of far northern sea ice, the vast Eastern Woodlands, and even the low sandy islands of the Bahamas.

Is It Even Possible?

In 1976, adventurer, writer, and historian Tim Severin decided to follow in the wake of Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki voyage, and build a traditional ship and see if it could match the accomplishments in a legend. Using traditional design and building techniques he fashioned a modern currach, christened it Brendan and set off from Ireland to reach North America. Successful in showing that it could have been done, Severin published a book and an article in National Geographic Magazine, and a 1500-year-old tale was given new life.

The video below features Tim Severin describing the Brendan Voyage in 2005 in a free public lecture at Gresham College, London. Their lecture series began in 1597. That’s pretty long ago, but it was already 1000 years after St. Brendan’s life and whatever actual journey he made.

Did It Have to Be Brendan?

Just because Tim Severin made it across alive, that doesn’t mean an Irish monk by the name of Brendan in the 500s A.D. did as well, but it does show that it’s possible, and it hints that at least some of the descriptions in the “Voyage” may in fact describe New World locations. Some scholars point to the similarities between the written “Voyage” and older Celtic myths as an indication that knowledge of western lands may go back even further, and simply have been re-told with Brendan cast as the lead.

Significantly, the basic form of the currach goes back thousands of years, so indeed, the true pioneers may have lived as long before Brendan as he did before us.

Atlantic Navigators: The Brendan Voyage – Tim Severin – Gresham College Lectures from Gresham College on Vimeo.

Why It Matters

While reading early medieval manuscripts does leave one with the impression that earlier generations may have been overly credulous, journeys like Severin’s show us that current generations may be a bit too skeptical. One may suit your attitudes better, but both can lead to major misconceptions about what actually happened. While believing everything you find in an old manuscript will make you believe some things happened that didn’t, believing none of it may lead you to believe that things never happened which actually did.

The story of the voyage of St. Brendan (and Tim Severin’s modern crossing) stands as a reminder that it doesn’t take modern equipment to make major accomplishments. People have always explored and have always used their available resources in remarkable ways.

Columbus made a voyage that reunited long-separated branches of the human family at a scale probably never seen before. The Vikings made a similar voyage that simply didn’t create the same kind of large-scale, long-term interactions. It is very possible that Brendan did as well. It is even possible that someone had before him, and that tales of that voyage inspired him just as his inspired Columbus.

And while we’re at it, Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution still champions the idea that stone-point styles in North America and paleolithic Europe are just too similar not to raise the possibility that trans-Atlantic voyages may go back to the very dawn of modern human cultures in Europe and North America.

A Day for Exploration

So, you need not be a Cave Man Voyager, an Irish Monk, or Modern Currach-Builder, but with St. Brendan the Navigator having been celebrated for centuries on this day, it’s a nice time to embark on an exploration of your own, or at least to explore the realization that modern humans have taken on many incredible expeditions in the past 200,000 years, and whatever traces may or may not remain buried in the dirt or buried in old books, for every tale we know, there are countless more we may never even dream of.

NEXT: Bringing North American Vikings Back to Life

We spoke with NG explorer, blogger, lizard expert, and photographer Neil Losin on his thoughts going in to this year’s event.

This isn’t your first BioBlitz. What is it you love most about them?

I’ve been to two previous BioBlitzes: Biscayne National Park in 2010 and Rocky Mountain National Park in 2012. Those two environments could scarcely be more different from one another, but the spirit of the event is the same. Everyone participating in the BioBlitz is excited — excited to make new discoveries (as we inevitably do) about the nature in our own backyards, excited to meet new people, excited just to be outside for the day.

Neil at the 2012 BioBlitz in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. (Photo by Krista Schlyer/iLCP)

Have you ever been to Jean Lafitte National Historical Park before?

No! In fact, I’ve never been to Louisiana, apart from driving through it on I-10. This will be a really fun BioBlitz for me, because I’m really not too familiar with the environment. I haven’t spent much time in the kind of swampy forests that we’ll be exploring this weekend, so a lot of the wildlife should be new to me!

Are there any particular science questions you’re hoping to answer?  

This year, I’m leading bird inventories, and since birds are pretty well documented, there aren’t any pressing science questions that I’m aware of. I hope that many of the participants in the BioBlitz will experience inventories like the bird walks I’m leading — where we’ll probably be able to identify every bird we see — as well as inventories of less “charismatic” creatures like aquatic invertebrates, where even the experts might be stumped by some things they find… We know some groups a lot better than others, and I think participating in both kinds of inventories can be really fascinating.

What’s a favorite memory of exploring nature near you when you were growing up?

When I was growing up in Virginia, going out into my local parks in the spring and experiencing all the signs of spring became an annual ritual. Things began in April with the blooming of the first wildflowers — bloodroot, spring beauties, trout lily. By early May, the neotropical migrant songbirds were passing through, and the treetops would be filled with colorful warblers, vireos, and tanagers. There’s something incredibly satisfying about knowing what plants and animals you’re likely to see next as the seasons change! And every year you go out to observe nature, you become more aware of everything that’s going on in your natural surroundings.

Is there one piece of wilderness you feel you know the best and feel the closest to?  

Wherever I’ve lived over the years, I try to get to know a local piece of nature — ideally a place to which I can walk or ride my bike — really well. Growing up in northern Virginia, that place was the humble Lake Accotink Park. Lake Accotink isn’t a big lake, or a pristine one, but I managed to learn an awful lot about nature from exploring that little patch of green in the midst of all the suburban development around it.

How do you stay aware of or in touch with the natural world around you on a daily basis?  

Whenever possible, I try to go out with my camera on a regular basis. I find that I experience nature very differently when I’ve got a camera with me. The camera forces you to slow down and really appreciate what you’re seeing. To capture a good photograph of a plant, animal, or landscape, you really need to spend time with it… to see it from different perspectives, and in the case of an animal, to observe its behavior. And through that process, you can really get to know the nature around you.

Each individual BioBlitz may only last 24 hours, but there’s always more to learn! Follow along on Facebook and through the NewsWatch Blog!

NEXT: Read All BioBlitz 2013 Blog Posts

In this long history of expeditions, none has been met with as much skepticism as Alphaeus Blackburn’s current efforts to search for evidence of a lost civilization in the dense rainforests of Kashyyyk, and make first contact with whatever population survives there.

It is widely accepted that long, long ago, those trees were home to countless numbers of homind-like creatures 7-feet tall and covered in hair, known to posterity as “Wookiees.” Ancient chronicles record the heroic exploits of a few, and fleeting references survive that describe rich family lives and celebration of a holiday known as “Life Day” (though many scholars dispute the authenticity of the evidence).

May the Fourth

So it was with great pleasure (and no little surprise) that this morning, 4th of May, 2013, we received our first update from Blackburn, who, after just a few days of acclimating to the local conditions, has already confirmed the continued presence of Wookiees on Kaskyyyk, in no less dramatic form than having caught one of them and himself on film.

May the Fourth, 2013: Millennia after the collapse of their civilization, Wookiees are still to be found on the planet Kashyyyk, sometimes unexpectedly, as seen in this photo from the field. (Photo courtesy National Geographic)

While the photo obviously came through nicely, there was no accompanying text, so little is known at this time of the outcome of the encounter. From our expert analysis of the image it is clear that Blackburn was at least initially taken off guard. Whether he a) was able to communicate with the Wookiee, b) will send any update soon, or c) retains his arms is yet to be determined.

May the Force be with him.

NEXT: Earth’s Five Great Early Civilizations

Growing up in Long Island, New York, I was very aware that unfeasible as it would be, if you did actually manage to dig a hole through the Earth, you would come out in China.

Once, around 1984 or so we tried. We soon realized two things: 1) it would take a long time, and 2) we would obviously hit the devil long before we reached China. It wasn’t until adulthood that I realized even if we’d made it past Lucifer and the fires of Earth’s molten core, we’d actually have come out in the ocean, south west of Australia.

The people who actually would come out in China live in Argentina and Chile. They are true “antipodes”, from the Greek meaning roughly “against the feet.” I know this now from having seen “Vivan Las Antipodas” a beautifully shot film that follows four pairs of antipodes around the world.

From sleepy villages to bustling cities, modern wastelands to still-fresh lava flows, filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky captures everyday scenes and significant moments alike in his portrayal of life on both sides (or rather all sides) of Earth.

The entire film is very observational which adds to the otherworldly feeling you get of viewing our planet from an outsider’s perspective. Having seen it with a film- and discussion- loving friend, we were able to enjoy many long talks afterwards processing the beautiful and striking images and the context that it gives to all sorts of questions about the lives we lead and the ways we interact with our natural surroundings.

This week, “Vivan Las Antipodas” is showing across the US as part of the Docurama Festival. View the festival trailer and see dates and locations, then share your thoughts below. Do you know where your antipodes live? Have you ever visited the spot?

Four pairs of worlds exactly one world apart from each other form the stories told in “Vivan Las Antipodas.” (Image courtesy Docurama Films)

On the final day of the conference, after two days of individual presentations on ancient China, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Maya, all the presenters and hosts sat together on stage to discuss the nature of civilization and what we can apply today from the lessons of yesterday, or as the tagline for the Dialogue put it, how to view “the past as a window to the future.” Two days later, sitting on top of Temple IV in Tikal, looking out over the city’s ruins and miles and miles of jungle canopy, the group engaged in another conversation, centered around the collapse of civilizations.

Pulling from both of those, and the experience of recapping the presentations in these blog posts, here are the main questions and themes that seemed to arise from the Dialogue. Leaving the conference there was a distinct feeling that this was simply the beginning of the conversation. Keep it going in the comments below.

Part 1: What Is “Civilization”?

Part 2: Why Did Ancient Civilizations Build Such Huge Monuments?

Part 3: Is Every Civilization Destined to Collapse?

The archaeologists of the 2013 Dialogue of Civilizations discuss the meaning of “collapse” from the top of Temple IV in Tikal, Guatemala. (Photo by Andrew Howley/NGS)

Collapse

When the discussion turned to the “collapse” of civilizations, it was clear that this is another example where clear definitions are key. “Collapse” has specific implication of “imploding” under its own weight or mismanagement or something. For example, while the Classic Maya may have “collapsed,” the Post-Classic Maya were conquered by the Spanish, and had their monuments destroyed or forced into neglect. Even then, to have a civilization conquered is not necessarily to have it end.

A civilization might also collapse or end while the culture behind it continues in some ways. And then there’s the question of how long all of that might take. “We all know there’s no such thing as a sudden collapse,” said moderator Chris Thornton. “People don’t disappear. They move, they change.” Giorgio Buccellati said he simply prefers “to speak of a broken tradition.” In these situations, while no one may be building any new temples, you still have farmers working the same plot of land, speaking the same language, celebrating the same holidays, etc.

Archaeobotanist Dorian Fuller got more specific, talking about little traditions, such as folksongs, and big traditions such as architecture of a temple. “Little traditions are more likely to persist,” he said. “Big traditions, more likely to collapse.” In that framework, a good portion of the culture can continue, and possibly lead to the resuscitation of the rest of it after a period of latency. “But if it doesn’t come back, that’s collapse.”

Richard Hansen said that “in the case of the [end of the Classic era] Maya, even the rural populations are leaving. They walked away for ever.” He sees that break in continuity as the key to collapse: “There’s a degeneration or a destruction of a system or organization that renders it impossible to return for an extended period of time.”

Tomas Barrientos took the specific example of droughts. Many theories hold that drought was what caused the collapse of the Maya or Angkor, or what have you. Barrientos sees it differently. “Drought doesn’t destroy society, it affects people and a society dealing with many things… We must remember [the Maya period of] collapse is 1500 years. It’s a very long period.”

He then put it into the context of modern efforts to change cultural behavior, for example to limit the burning of fossil fuels. “Sometimes we want sudden changes,” he said, “but we’ve learned today changes are gradual.”

Lessons for Our Time

Having studied the Harappan civilization for 30 years, Mark Kenoyer is very familiar with the complex issues that contribute to the decline of a civilization, and to the long term effects that a group has on itself through its use of nearby resources and its overall impact on the surrounding environment. When dealing with modern groups dealing with these same issues, he can get a bit exasperated. “I tell them this is not the first time this has happened! This is not the first population explosion or deforestation. Look at Baluchistan, Afghanistan. They were deforested 3000 BC, 100 BC, and they have not recovered yet. We can do the same thing and it’ll take 10,000 years for the land to recover. [We must] learn the lesson and then figure out how to have a balance.”

Dorian Fuller added that as people who have studied the impact of civilizations on the environment (and vice versa), archaeologists have a special store of knowledge that can contribute to modern environmental assessments and debates. “Past cycles of land use created our current world,” he said. “Climate scientists assume no human impact before recently,” but through changes in oxygen, CO2, and methane levels through the large-scale agriculture and animal husbandry we’ve been doing, “we have had impacts for thousands of years.” To most accurately evaluate the dynamics today, we need to better understand the dynamics of the past.

Tomas Barrientos then took a long term view of the rise and fall of all civilizations. “All the achievements are a result of an ideology,” he said. “When we study the civilizations of the past we discover there is an ideology behind it all, and this is very closely related to identity. When we look at the modern world [we think,] what is our current identity? Our current ideology? I believe [given] today’s lack of an ideology where we know our identity individually, how can we go forward? We need to know where we come from so we know where we are headed. If our ideology is just to have a phone and a computer, and as long as my sports team wins, I have all that I need, then our destiny is almost written.”

The conversation continues as the archaeologists look out on the miles of conserved forest protecting the ancient site. (Photo by Andrew Howley/NGS)

A Bright Tomorrow

Juan Carlos Pérez added a positive note. Given all the ups and downs of individual civilizations throughout the ages, “civilization does not end. We are still here.”

National Geographic’s President of Mission Programs Terry Garcia had earlier expressed a related thought: “Decline is not destiny. We can learn from choices wise and foolish made by people of the past.”

Given the nature of the conference, bringing together lessons from very different cultures to see how they can help us today, the most poignant closing comment may have been that from Li Xinwei of the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “What I have learned this week is how powerful our human civilizations are, and how amazing each civilization is. Our future is not one global culture,” he said. “It’s a colorful mosaic of many cultures.”

What do you think? Post your comments below and on Twitter at #5Civilizations.

NEXT: Read All Posts From “Dialogue of Civilizations”

On the final day of the conference, after two days of individual presentations on ancient China, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Maya, all the presenters and hosts sat together on stage to discuss the nature of civilization and what we can apply today from the lessons of yesterday, or as the tagline for the Dialogue put it, how to view “the past as a window to the future.” Two days later, sitting on top of Temple IV in Tikal, looking out over the city’s ruins and miles and miles of jungle canopy, the group engaged in another conversation, centered around the collapse of civilizations.

Pulling from both of those, and the experience of recapping the presentations in these blog posts, here are the main questions and themes that seemed to arise from the Dialogue. Leaving the conference there was a distinct feeling that this was simply the beginning of the conversation. Keep it going in the comments below.

Part 1: What Is “Civilization”?

Part 2: Why Did Ancient Civilizations Build Such Huge Monuments?

Part 3: Is Every Civilization Destined to Collapse?

Why Such Big Buildings?

Richard Hansen, director of the Pre-Classic Maya site of El Mirador, and one of the creators of the whole idea of the dialog had a particular question that had been getting at him. “Somehow we’re all wired to put a major emphasis on labor and resources at the very beginning of a society,” he said. Why is there that early emphasis on monumentality?

Renee Friedman of the British Museum and director of excavations at Hierakonpolis in Egypt pointed out that it’s not just at the beginning that a civilization builds huge monuments. 2000 years after the pyramids, the Ptolemaic kings were building huge monumental temples. “It’s just a different form,” she said, but “it’s still plenty of monumentality.” In particular, “when they were trying to reassert their power, there was again a big push to build these huge stone temples…trying to bind society together again.”

The interesting thing there is that groups trying to “reassert” their power are in many ways comparable to groups at the “beginning of a society.” So perhaps building big things is simply something people do when they begin to work together. Once there is a sense that they want to do things together, they do things that weren’t possible in smaller groups. Elaborate dances might be one example, but monumental architecture is another, and it’s the one that stays visible.

Recent discoveries at the 11,600-year-old site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey fit well into this. Long before cities or even substantial, permanent houses, nomadic people worked together at this site to construct huge stone “temples” with carvings of animals and people (see reconstruction gallery). In ways, that’s similar to what people had been doing for tens of thousands of years already, decorating the vast interiors of natural caves with naturalistic images of animals. Archaeologist Ernesto Arredondo had pointed out that the Maya actually called their temples “mountains.” Francisco Estrada-Belli added that there is reference to their interiors as “a cave in the sky.” Although that example comes from much later and a world away, there seems to be a natural connection there. People who live in a natural landscape put much practical and symbolic attention on the physical Earth and its features. Once they decide to work together in large numbers, they realize they can express themselves on the scale of the landscape through massive construction projects. Perhaps painted caves are not stone-age cathedrals then, as much as cathedrals are elaborate man-made caves.

A vintage photo reveals the epic scope of ancient Egypt’s early monuments. (Photo by Hans Hildenbrand)

How to Cut Back With Style

Although later generations may continue to build monumental structures, the margin of increase in size is rarely as great as at the beginning, and is often negative. A major reason for this is simply be the cost of time, materials, and labor.

Renée Friedman had discussed the example from Hierakonpolis of a leader ostentatiously keeping and sacrificing actual wild animals as a symbol of strength and authority at obviously great cost. “This couldn’t last,” she said, as she pointed out that in later years the rulers simply used art to make the same statements symbolically, and much less expensively.

Juan Carlos Pérez added that the site of Copan is another good example, where in early stages temples are decorated with enormous amounts of stucco relief. The digging for lime and the burning of wood to create the stucco would have had a huge environmental cost. By 630-620 AD, he said “the leaders needed to change the style. They brought in mosaics. This must have been a dramatic moment.”

While modern reconstruction has given more definition to parts of this temple at Tikal, Guatemala, the monumental structure itself has stood for more than a millennium. (Photo by Andrew Howley/NGS)

What do you think? Post your comments below and on Twitter at #5Civilizations.

NEXT: Part 3: Is Every Civilization Destined to Collapse?

Read All Posts From “Dialogue of Civilizations”

One of the most striking aspects of attending the Dialogue of Civilizations was hearing experts on one ancient culture express how much they were learning about other cultures through this experience. In particular, several of them said their eyes were opened to the richness of the Maya civilization in a way they hadn’t been before. This was I think due to two main factors: the conference was held in Guatemala so there was a lot of attention to and information about the Maya; and most of the other ancient civilizations had some level of contact with each other so everyone was somewhat aware of each others’ work in those areas already.  It was a good reminder of just how big the world is, and how “new” the New World still is in many ways.

On the final day of the conference, after two days of individual presentations on ancient China, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Maya, all the presenters and hosts sat together on stage to discuss the nature of civilization and what we can apply today from the lessons of yesterday, or as the tagline for the Dialogue put it, how to view “the past as a window to the future.” Two days later, sitting on top of Temple IV in Tikal, looking out over the city’s ruins and miles and miles of jungle canopy, the group engaged in another conversation, centered around the collapse of civilizations.

Pulling from both of those, and the experience of recapping the presentations in these blog posts, here are the main questions and themes that seemed to arise from the Dialogue. Leaving the conference there was a distinct feeling that this was simply the beginning of the conversation. Keep it going in the comments below.

Part 1: What Is “Civilization”?

Part 2: Why Did Ancient Civilizations Build Such Huge Monuments?

Part 3: Is Every Civilization Destined to Collapse?

An ancient Mesopotamian relief depicts Ashurbanipal on horseback spearing a lion. Ideas of what is and is not “civilized” has changed regularly over the ensuing millennia. (Photo From Public Domain)

What Is “Civilization”?

Archaeologist Chris Thornton was the moderator for the final panel. He opened by pointing out that in common use, the word “civilization” has become a loaded term, implying that anything “uncivilized” is somehow bad or sub-human. To avoid that interpretation, several presenters throughout the week gave the academic definition, saying that culture becomes a “civilization” when it has various combinations of elements such as: monumental architecture, extensive food production, codified laws and administration, a form of detailed writing, complex and hierarchical social roles, a specific ideology, and specialization of labor. I think most of those things are present in some form even in the rest of the animal world, so the fact that the word itself comes from the Latin “civitas” for city, there should also be the key distinction that a “civilization” requires a dense population living in a largely man-made environment.

Thornton pointed out another alternative though. “In the ancient Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh,” he said, “the ‘wildman’ Enkidu becomes civilized by participating in four distinct endeavors: experiencing human love, putting on clothing, eating non-wild food, and playing sport. Quite a different vision of what ‘civilization’ means than current and other recent definitions.” Georgio Buccellati, who studies ancient Mesopotamian civilization offered further thoughts along the wild-civilized spectrum, saying “Civilization is a way of distancing from nature, which is for our good, if it’s used properly.”

Archaeologists from the 2013 Dialogue of Civilizations climb the exposed Maya ruins of the city of Tikal. (Photo by Andrew Howley/NGS)

Is It the Same for Everyone?

Archaeobotanist Dorian Fuller raised a point about some of the other general qualifications for “civilization.” “There are places with agriculture, long-distance trade, social hierarchy, and so on, which never developed writing,” he said, giving Andean and West African cultures as examples. “So that raises the question of ‘why some places?’” It also raises the point that “there is something bigger than the state. Civilization isn’t limited to kings and dynasties. It often transcends ethnicities and language.”

Juan Carlos Pérez who works at the Maya site of El Perú-Waka’ saw it from a slightly different angle, noting “Not all civilizations respond to the same issues in the same order or the same way.” Marcello Canuto from the site of La Corona gave an example: “Teotihuacan was connected to the Maya who wrote on everything,” he said, “but they never adopted writing themselves.”

Mark Kenoyer, expert in the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley wanted to be clear about one thing. “I don’t want to imply that civilization is the best option for people,” he said. He pointed out that it is just one option for dealing with a growing population and limited resources, and that many other groups of people around the world have addressed those issues without social stratification, monumental architecture, or writing, and done just fine. Civilization may be the most complex form of society, but it’s not the only option, and it’s not necessarily the best.

What do you think? Post your comments below and on Twitter at #5Civilizations.

NEXT: Part 2: Why Did Ancient Civilizations Build Such Huge Monuments?

Read All Posts From “Dialogue of Civilizations”