rmccalli@... wrote:

> If by civlization, if you mean sedentarism, it is possible to have
> settled sites without agriculture provided that local resources are
> rich enough all year round. This occurred in areas of early Meso-
> America and the Pacific Northwest, where coastal, riverine and
> estuary sites were rich enough in fish, molluscs and wild plants to
> allow sedentary life. I don't know, however, that Central Asia
> would have had similar environments.

Gordon Childe suggested the following characteristics of civilised
life

1. the great increase in the size of the largest settlements
2. the institution of tribute or taxation and the central
accumulation of capital
3. monumental public works
4. naturalistic representational arts
5. the art of written communication
6. the development of exact and predictive sciences (geometry,
arithmetic and astronomy)
7. expansion of foreign trade with developed economic institutions
8. full time technical specialists
9. a privileged ruling class
10. the state, or a structure of society independent of kinship which
defines residence

One can argue about the presence or absence of particular
characteristics on this list of, but clearly the number of societies
that possess all of these characteristics is limited. Agriculture is
clearly central to providing the fundamental economic basis for
civilised societies, but it is social differentiation of a class of
people not involved in food production, industry or trade, that
provides for the basis of social structure and government in
civilised societies.

Hence my wondering about the presence of a civilisation in Central
Asia at 30,000 BCE.

Hope this helps

Regards

John