Were Early Civilizations Predominantly Functional or Cultural in Nature?

Were Early Civilizations Predominantly Functional or Cultural in Nature?

Introduction

Genesis states that the Earth in the beginning was without forms, and it was God's will due to which life on Earth came into being (The Bible “Genesis”). Civilization is the highest level togetherness the humans have accomplished since they set foot on Earth. They started out living in the caves and later prospered in an environment of cooperation and became villages. These villages became cities and then we saw the emergence of states. Within the boundaries of these states, people thrived and lived according to certain mores that came about after many years. These mores were the sum total of the peoples' beliefs, rituals, language, values and tradition. If this was to be condensed into one word, it would be culture.

A certain civilization that has been labeled as being a functional one today may later be labeled as being a cultural one due to the discovery of new material. A very basic example while studying a cultural civilization would be Greece. The evidences of development in fields of philosophy, mathematics and theology in Greece would clearly have us believe that since Greece was so culturally advanced, it was a cultural civilization.

Our thesis however, would point towards the other direction, i.e. functional. A civilization that thrived on the basis of the various functions it performed was clearly a functional civilization. The reason behind our stand point has already been pointed out. The examples we would take up in the paper include India, Rome and the Sub-Saharan Bantu Africa.

Discussion

Rome

The Romans are remembered in History as being a great power of the time or in today's parlance, a superpower. The Empire stretched from modern Spain all the way to Syria and Egypt in the east. The civilization has made great contributions in many fields ranging from government to military leadership. To this day, the policies and strategies of Roman leaders are part of curriculums in Schools as well as military institutions. Besides being a superpower, the Romans can also be termed as being a functional civilization. This primarily is due to the evidence that we find to that effect. However, to state that the Romans did not have a culture would not be fair. Since the paper talks about the predominance of factors, the functional factors associated with the Romans are more obvious to the historian (Module 2).

The city, according to the associated myth was founded by twin brothers Remus and Romulus in 753 BC. The city grew quickly and became a city state and went into a rapid phase of expansion. This expansion was brought about by military conquest, and many Roman generals went on to become rulers of the state. Julius Ceasar, Mark Antony and Octavian are just three of the many. In the beginning, the formation of the Roman state saw similar stages in development as in Greece. The reason why the governmental structure was so stable was because the institutions were ...