Some of these civilizations have been very well documented by historians. Facts like how and why they perished is documented in books. Harappa, Maya, Indus, The Mississippians, and Niya are some famous examples of civilizations that vanished.
The Assyrian, Roman and Mongol Empires, for example, all fractured and collapsed when no new conquests could be achieved. The House of Cards, a society that has grown to be so large and include so many complex social institutions that it is inherently unstable and prone to collapse.
1. Mesopotamia, 4000-3500 B.C. Meaning “between two rivers” in Greek, Mesopotamia (located in modern-day Iraq, Kuwait and Syria) is considered the birthplace of civilization.
War, famine, climate change, and overpopulation are just some of the reasons ancient civilizations have disappeared from the pages of history.
The Indus civilization, also known as the Harappan civilization, was one of the largest in ancient history, extending over parts of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and containing as many as five million people.
Arguably the New World's most advanced pre-Columbian civilization, the Maya carved large stone cities into the jungles of southern Mexico and Central America, complete with elaborate plazas, palaces, pyramid-temples and ball courts.
There are many other countries out there that are older than Indian, even though it is one of the oldest countries out there in the world. What are the 10 oldest countries? Egypt, Iran, Armenia, China, Japan, Ethiopia, Greece, Portugal, San Marino, and France are the top 10 oldest countries in the world.
The first written records date back a little more than 5,000 years in Egypt and ancient Sumer. The earliest Sumerian records were made using reeds cut at an angle to make wedge-shaped (cuneiform) marks on clay, which was then baked hard. Many of these clay tablets survive today, and scholars can still read them.
Scientists in the 1970s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology predicted the fall of society. Using the LtG model, the fall of society will take place around 2040. The 2100s will be comparable to the 1900s in terms of the world's population, industrial output, food and resources.
New Zealand, Iceland, the UK, Tasmania and Ireland are the places best suited to survive a global collapse of society, according to a study.
For 1,000 years, long before Columbus, the Anasazi Indians were lords of what's now the American Southwest. Their civilization was as complex and sophisticated as that of the Mayans. Then, apparently without warning, the Anasazi all but disappeared.
New genetic findings suggest that early humans living about one million years ago were extremely close to extinction. The genetic evidence suggests that the effective population—an indicator of genetic diversity—of early human species back then, including Homo erectus, H. ergaster and archaic H.
One possibility occurred 70,000 years ago, when the Toba super-volcano erupted in Indonesia and triggered a nuclear winter that fewer than 15,000 individuals survived.
Though the ancient Chinese rank high among the world's oldest civilisations (2000 BC), the development of a united China came almost 1100 years after the ancient Egyptians (3100 BC). Mesopotamia (4000 BC), Egypt (3100 BC) and the Indus Valley civilisations (3300 BC) all significantly pre-date ancient China.
No, ancient Greece is much younger than ancient Egypt; the first records of Egyptian civilization date back some 6000 years, while the timeline of ancient Greek civilization usually begins about 3000 years ago.
All existing archaeological evidence and studies from around the world support the conclusion that Egypt's ancient civilisation appeared far earlier than that of China's, despite the shared similarities.
1. South Sudan. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after years of civil war, but violence continues to ravage the world's newest country. Civil War erupted in South Sudan in 2013 and continues today, as political leaders from different ethnic groups vie for power.
China. China is one of the world's oldest and most refined civilizations, and its first dynasty, which was the Xia dynasty, is said to have lasted from the years 2070 BCE–1600 BCE.
Göbekli Tepe is the oldest significant site for humans to ever have been discovered, beaten in age only by a stone wall in Greece. Its age is only made more impressive by the sheer complexity of the site. Excavations have been ongoing for the last 24 years and experts say they could continue for decades more.
The 32,000-year-old underwater city of Dwarka, or “Gateway to Heaven,” was discovered submerged some 100 feet below the Gulf of Cambay in 1988. Ancient structures, pillars, grids of a city, and ancient artifacts were found.
It is humanity's first "global" dark age as described by archaeologist and George Washington University professor Eric H. Cline in his recent book 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. 1177 B.C. is, for Cline, a milepost.