What is the greatest civilisation before the 13th Century?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Define 'great'.

I, too, was wondering about how he chose to define 'great.'

Off the top of my head, I will choose the Bambuti people of the Democratic Republic of Congo as the 'greatest.' They are a pygmy hunter-gatherer society of 30,000 to 40,000 people, which (as Wikipedia says) has "no ruling group or lineage, no overlying political organization, and little social structure. The Bambuti are an egalitarian society in which the band is the highest form of social organization."

Those are qualities that would conform with 'greatness', in my opinion.

Originally posted by rwingett
Those are qualities that would conform with 'greatness', in my opinion.

But don't necessarily conform with established definitions of "civilisation". Not that this is necessarily a criticism...


Edit - another quota from Wikipedia:

"This system of classification contains four categories:
* Hunter-gatherer bands, which are generally egalitarian.
* Horticultural/pastoral societies in which there are generally two inherited social classes; chief and commoner.
* Highly stratified structures, or chiefdoms, with several inherited social classes: king, noble, freemen, serf and slave.
* Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments."