"they lacked both writing and city life"

From page 81 in The Evolution of Civilizations (PDF, 425 pages) by Carroll Quigley:

Leaving aside for the moment the two civilizations found in the New World, we can arrange the fourteen Old World civilizations into a pattern to show their chief cultural connections. Many other connections, which we do not show on the diagram, exist in fact and can be inserted by the cognizant reader. It is to be noted that four of the early civilizations are cultural descendants of the Neolithic Garden cultures, which were not themselves civilizations (since they lacked both writing and city life):

I liked Quigley's diagram immediately, as it reminds me of Toynbee's work. But the diagram made it to the blog today because the paragraph is incomplete without it. And the paragraph made it to the blog because it tells a way to distinguish civilizations from more rudimentary forms of human society: civilizations have writing and cities. Writing, and cities.

Two thoughts on cities:

• from Let's Go Surfing Now:
  

  The cycle of civilization is a cycle in the dispersion and concentration of wealth. The inequality that troubles Piketty and the Pope is evidence of that cycle. The growth and decay of cities and nation-states is evidence of that cycle. The saucer-shaped pattern traced by interest rates during the course of ancient civilizations is evidence of that cycle.

• and from Civilization:
  

  Civilization may be seen in the rise and fall of cities, but it is measured in the rise and fall of the standard of value.

As far as writing goes, my impression is that writing first developed as a way to keep track of business transactions, financial obligations, inventory, and such.

These thoughts suggest that both writing and cities have economic ties to civilization. And that is related to the idea that the cycle of civilization is a business cycle which is driven by the concentration and dispersion of wealth.