"we are used to thinking of 'civilization' as something that originates in cities", but if we consider "what preceded cities" (in regions ranging from the Americas to Mesopotamia) we observe "far-flung networks of societies, spanning diverse ecologies, with people, plants, animals, drugs, objects of value, songs, and ideas moving between them in endlessly intricate ways" (516)
Graeber and Wengrow argue that we could even think of "the first cities as one of those great regional confederacies, compressed into a small space" (517)
516: "Marcel Mauss had a point when he argued that we should reserve the term 'civilization' for great hospitality zones such as these"