civilization involves the use of writing, building cities, a class-based society, agriculture, animal husbandry, public buildings, metallurgy, and monumental architecture. the term "cradle of civilization" has been applied to a variety of cultures and areas, in particular the ancient near eastern chalcolithic and fertile crescent, ancient india and ancient china. it has also been applied to ancient anatolia, the levant and iranian plateau, and used to refer to culture predecessors—such as ancient greece as the predecessor of western civilization.