I'm going to preface my answer with the fact that I know next to nothing about Neolithic Danubian cultures/early civilizations. So I can't answer your question in full, but I hope that my answer might still be useful - and if anyone else better suited to answering the question wants to (especially in terms of talking about Neolithic Danubians) please don't hesitate to do so because I've already posted a response in this thread.

Having said that, I think I can provide a useful perspective on why Norte Chico should be considered a "cradle of civilization," to whatever extent that idea is valid. And I'll end by pointing out that archeology as a field is certainly one that is still developing the idea and examples of a "cradle of civilization" or a similar concept.

First of all, I wouldn't agree that the Norte Chico complex lacked all of the characteristics you say it did. There certainly weren't ceramics, and aside from possible proto-quipu there wasn't writing or a similar symbolic system. But the multiple sites that make up the Norte Chico civilization made extensive use of advanced agricultural techniques. One archaeological survey dating sites in Norte Chico found that "the sites are consistently located immediately adjacent to short irrigation canals watering large tracts of land." This links Norte Chico urban civilization with irrigation, and the authors further go on to say that " the early development of complex societies along the Peruvian coast in the Late Archaic involved an extensive inland occupation based on irrigation agriculture coupled with a more localized and much smaller-scale maritime occupation on the coast."^(1) The history of civilization on the Peruvian coast is closely linked with advanced agricultural techniques. It's important to remember that most of coastal Peru is an extremely dry desert with limited water sources, and state formation in the area is actually recognized for its impressive water control;

"the inland location of Caral indicates that the site was dependent on irrigation agriculture. Although floodplain agriculture is possible in small areas farther downstream, there is no arable floodplain land within several kilometers of Caral. On the basis of local topography and geomorphology, it seems highly likely that a contemporary canal just below the site is in the same location as the original prehistoric canal."^(2)

Irrigation and other feats of agricultural technology enabled Norte Chico society to grow such foreign and demanding plants as maize "in multiple contexts and in multiple sites [indicating] that this domesticated food crop was grown widely in the area and constituted a significant portion of the local diet."^(3)

There is certainly a limited record of non-architectural/monumental visual art at Norte Chico, but several pieces of evidence indicate that the site did have rich traditions in that category. One of the most important is pictured here: a 4,000 year old gourd which is the earliest depiction of the major Andean Staff God deity.^(4) The fact that this image stayed so consistent throughout Andean history suggests that Norte Chico visual arts were certainly important to the future of Andean civilization. Andean history also has a long tradition of intensive textile imagery and symbolism, and textile fragments and production sites are regularly found at Norte Chico sites.^(5) Finally, instruments at Caral have been discovered with incised monkey, bird, and human figures, and residents "created numerous clay human figurines, which have been recovered from varied contexts across the site, and they fashioned Ojo de Dios (God’s eye) amulets and knotted strings out of local cotton."

Considering that Andean civilizations up until European contact often lacked currency and writing, it would be strange to use those as markers for the status of Norte Chico civilization.

In the end, Norte Chico fits as a "cradle of civilization" because it is the earliest known example of complex, stratified urban society in a region that later continued those characteristics with clear influence from Norte Chico (consider the Staff God, possible proto-quipu, the tendency towards specific kinds of monumental architecture). Importantly, Norte Chico also seems to have developed these characteristics internally, and without learning them from other areas.

So it's reasonable to say that Norte Chico fits the criteria of a "cradle of civilization." I don't know enough about Neolithic Danubian cultures to say whether they do or not. One of the more important things to remember is that the idea of a "cradle of civilization" is highly dependent on a significant degree of internal developments. I was under the impression that European agriculture and "civilization" characteristics can be traced directly from the Middle East in what was known as the "Neolithic Expansion," (the two sources I'm citing here are particularly interesting).^(7,8) If this is true, societies like that of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture developed many of their "cradle of civilization" characteristics from external influences, making it so they wouldn't fit the criteria of that idea.

But I'll end by saying that the idea of a "cradle of civilization" is at least as flawed as it is useful, and areas that probably fit it have certainly been overlooked. Norte Chico was not studied intensively until relatively recently, and archaeological understandings of the Amazon rainforest's history are going through a modern revolution, with new information sometimes leaning towards the criteria of a cradle of civilization.^(9,10,11)This is especially interesting given your interesting statement about possible bias towards what survived to nearer out time rather than what simply was." If some region of the Amazon is ever considered a cradle of civilization, it will be the first one recognized which is no longer a center of urban society. A similar situation applies to questions about the towns and paramount chiefdoms of Mississippian cultures in the United States. And how do we consider something like centers of agricultural revolution in the context of cradles of civilization? Check out this Wikipedia page for an interesting superficial look at different (and differently outdated) ideas about the world's centers of plant domestication. Notice that both maps on that page miss Amazonia, which should probably be included.^(12) Or the Mississippi region, which was another plant domestication center^(13) that went on to develop monumental architecture, urban centers, agricultural techniques, distinctive visual art, etc. and create a cultural sphere?

I'm getting a little off topic, but I'm trying to say: it's hard to define a cradle of civilization, and the idea of one isn't perfect. But perhaps the most important piece behind the idea is that of internal creation of civilization characteristics (defining those is another question). Did Neolithic Danubian cultures do that internal creation? As far as I know, no; their characteristics developed from the Middle East, and that's why I wouldn't consider them a cradle of civilization. But again, I know very little about the region and its history.

I hope this helped a little, or at least was interesting!

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