Source, in full
This anecdote, published after Mead's death, is contradicted by Mead herself in an interview she gave in Talks with Social Scientists, published in 1968. Mead was asked "When does a culture become a civilization?" She replied, "Well, this is a matter of definition. Looking at the past we have called societies civilizations when they have had great cities, elaborate division of labor, some form of keeping records. These are the things that have made civilization. Some form of script, not necessarily our kind of script, but some form of script or record keeping; ability to build great, densely populated cities and to divide up labor so that they could be maintained. Civilization, in other words, is not simply a word of approval, as one would say 'he is uncivilized,' but it is technical description of a particular kind of social system that makes a particular kind of culture possible."