The word 'civilization' has two origins: (1) "civis" (Latin word for citizen or townsman), and (2), civilis (the adjective form of "civis"). In this sense, being "civilised" means being a citizen, who is governed by the law of his/her city, town or community. Civilisation may also refer to the culture of a particular community.
Literally, a civilization is a complex society, as distinguished from a simpler society. According to Richard Leakey's Origins: "The hunter-gatherer is part of the natural order: a farmer necessarily distorts that order. But more important, sedentary farming communities have the opportunity to accumulate possessions, and having done so they must protect them. This is the key to human conflict, and it is greatly exaggerated in the highly materialistic world we now live in."
Everyone lives in a society and a culture, but not everyone lives in a civilization.
Epidemics among both humans and animals are also characteristics of civilization.
By this definition, some societies, like Greece, are clearly civilizations, whereas others like the Bushmen or the early nomadic Native Americans clearly are not.
As discussed above, "civilization" has a number of meanings, and its use can lead to confusion and misunderstanding.
However, "civilization" can be a highly connotative word. It might bring to mind qualities such as superiority, humaneness, and refinement. Indeed, many members of civilized societies have seen themselves as superior to the "barbarians" outside their civilization.
The earliest known civilizations (as defined in the traditional sense) developed from proto-civilized cultures in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq, the Nile valley of Egypt, while smaller civilizations arose in Elam in modern-day Iran, (Especially those parts considered to be the "Fertile Crescent"), the Mehrgarh and Indus Valley region of modern-day Pakistan, and the parallel development of Chinese civilizations in the Huang He River (Yellow River) and Yangtze River valleys of China, and on the island of Crete and in Mycenaean Greece in the Aegean Sea, Persia in modern-day Iran, as well as the Olmec civilization and the Caral civilization in modern day Mexico and Peru. The inhabitants of these areas built cities, created writing systems, learned to make pottery and use metals, domesticated animals, and created complex social structures with class systems. Proto-civilized cultures developed as a late stage of the Neolithic Revolution, and pioneered many of the features later associated with civilizations.
Wikipedia:Civilization
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