Civilization (or Civilisation) is a term used to describe a certain kind of development of

a human society.[1] A civilized society is often characterized by advanced agriculture,

long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism. Aside from these core
elements, civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary
elements, including a developed transportation system, writing, standards of
measurement (currency, etc.), contract and tort-based legal systems, great art style,
monumental architecture, mathematics, sophisticated metallurgy, and astronomy.

"Civilization" is often used as a synonym for the broader term "culture" in both popular
and academic circles.[2] Every human being participates in a culture, defined as "the arts,
customs, habits... beliefs, values, behavior and material habits that constitute a people's
way of life".[3] However, in its most widely used definition, civilization is a descriptive
term for a relatively complex agricultural and urban culture. Civilizations can be
distinguished from other cultures by their high level of social complexity and
organization, and by their diverse economic and cultural activities.

In an older but still frequently used sense, the term "civilization" can be used in a
normative manner as well: in societal contexts where complex and urban cultures are
assumed to be superior to other "savage" or "barbarian" cultures, the concept of
"civilization" is used as a synonym for "cultural (and often ethical) superiority of certain
groups." In a similar sense, civilization can mean "refinement of thought, manners, or
taste".[4] This normative notion of civilization is heavily rooted in the thought that
urbanized environments provide a higher living standard, encompassed by both
nutritional benefits and mental potentialities. Civilization requires advanced knowledge
of: science, trade, art, government, and farming, within a society.

In his book The Philosophy of Civilization, Albert Schweitzer, one of the main
philosophers on the concept of civilization, outlined the idea that there are dual opinions
within society; one regarding civilization as purely material and another regarding
civilization as both ethical and material. He stated that the current world crisis was, then
in 1923, due to a humanity having lost the ethical conception of civilization. In this same
work, he defined civilization, saying:

It is the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every
point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals
as the progress of all progress.

In the sixth century, the Roman Emperor Justinian oversaw the consolidation of Roman
civil law. The resulting collection is called the Corpus Juris Civilis. In the 11th century,
professors at the University of Bologna, Western Europe's first university, rediscovered
Corpus Juris Civilis, and its influence began to be felt across Western Europe. In 1388,
the word civil appeared in English meaning "of or related to citizens".[5] In 1704,
civilization began to mean "a law which makes a criminal process into a civil case."
Civilization was not used in its modern sense to mean "the opposite of barbarism" — as
contrasted to civility, meaning politeness or civil virtue — until the 18th century.
According to Emile Benveniste (1954[6]), the earlist written occurrence in English of
civilization in its modern sense may be found in Adam Ferguson's An Essay on the
History of Civil Society (Edinburgh, 1767 - p. 2):

Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from
rudeness to civilization.

It should be noted that this usage incorporates the concept of superiority and maturity of
"civilized" existence, as contrasted to "rudeness", which is used to denote coarseness, as
in a lack of refinement or "civility".

Before Benveniste's inquiries, the New English Dictionary quoted James Boswell's
conversation with Samuel Johnson concerning the inclusion of Civilization in Johnson's
dictionary:
On Monday, March 23 (1772), I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio
Dictionary... He would not admit civilization, but only civility. With great deference to
him I thought civilization, from to civilize, better in the sense opposed to barbarity than
civility, as it is better to have a distinct word for each sense, than one word with two
senses, which civility is, in his way of using it.

Benveniste demonstrated that previous occurrences could be found, which explained the
quick adoption of Johnson's definition. In 1775 the dictionary of Ast defined civilization
as "the state of being civilized; the act of civilizing",[6] and the term was frequently used
by Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
(1776).[6] Beside Smith and Ferguson, John Millar also used it in 1771 in his
Observations concerning the distinction of ranks in society.[6]

As the first occurrence of civilization in French was found by Benveniste in the Marquis
de Mirabeau's L'Ami des hommes ou traité de la population (written in 1756 but
published in 1757), Benveniste's query was to know if the English word derived from the
French, or if both evolved independently — a question which needed more research.
According to him, the word civilization may in fact have been used by Ferguson as soon
as 1759.[6]

Furthermore, Benveniste notes that, contrasted to civility, a static term, civilization

conveys a sense of dynamism. He thus writes that

[i]t was not only a historical view of society; it was also an optimist and resolutely non
theological interpretation of its evolution which asserted itself, sometimes at the insu of
those who proclaimed it, and even if some of them, and first of all Mirabeau, still counted
religion as the first factor of 'civilization.[6][7]

Another source of the word may relate to chivalry: a set of rules of engagement,
originally for knights in warfare, but later expanded to cover conduct of knighthood or
nobility. The English 'chivalry' comes from the French 'chevalier': a horseman[citation needed].
England and France would therefore have given rise to the terms at similar times.

Characteristics

26th century BC Sumerian cuneiform script in Sumerian language, listing gifts to the
high priestess of Adab on the occasion of her election. One of the earliest examples of
human writing.

Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish
a civilization from other kinds of society.[8] Civilizations have been distinguished by their
means of subsistence, types of livelihood, settlement patterns, forms of government,
social stratification, economic systems, literacy, and other cultural traits.

All human civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence. Growing food on
farms results in a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural
techniques such as irrigation and crop rotation. Grain surpluses have been especially
important because they can be stored for a long time. A surplus of food permits some
people to do things besides produce food for a living: early civilizations included artisans,
priests and priestesses, and other people with specialized careers. A surplus of food
results in a division of labour and a more diverse range of human activity, a defining trait
of civilizations.

Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word
civilization is sometimes defined as "a word that simply means 'living in cities'".[9] Non-
farmers gather in cities to work and to trade.

Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure,
namely the state. State societies are more stratified than other societies; there is a greater
difference among the social classes. The ruling class, normally concentrated in the cities,
has control over much of the surplus and exercises its will through the actions of a
government or bureaucracy. Morton Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman Service, an
integration theorist, have classified human cultures based on political systems and social
inequality. This system of classification contains four categories:

• Hunter-gatherer bands, which are generally egalitarian.

• Horticultural/pastoral societies in which there are generally two inherited social
classes; chief and commoner.
• Highly stratified structures, or chiefdoms, with several inherited social classes:
king, noble, freemen, serf and slave.
• Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional
governments.[10]

Economically, civilizations display more complex patterns of ownership and exchange

than less organized societies. Living in one place allows people to accumulate more
personal possessions than nomadic people. Some people also acquire landed property, or
private ownership of the land. Because a percentage of people in civilizations do not
grow their own food, they must trade their goods and services for food in a market
system, or receive food through the levy of tribute, redistributive taxation, tariffs or tithes
from the food producing segment of the population. Early civilizations developed money
as a medium of exchange for these increasingly complex transactions. To oversimplify, in
a village the potter makes a pot for the brewer and the brewer compensates the potter by
giving him a certain amount of beer. In a city, the potter may need a new roof, the roofer
may need new shoes, the cobbler may need new horseshoes, the blacksmith may need a
new coat, and the tanner may need a new pot. These people may not be personally
acquainted with one another and their needs may not occur all at the same time. A
monetary system is a way of organizing these obligations to ensure that they are fulfilled
fairly.

Writing, developed first by people in Sumer, is considered a hallmark of civilization and

"appears to accompany the rise of complex administrative bureaucracies or the conquest
state."[11] Traders and bureaucrats relied on writing to keep accurate records. Like money,
writing was necessitated by the size of the population of a city and the complexity of its
commerce among people who are not all personally acquainted with each other.

Aided by their division of labor and central government planning, civilizations have
developed many other diverse cultural traits. These include organized religion,
development in the arts, and countless new advances in science and technology.