Editing Civilization (section)

== Characteristics ==
[[File:AthensAcropolisDawnAdj06028.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.5|350px|The [[Acropolis of Athens]]: [[Greece]] is traditionally seen as the cradle of a distinct European or [[Western culture|"Western" civilization]].<ref name=":2">{{cite encyclopaedia |encyclopaedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |title=Athens |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/40773/Athens |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090106054445/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/40773/Athens |archive-date=6 January 2009 |access-date=31 December 2008 |quote=Ancient Greek Athenai, historic city and capital of Greece. Many of classical civilization's intellectual and artistic ideas originated there, and the city is generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization}}</ref><ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Brown |first=Thomas J. |year=1975 |title=The Athenian furies: Observations on the major factors effecting politics in modern Greece, 1973–1974 |url=http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/178425 |publisher=Ball State University |quote=Greece is a picturesque country on the southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula straddling the always-blue Agean, Ionian and Adriatic Seas. Considered by many to be the cradle of Western Civilization and the birthplace of democracy, her ancient past has long been the source and inspiration of Western thought. |access-date=14 August 2022 |archive-date=22 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522072827/https://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/178425 |url-status=live }}{{better source needed|date=September 2023}}</ref>]]

Social scientists such as [[V. Gordon Childe]] have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Childe |first1=Gordon |author1-link=V. Gordon Childe |title=What Happened In History |date=1950 |orig-date=1923 |publisher=Penguin |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.100247/page/n5/mode/2up}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Childe |first1=V. Gordon [Vere Gordon]|author1-link=V. Gordon Childe |title=Man makes himself |date=1951 |publisher=New American Library |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/manmakeshimself00chil |orig-date=1936 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Civilizations have been distinguished by their means of subsistence, types of [[livelihood]], [[Human settlement|settlement]] patterns, [[forms of government]], [[social stratification]], economic systems, [[literacy]] and other cultural traits. [[Andrew Nikiforuk]] argues that "civilizations relied on shackled human muscle. It took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities" and considers [[slavery]] to be a common feature of pre-modern civilizations.<ref name="Nikiforuk">{{cite book |last1=Nikiforuk |first1=Andrew |title=The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the new servitude |date=2012 |publisher=Greystone Books; David Suzuki Foundation |location=Vancouver, BC, Canada |isbn=978-1-55365-978-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/energyofslavesoi0000niki |url-access=registration}}</ref>

All civilizations have depended on [[agriculture]] for subsistence, with the possible exception of some early civilizations in Peru which may have depended upon maritime resources.<ref name=":14">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.hallofmaat.com/ancientamerican/the-maritime-foundations-of-andean-civilization-an-evolving-hypothesis/ |title=The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization: An Evolving Hypothesis |last=Moseley |first=Michael |magazine=In the Hall of Ma'at |date=24 January 2005 |archive-date=5 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405081206/https://www.hallofmaat.com/ancientamerican/the-maritime-foundations-of-andean-civilization-an-evolving-hypothesis/}}</ref><ref name=":15">{{cite book |last=Moseley |first=Michael |title=The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization | title-link=Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization |year=1975 |publisher=Cummings |location=Menlo Park |isbn=978-0-8465-4800-3}}</ref>

The traditional "surplus model" postulates that cereal farming results in accumulated storage and a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as artificial [[fertilization]], [[irrigation]] and [[crop rotation]]. It is possible but more difficult to accumulate horticultural production, and so civilizations based on horticultural gardening have been very rare.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Hadjikoumis |editor1-first=Angelos |editor2-last=Robinson |editor2-first=Erick |editor3-last=Viner-Daniels |editor3-first=Sarah |title=The dynamics of neolithisation in Europe: Studies in honour of Andrew Sherratt |date=2011 |publisher=Oxbow Books |location=Oxford Oakville, CT, U.S |isbn=978-1-84217-999-4 |page=1 |edition=1st}}</ref> Grain surpluses have been especially important because [[food storage|grain can be stored]] for a long time.

Research from the ''[[Journal of Political Economy]]'' contradicts the surplus model. It postulates that horticultural gardening was more productive than cereal farming. However, only cereal farming produced civilization because of the [[wikt:appropriability|appropriability]] of yearly harvest. Rural populations that could only grow cereals could be taxed allowing for a taxing elite and urban development. This also had a negative effect on rural population, increasing relative agricultural output per farmer. Farming efficiency created food surplus and sustained the food surplus through decreasing rural population growth in favour of urban growth. Suitability of highly productive roots and tubers was in fact a curse of plenty, which prevented the emergence of states and impeded economic development.<ref>{{cite news |last=Kiggins |first=Sheila |url=https://phys.org/news/2022-04-civilization.html |title=Study sheds new light on the origin of civilization |work=Phys.org |accessdate=25 May 2022 |archive-date=18 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220418071200/https://phys.org/news/2022-04-civilization.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="JOPE">{{Cite journal|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/718372#:~:text=The%20conventional%20theory%20about%20the,elites%20and%2C%20eventually%2C%20states.|doi=10.1086/718372|title=The Origin of the State: Land Productivity or Appropriability? |year=2022 |last1=Mayshar |first1=Joram |last2=Moav |first2=Omer |last3=Pascali |first3=Luigi |journal=Journal of Political Economy |volume=130|issue=4 |pages=1091–1144 |hdl=10230/57736 |s2cid=244818703 |access-date=17 April 2022 |url-status=live |archive-date=17 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417220207/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/718372#:~:text=The%20conventional%20theory%20about%20the,elites%20and%2C%20eventually%2C%20states|hdl-access=free |issn=0022-3808}}</ref>

A surplus of food permits some people to do things besides producing food for a living: early civilizations included [[soldiers]], [[artisan]]s, [[priest]]s 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. However, in some places hunter-gatherers have had access to food surpluses, such as among some of the indigenous peoples of the [[Pacific Northwest]] and perhaps during the Mesolithic [[Natufian culture]]. It is possible that food surpluses and relatively large scale social organization and division of labour predates plant and animal domestication.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text/1 |title=Göbekli Tepe |magazine=[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]] |date=June 2011 |last=Mann |first=Charles C. |access-date=8 July 2011 |archive-date=27 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180227040742/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text/1 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word ''civilization'' is sometimes defined as "living in cities".<ref name="6 glasses">{{cite book |last1=Standage |first1=Tom |author1-link=Tom Standage |title=A History of the World in 6 Glasses |date=2005 |page=25 |location=New York |publisher=Walker & Company |isbn=978-0-8027-1447-3 |oclc=57009997}}
* See also: {{cite episode |date=7 June 2005 |last=Brighton |first=Jack (producer)|title=A History of the World in 6 Glasses |type=Radio interview – audio|series=Focus 580|url=https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-the-world-in-6-glasses.iF3xPI.popuparchive.org |language=en |network= Illinois Public Media |station=[[WILL (AM)|WILL-AM 580]] |via=Internet Archive}} (With guest: Tom Standage, technology editor at ''The Economist''). [https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-16-w66930pg67 American Archive of Public Broadcasting record]</ref> Non-farmers tend to gather in cities to work and to trade.

Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure, namely the [[State (polity)|state]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Grinin |first=Leonid |title=The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues |date=2004 |location=Volgograd |publisher=Uchitel Publishing House |chapter=The Early State and Its Analogues: A Comparative Analysis |editor1=Leonid Grinin |editor2=Robert Carneiro |editor3=Dmitri Bondarenko |editor4=Nikolay Kradin |editor5=Andrey Korotayev |pages=88–133 |url=https://www.amazon.com.au/Early-State-Its-Alternatives-Analogues-ebook/dp/B075FGDS6Z |language=en |isbn=978-5-7057-0547-4 |oclc=56596768 |access-date=22 September 2023 |archive-date=26 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231026223451/https://www.amazon.com.au/Early-State-Its-Alternatives-Analogues-ebook/dp/B075FGDS6Z |url-status=live }}</ref> State societies are more stratified<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bondarenko |first1=Dmitri |last2=Grinin |first2=Leonid |first3=Andrey V. |last3=Korotayev |title=The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues |date=2004 |location=Volgograd |publisher=Uchitel Publishing House |chapter=Alternatives of Social Evolution |editor1=Leonid Grinin |editor2=Robert Carneiro |editor3=Dmitri Bondarenko |editor4= Nikolay Kradin |editor5=Andrey Korotayev |pages=3–27 |language=en |isbn=978-5-7057-0547-4 |oclc=56596768}}</ref> 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 theory|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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bogucki |first1=Peter |title=The Origins of Human Society |date=1999 |publisher=Wiley Blackwell |location=Malden, Mass. (U.S.) |isbn=978-1-55786-349-2 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/originsofhumanso0000bogu_g4c9}}</ref>

* ''[[Hunter-gatherer]] bands'', which are generally [[egalitarianism|egalitarian]].<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Lee |editor-first1=Richard Borshay |editor-last2= DeVore |editor-first2= Irven|title=Man the Hunter: The First Intensive Survey of a Single, Crucial Stage of Human Development ― Man's Once Universal Hunting Way of Life |date=1968 |publisher=Aldine |isbn=978-0-202-33032-7 |edition=1st |others=With the assistance of Jill Nash-Mitchell |url=https://archive.org/details/ManTheHunter/page/n3/mode/2up}}</ref>
* ''[[Horticulture|Horticultural]]–[[Pastoralism|pastoralist]] societies'' in which there are generally two inherited social classes: chief and commoner.
* ''Highly stratified structures'', or [[chiefdom]]s, with several inherited social classes: king, noble, freemen, serf and slave.
* ''Civilizations'', with complex [[social hierarchy|social hierarchies]] and organized, institutional [[forms of government]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Beck |first=Roger B. |author2=Linda Black |author3=Larry S. Krieger |author4=Phillip C. Naylor |author5=Dahia Ibo Shabaka |title=World History: Patterns of Interaction |url=https://archive.org/details/mcdougallittellw00beck |url-access=registration |publisher=McDougal Littell |year=1999 |location=Evanston, Ill. |isbn=978-0-395-87274-1}}</ref>

Economically, civilizations display more complex patterns of ownership and exchange than less organized societies. Living in one place allows people to accumulate more [[Ownership|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 (economics)|market]] system, or receive food through the levy of [[tribute]], redistributive [[taxation]], [[tariffs]] or [[tithe]]s from the food producing segment of the population. Early human cultures functioned through a [[gift economy]] supplemented by limited [[barter]] systems. By the early [[Iron Age]], contemporary civilizations developed [[money]] as a medium of exchange for increasingly complex transactions. 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. From the days of the earliest monetarized civilizations, monopolistic controls of monetary systems have benefited the social and political elites.

The transition from simpler to more complex economies does not necessarily mean an improvement in the living standards of the populace. For example, although the Middle Ages is often portrayed as an era of decline from the Roman Empire, studies have shown that the average stature of males in the Middle Ages (c. 500 to 1500 CE) was greater than it was for males during the preceding Roman Empire and the succeeding [[Early Modern Period]] (c. 1500 to 1800 CE).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Steckel |first1=Richard H. |title=New Light on the 'Dark Ages' |journal=Social Science History |date=4 January 2016 |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=211–229 |doi=10.1017/S0145553200013134 |s2cid=143128051}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Koepke |first1=Nikola |last2=Baten |first2=Joerg |title=The biological standard of living in Europe during the last two millennia |journal=European Review of Economic History |date=1 April 2005 |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=61–95 |doi=10.1017/S1361491604001388 |jstor=41378413 |hdl=10419/47594 |hdl-access=free}}</ref> Also, the [[Plains Indians]] of North America in the 19th century were taller than their "civilized" American and European counterparts. The average stature of a population is a good measurement of the adequacy of its access to necessities, especially food, and its freedom from disease.<ref name="Leutwyler">{{cite magazine |last1=Leutwyler |first1=Kristen |date=30 May 2001|title=American Plains Indians had Health and Height |magazine=Scientific American |access-date=20 April 2021 |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/american-plains-indians-h/ |archive-date=20 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210420155130/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/american-plains-indians-h/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[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".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians|last=Pauketat|first=Timothy R.|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2004|isbn=978-0-521-52066-9|page=169}}</ref> Traders and bureaucrats relied on writing to keep accurate records. Like money, the 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. However, writing is not always necessary for civilization, as shown by the [[Inca]] civilization of the Andes, which did not use writing at all but except for a complex recording system consisting of knotted strings of different lengths and colours: the "[[Quipu]]s", and still functioned as a civilized society.

[[File:Aristotle Altemps Inv8575.jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Aristotle]], the [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] philosopher and scientist]]

Aided by their division of labour 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.

Assessments of what level of civilization a polity has reached are based on comparisons of the relative importance of agricultural as opposed to trading or manufacturing capacities, the territorial extensions of its power, the complexity of its [[division of labour]], and the [[carrying capacity]] of its [[urban centre]]s. Secondary elements include a developed transportation system, writing, standardized measurement, currency, contractual and [[tort]]-based legal systems, art, architecture, mathematics, scientific understanding, [[metallurgy]], political structures, and organized religion.

===As a contrast with other societies===
The idea of civilization implies a progression or development from a previous "uncivilized" state. Traditionally, cultures that defined themselves as "civilized" often did so in contrast to other societies or human groupings viewed as less civilized, calling the latter [[barbarians]], [[wikt:savages|savages]], and [[primitive culture|primitives]]. Indeed, the modern Western idea of civilization developed as a contrast to the [[indigenous peoples|indigenous]] cultures European settlers encountered during the European colonization of the Americas and Australia.<ref name="Smithers">{{cite journal |last1=Smithers |first1=Gregory D. |title=The 'Pursuits of the Civilized Man': Race and the Meaning of Civilization in the United States and Australia, 1790s–1850s |journal=Journal of World History |year=2009 |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=245–272 |doi=10.1353/jwh.0.0047|s2cid=143956999 }}</ref> The term "primitive," though once used in [[anthropology]], has now been largely condemned by anthropologists because of its derogatory connotations and because it implies that the cultures it refers to are relics of a past time that do not change or progress.<ref>{{cite web |title=ASA Statement on the use of 'primitive' as a descriptor of contemporary human groups |url=http://www.theasa.org/news.shtml#asa |publisher=Association of Social Anthropologists|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111114155909/http://www.theasa.org/news.shtml#asa |archive-date=14 November 2011 }}</ref>

Because of this, societies regarding themselves as "civilized" have sometimes sought to dominate and assimilate "uncivilized" cultures into a "civilized" way of living.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bowden |first1=Brett |title=Oxford Handbook Topics in Politics |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford Academic |url=https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/41327/chapter/352326100 |chapter=Civilization and its Consequences |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935307.013.30 |isbn=978-0-19-993530-7 |access-date=29 July 2023 |archive-date=29 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230729013409/https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/41327/chapter/352326100 |url-status=live }}</ref> In the 19th century, the idea of European culture as "civilized" and superior to "uncivilized" non-European cultures was fully developed, and civilization became a core part of European identity.<ref name="Heraclides">{{cite book |last1=Heraclides |first1=Alexis |last2=Dialla |first2=Ada |title=Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century: Setting the Precedent |date=2015 |publisher=Manchester University Press |pages=31–56 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1mf71b8.7 |chapter=3 Eurocentrism, ‘civilization’ and the ‘barbarians’ |doi=10.2307/j.ctt1mf71b8.7 |jstor=j.ctt1mf71b8.7 |access-date=29 July 2023 |archive-date=29 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230729013403/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1mf71b8.7 |url-status=live }}</ref> The idea of civilization can also be used as a justification for dominating another culture and dispossessing a people of their land. For example, in [[Australia]], British settlers justified the displacement of Indigenous Australians by observing that the land appeared uncultivated and wild, which to them reflected that the inhabitants were not civilized enough to "improve" it.<ref name="Smithers"/> The behaviours and modes of subsistence that characterize civilization have been spread by [[colonization]], [[imperialism|invasion]], [[religious conversion]], the extension of [[bureaucracy|bureaucratic control]] and [[trade]], and by the introduction of new technologies to cultures that did not previously have them. Though aspects of culture associated with civilization can be freely adopted through contact between cultures, since early modern times Eurocentric ideals of "civilization" have been widely imposed upon cultures through coercion and dominance. These ideals complemented a [[Scientific racism|philosophy]] that assumed there were innate differences between "civilized" and "uncivilized" peoples.<ref name="Heraclides"/>