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Heronimo sehmi Heronimo Sehmi== American Art ==

An American in Paris is a symphonic composition by American composer George Gershwin which debuted in 1928. Inspired by Gershwin's time in Paris, it is in the form of an extended tone poem evoking the sights and energy of the French capital in the 1920s. In addition to the standard instruments of the Classical orchestra, the score features period automobile horns; Gershwin brought back some Parisian taxi-cab horns for the New York premiere of the composition. "An American In Paris" is second only to Rhapsody In Blue as a favorite of Gershwin's classical compositions.

Although Gershwin wrote many stage shows in his lifetime, he was long dead by the time the 1951 musical film, An American in Paris, was made. The film, unusually, was based on the orchestral work of the same name, rather than on a stage musical, but used songs already written for other Gershwin shows. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron and Oscar Levant (one of Gershwin's closest friends in real life), was set in Paris, and directed by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner. All of the music in the film is by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin. The climax of the film is 18 minutes of fantastic dancing featuring Kelly and Caron, set to George Gershwin's "An American In Paris".

This film won six Oscars:

Best Picture - Arthur Freed, producer Best Art - Set Decoration, Color - E. Preston Ames, Cedric Gibbons, F. Keogh Gleason, and Edwin B. Willis Best Cinematography, Color - John Alton and Alfred Gilks Best Costume Design, Color - Orry-Kelly, Walter Plunkett, and Irene Sharaff Best Musical Score - Saul Chaplin and Johnny Green Best Writing, Scoring and Screenplay - Allan Jay Lerner The film was also nominated for:

Best Director - Vincente Minnelli Best Film Editing - Adrienne Fazan The film has also been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Trivia The film was shot on Hollywood sets, so it features some quirks in the occasional French dialogue. Notably, near the beginning of the I got rhythm number, one of the "French" kids says Jerry, parle anglais à nous, which sounds rather curious. In the French soundtrack, which switches to the original sound for the duration of the songs, the à nous is masked thru a plop sound, to make the sentence more palatable.

Hollywood movies referencing France seldom use location shooting or native speakers. Great care is however sometimes put into reproducing Paris surroundings, like in this American in Paris or in Irma La Douce. Ironically, a lot of older French Paris-based movies were studio work as well and the same art directors (eg. Alexandre Trauner) were sometimes working on both sides of the ocean...

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_in_Paris" Categories: 1951 films | AFI 100 Movies | AFI 100 Passions | US National Film Registry | Musical films

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Heronimo sehmi Heronimo Sehmi== Indian History ==

History of India From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It is requested that this article be expanded (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=History_of_India&action=edit). Please improve it in any way that you see fit, and remove this notice and the listing on the request page once the article is no longer a stub.

History of South Asia Indus Valley Civilization Vedic civilization Middle kingdoms Islamic empires Mughal era Company rule British Raj Independence History of India History of Pakistan History of Bangladesh Contents [showhide] 1 Prehistory

2 Indus Valley Civilisation and the coming of Aryans

3 Shishunaga Dynasty

4 Rise of Jainism and Buddhism

5 Mauryan Period

6 Shunga Period

7 The Classical Age

8 Pallavas

9 Chalukya Empire

10 Chola Empire

11 The Vijayanagar Empire

12 Islamic rule

13 Mughal Dynasty

14 Colonial India

14.1 British 14.2 Portuguese 14.3 French 14.4 The Dutch 14.5 The Danes

15 British India

16 1947 Onwards

17 Timeline approximate

18 Political timelines

18.1 Traditional Hindu reckoning 18.2 Shishunaga Dynasty Onwards

19 See also

20 External links

20.1 Sources

Heronimo sehmiHeronimo Sehmi Prehistory The prehistory of India goes back to the old Stone age (Palaeolithic). While India lies at the eastern limit of the hand axe distribution, there are numerous Acheulean findspots. Hathnora, in the Narmada Valley has produced hominid remains of middle Pleistocene date. Recent finds include a middle palaeolithic quarry in the Kaladgi Basin, southern India. A tradition of Indian rock art dates to 40 or 50,000 years ago.

The early Neolithic is represented by the Mehrgarh culture of the 7th Millennium BCE, in northwest India. Recent data, substantiated by satellite imagery and oceanographic studies, suggests that the civilisation flourished even as far back as the 9th Millennium BCE.

Heronimo sehmiHeronimo Sehmi Indus Valley Civilisation and the coming of Aryans Historians believe that the Indus Valley Civilisation (known as the Harappan Civilisation) flourished between 3000 BCE and 1800 BCE, stretching from Afghanistan in the west to the Ganges plains in the east; from the Pamir knot in the north to the Rann of Kutch in the south. This was the largest among the so called Bronze age civilisations of the period. This reached its most prosperous phase in the 2600 BCE in the valleys of the Indus river as an urban culture based on commerce and sustained by agricultural trade. This civilisation declined between the 19th and 17th century BCE, probably due to ecological changes. See: Indus Valley civilisation

Little is known about this lost culture, as attempts made by historians in deciphering the Harappan script have been in vain. The civilisation declined towards the end of the millennium. No one knows where the Harappans came from and what happened after 1700 BC, but around this time, the Aryans are believed to have appeared on the scene (historians believe they entered India through the Khyber Pass). There have been many disagreements among contemporary Indologists over the exact events because the Harappans left a huge amount of archaeology but no decipherable literature and Aryans on the other had have left voluminous literature, in the form of the Vedas, but no archaeology. It is agreed by many prominent historians that the influx of Aryans represent not a distinct race but rather a coagulate group of Indo-Europeans, possibly coming through ancient Persia. Others contend that the Aryans were always a part of the Indian subcontinent. The many theories surrounding the Aryan Invasion Theory and ideas of the origin of Vedic/early proto-Hindu culture continue to be debated, though most tend to favour the idea of a gradual migration and absorption into India.

Shishunaga Dynasty Much is known about the Hindu Shishunaga dynasty of the Magadha empire in north India thanks to the Puranas (voluminous Hindu texts), the Buddhist Jatakas, and Jain texts. The emperors Bimbisara and Ajatashatru are connected with the life of Gautama Buddha. The Puranas assign it the period 684 BCE - 424 BCE.

The Shishunaga dynasty was followed by the Nanda dynasty that ruled for 100 years.

Rise of Jainism and Buddhism Gautama Buddha (563 - 483 BC) Mahavira (599 BC)

Mauryan Period Chandragupta Maurya, a famed Hindu monarch, founded the Mauryan dynasty with the help of Chanakya (or Kautilya) the author of the ancient Hindu text on governance and political savvy known as the Arthashastra. Ashoka, one of the greatest rulers of this dynasty, embraced and preached Buddhism after experiencing an epiphany on the bloody battlefield of Kalinga. The mighty empire of the Mauryans began to decline after the death of Ashoka.

Shunga Period The first king in this period was Pushyamitra who rule during 185-151 BCE. The Shunga period is known for its art and sculpture.

The Classical Age The political map of ancient and medieval India comprised myriad kingdoms with fluctuating boundaries. In the 4th and 5th centuries, the Gupta Dynasty unified northern India. During this period, known as India's Golden Age, Hindu culture, science and political administration reached new heights.

Pallavas 4th century to 9th century in Kanchi

Chalukya Empire The Chalukya Empire ruled parts of southern India from 550 CE to 750 CE and again from 970 CE to 1190 CE.

Chola Empire The Cholas built a very powerful Hindu empire during 9th century to 13th centuries.

The Vijayanagar Empire The brothers Harihara and Bukka founded the Karnataka Empire, also known as the Vijayanagara Empire, in 1336. The Vijayanagara empire prospered during the reign of Krishnadevaraya. It suffered a major defeat in 1565 but continued for another century or so in an attenuated form.

Islamic rule Islam spread across the subcontinent over a period of 1000 years. Prior to Turkish invasions, Muslim trading communities flourished throughout coastal South India, particularly in Kerala. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Turks and Afghans invaded India and established the Sultanate of Delhi at the beginning of the 13th century. In the early 16th century, descendants of Genghis Khan swept across the Khyber Pass and established the Mughal (Mogul) Dynasty, which lasted for 200 years.

The Hindu Chola and Vijayanagar Dynasties came into conflict with Islamic rule and the clashing of the two systems - prevailing Hindu and the Muslim caused a mingling that left lasting cultural influences on each other. The Mughal rule also saw such influences with Gujarat and Rajasthan contributing towards this.

See also: Islamic invasion of India, Islamic Empires in India

[edit] Mughal Dynasty Main article: Mughal Era

The Mughal Empire ruled most of the northern Indian subcontinent from 1526; it went into a slow decline after 1707 and was finally defeated during the War of Independence of 1857.

[edit] Colonial India Main articles: Colonial India, European colonies in India

Vasco da Gama's discovery of a new sea route to India in 1498 paved the way for European colonisation of India.

[edit] British The British established their first outpost in South Asia in 1619 at Surat on the northwestern coast of India, arriving in the wake of Portuguese and Dutch visitors. Later in the century, the British East India Company opened permanent trading stations at Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, each under the protection of native rulers.

[edit] Portuguese The Portuguese set up bases in Goa, Daman, Diu and Bombay. They remained the longest colonial rulers for 500 years till 1962.

[edit] French Main article: French India

The French set up base along with the British in the 17th century. They occupied large parts of southern India. However subsequent wars with the British made them lose almost all their territory. Colonies remained were Pondicherry -(Pondicherry, Karaikal, Yanam, and Mahé.) and Chandernagore. Pondicherry was ceded to India in 1950.

[edit] The Dutch The Dutch did not have a major presence in India. The towns of Travancore were ruled by the Dutch. However they were more interested in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and their prize of the Dutch East Indies now Indonesia. However they trained the military of the princely state of Kerala.

[edit] The Danes In 1845, the Danish colony of Tranquebar was sold to Britain.

[edit] British India Main article: British Raj.

The British expanded their influence from these footholds until, by the 1850s, they controlled most of the Indian sub-continent, which included present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 1857, a rebellion in northern India led by mutinous Indian soldiers caused the British Parliament to transfer all political power from the East India Company to the Crown. Britain began administering most of India directly, while controlling the rest through treaties with local rulers. From 1830, the defeat of the Thugs played a part in securing establishing greater control of diverse Indian provinces for the British.

In the late 19th century "British India" took its first steps toward self-government with the appointment of Indian councillors to advise the British viceroy and with the establishment of provincial councils with Indian members; the British subsequently widened participation in legislative councils. Beginning in 1920, the Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi (also known as Mahatma (Great Soul) Gandhi) transformed the Indian National Congress party into a mass movement to campaign against British colonial rule. The movement eventually succeeded in bringing about independence by means of parliamentary action, non-violent resistance and non-cooperation.

See also: Indian independence movement, India during World War II

[edit] 1947 Onwards On August 15, 1947, India became a dominion within the Commonwealth of Nations under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Concurrently the Muslim northwest and north east of British India was separated into the nation of Pakistan. Violent clashes between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs followed this partition. The area of Kashmir in the far north of the subcontinent quickly became a source of controversy that erupted into the First Indo-Pakistani War which lasted from 1947 to 1949. Eventually a cease fire was agreed to that left India in control of two thirds of the contested region.

The Indian Constituent Assembly adopted India's constitution on November 26, 1949. External link to the constitution (http://lawmin.nic.in/coi.htm) India became a secular republic within the Commonwealth after promulgating its constitution on January 26, 1950.

After independence, the Congress Party, the party of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, ruled India under the influence first of Nehru and then of his daughter Indira Gandhi and of his grandson Rajiv Gandhi, with the exception of two brief periods in the 1970s and 1980s. Prime Minister Nehru governed the nation until his death in 1964. Under Nehru the country launched a policy of industrial expansion based on heavy industries through a number of five year plans. Nehru foreign policy emphasized non-alignment and India was consequently a central member of the Non-Aligned Movement. It started tentative relations with the USSR in response to the United States' burgeoning relationship with Pakistan.

In 1961, after continual petitions for a peaceful handover, India invaded and annexed the Portuguese colony of Goa on the west coast of India. In 1971 India annexed the semi-independent principality of Sikkim.

In 1962 China and India engaged in the brief Sino-Indian War over the border in the Himalayas. The war was a complete rout for the Indians and led to a refocussing on arms build-up and an improvement in relations with the United States.

In 1965 in the Second Kashmir War India and Pakistan again went to war, with India again remaining victorious. In 1971, India intervened in a civil war taking place in Pakistan's eastern Bengal half; the clash resulted in the independence of East Pakistan, which became known as Bangladesh.

In 1966, power passed to Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, who served as Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977. In 1975, beset with deepening political and economic problems as well as threats to her power, Gandhi declared a state of emergency and suspended many civil liberties, a controversial move that thrust India into a two-year standstill. Seeking a mandate at the polls for her policies, she called for elections in 1977, only to suffer electoral defeat at the hands of Morarji Desai, who headed the Janata Party, an amalgamation of five opposition parties.

In 1979, Desai's Government crumbled. Charan Singh formed an interim government, which was followed by Gandhi's return to power in January 1980. On October 31, 1984, assassins killed Indira Gandhi, and the Congress (I) - for "Indira" - Party chose her son Rajiv Gandhi to take her place. His government fell in 1989 amidst allegations of corruption. V.P. Singh and then Chandra Shekhar in turn succeeded as Prime Minister.

After the 1989 elections, although Rajiv Gandhi and Congress won a plurality of seats, he did not succeed in forming a government with a clear majority. The Janata Dal, a union of opposition parties, formed a government with the help of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the right and of the communists on the left. This loose coalition collapsed in November 1990, and for a short period of time a breakaway Janata Dal group supported by Congress (I) controlled the government, with Chandra Shekhar as Prime Minister. That alliance also collapsed, resulting in national elections in June 1991.

On May 27, 1991, while Rajiv Gandhi campaigned in Tamil Nadu on behalf of Congress (I), assassins, apparently Sri Lankan Tamil extremists, killed him. In the elections, Congress (I) won 213 parliamentary seats and put together a coalition, returning to power under the leadership of P.V. Narasimha Rao. This Congress-led government, which served a full 5-year term, initiated a gradual process of economic liberalisation and reform, which has opened the Indian economy to global trade and investment. India's domestic politics also took new shape, as traditional alignments by caste, creed, and ethnicity gave way to a plethora of small, regionally-based political parties.

The final months of the Rao-led government in the spring of 1996 suffered the effects of several major political corruption scandals, which contributed to the worst electoral performance by the Congress Party in its history. The Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged from the May 1996 national elections as the single-largest party in the Lok Sabha but without enough strength to prove a majority on the floor of that Parliament. Under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP coalition lasted in power 13 days. With all political parties wishing to avoid another round of elections, a 14-party coalition led by the Janata Dal emerged to form a government known as the United Front, under the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, H.D. Deve Gowda. His government lasted less than a year, as the leader of the Congress Party withdrew his support in March 1997. Inder Kumar Gujral replaced Deve Gowda as the consensus choice for Prime Minister of a 16-party United Front coalition.

In November 1997, the Congress Party again withdrew support for the United Front. New elections in February 1998 brought the BJP the largest number of seats in Parliament--182--but this fell far short of a majority. On March 20, 1998, the President inaugurated a BJP-led coalition government with Vajpayee again serving as Prime Minister. On May 11 and 13, 1998, this government conducted a series of underground nuclear tests, prompting United States President Clinton and Japan to impose economic sanctions on India pursuant to the 1994 Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act.

In April 1999, the BJP-led coalition government fell apart, leading to fresh elections in September. The National Democratic Alliance - a new coalition led by the BJP - gained a majority to form a government with Vajpayee as Prime Minister in October 1999.

In January 2004 Vajpayee recommended early dissolution of the Lok Sabha and General elections. The Congress Party-led alliance won a plurality of seats in election held in May 2004, leading to Manmohan Singh becoming Prime Minister.

[edit] Timeline approximate 40000 BCE -- Rock art in Bhimbetka 7000 BCE -- The beginnings of the Indus Tradition in Mehrgarh 3300 BCE -- Early Mohenjadaro and Harappa 3137 BCE -- Traditional date of the Mahabharata War 3102 BCE -- Kaliyuga calendar 2600 BCE - 1900 BC -- Unified Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation, or Harappan Civilisation 1900 BCE -- Indus-Sarasvati Tradition begins to fragment into regional cultures 500 BCE -- Buddhism and Jainism [edit] Political timelines [edit] Traditional Hindu reckoning 6676 BCE - 5000 BCE -- First Age, Krita yuga 5000 BCE - 4000 BCE -- Second Age, Treta yuga 4000 BCE - 3102 BCE -- Third Age, Dvapara yuga 3102 BCE - 424 BCE -- Brihadrathas, Pradyotas, Shishunagas, Nandas (3102 BCE onwards -- Fourth Age, Kali yuga) [edit] Shishunaga Dynasty Onwards 684 BCE - 424 BCE -- Shishunaga dynasty 544 BCE - 491 BCE -- Bimbisara 491 BCE - 461 BCE -- Ajatashatru 423 BCE - 323 BCE -- Nanda dynasty 322 BCE - 183 BCE -- Mauryan dynasty 183 BCE - 71 BCE -- Shunga dynasty 71 BCE - 26 BCE -- Kanva dynasty 26 BCE - 434 CE -- Andhra dynasty 320 - 550 -- Gupta dynasty 606 - 647 -- Harsha of Kannauj 609-642 -- Pulakeshin of the Chalukya dynasty 870-906 -- Aditya Chola 906-953 -- Parantaka Chola I 985-1014 -- Rajaraja Chola I 1014-1042 -- Rajendra Chola I 1206-1520 -- Delhi Sultanate 1526-1707 -- Mughal empire 1680-1818 -- Maratha empire 1857-1947 -- British India [edit] See also Timeline of Indian history Prehistoric and Early India Partition of India Free India Religions in India: Hinduism--Buddhism--Jainism--Islam--Sikhism--Christianity Historical Figures and Topics: Mahabharata--Bimbisara--Ajatashatru--Buddha--Chandragupta Maurya--Ashoka--Kanishka--Chandragupta II--Kumaragupta--Skandagupta--Harsha--Dharmapala--Devapala--Mihira Bhoja--Mahendrapala--Rajaraja Chola--Rajendra Chola--Krishna Deva Raya--Babur--Akbar--Shah jahan--Shivaji--Ranjit Singh--Rani Lakshmi Bai--Lokamanya Tilak--Mohandas Gandhi--Jawaharlal Nehru--Indira Gandhi--Rajiv Gandhi--Narasimha Rao--Atal Behari Vajpayee History of banking in India [edit] External links [edit] Sources Dilip K. Chakrabarti, India : An Archaeological History : Palaeolithic Beginnings to Early Historic Foundations (New Delhi, OUP, 2001) ISBN 019565880-9. Modern India (http://www.gutenberg.net/browse/BIBREC/BR11212.HTM), by William E. Curtis, Chicago Record-Herald, 1903-04.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India" Categories: Requests for expansion | Indian history

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Heronimo sehmi== Civilization ==Heronimo Sehmi

Civilization From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For alternative meanings see Civilization (disambiguation) The Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan, Mexico. Building projects of this size require the social organization found in civilizations.A civilization or civilisation has a variety of meanings related to human society. The term comes from the Latin civis, meaning "citizen" or "townsman."

1. In a technical sense, a civilization is a complex society in which many of the people live in cities and get their food from agriculture, as distinguished from band and tribal societies in which people live in small settlements or nomadic groups and make their subsistence by foraging, hunting, or working small horticultural gardens. When used in this sense, civilization is an exclusive term, applied to some human groups and not others.

2. In a broader sense, civilization often can refer to any distinct society, whether complex and city-dwelling, or simple and tribal. This definition is often perceived as less exclusive and ethnocentric than the first. In this sense civilization is nearly synonymous with culture.

3. Civilization can sometimes refer to human society as a whole, as in "A nuclear war would wipe out Civilization" or "I'm glad to be safely back in Civilization after being lost in the wilderness for 3 weeks."

4. Civilization can also mean a standard of behavior, similar to etiquette. "Civilized" behavior is contrasted with "barbaric" or crude behavior. In this sense, civilization implies sophistication and refinement.

5. Another use of civilization combines the first and fourth meanings of the word, implying that a complex society is naturally superior to less complex societies. This point of view is associated with racism and imperialism; powerful societies have often believed it was their right to "civilize," or culturally dominate, weaker ones ("barbarians"). This act of civilizing weaker peoples was sometimes called the "White Man's Burden."

This article will mainly treat civilizations in the first, narrow, sense. See culture, society, etiquette, and ethnocentrism and for topics related to the broader senses of the term. See also Problems with the term.

Contents [showhide] 1 What makes a civilization

2 Civilization as a cultural identity

3 Civilizations as complex systems

4 The future of civilizations

5 Negative views of civilization

6 Problems with the term civilization

7 Some civilizations in human history

7.1 External links

[edit] What makes a civilization In the technical sense, a civilization is a complex society. It is distinguished from simpler societies but is not considered superior to them. Everyone lives in a society and a culture, but not everyone lives in a civilization. In general, civilizations share the following traits:

Intensive agricultural techniques, such as the use of animal power, crop rotation, and irrigation. This enables farmers to produce a surplus of food that will not be needed for their own subsistence. A significant portion of the population that does not devote most of its time to producing food. They can go into other occupations and trade for the food they need. This is called "specialization of labor." It is possible because of the food surplus described above. The gathering of these non-food producers into permanent settlements, called cities. A social hierarchy. This can be a chiefdom, in which the chieftain of one noble family or clan rules the people; or a state society, in which the ruling class is supported by a government or bureaucracy. Political power is concentrated in the cities. The establishment of complex, formal social institutions such as organized religion and education, as opposed to the less formal traditions of other societies. Development of complex forms of economic exchange. This includes the expansion of trade and may lead to the creation of money and markets. The accumulation of more material possessions than in simpler societies. Development of new technologies by people who are not busy producing food. In many early civilizations, metallurgy was an important advancement. Advanced development of the arts by those who don't have to farm for a living. This can include writing. By this definition, some societies, like China, are clearly civilizations, whereas others like the Bushmen clearly are not. However, the distinction is not always clear. In the Pacific Northwest, for example, an abundant supply of fish guaranteed that the people had a surplus of food without any agriculture. The people established permanent settlements, a social hierarchy, material wealth, and advanced artwork (most famously totem poles), all without the development of intensive agriculture. Meanwhile, the Pueblo culture of southwestern North America developed advanced agriculture, irrigation, and permanent, communal settlements such as Taos. However, the Pueblo never developed any of the complex institutions associated with civilizations. Today, many tribal societies live inside states and under their laws. The political structures of civilization have been superimposed on their way of life, so they too occupy a middle ground between tribal and civilized.

The first civilization was that of the Sumerians, who became an urban society around 3500 BC.

[edit] Civilization as a cultural identity "Civilization" can also describe the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of items and arts, that make it unique. Civilizations have even more intricate cultures, including literature, professional art, architecture, organized religion, and complex customs associated with the elite. The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures, sometimes assimilating them into the civilization (a classic example being Chinese civilization and its influence on Korea, Japan, Tibet, and so forth).

So many civilizations are actually large cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives is that person's broadest cultural identity. A female of African descent living in the United States has many roles that she identifies with. However, she is above all a member of "Western civilization." In the same way, a male of Kurdish ancestry living in Syria is above all a member of "Islamic civilization."

Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as single units. One example is early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler. He said that a civilization's coherence is based around a single primary cultural symbol. Civilizations experience cycles of birth, life, decline and death, often supplanted by a new civilization with a potent new culture, formed around a compelling new cultural symbol.

This "unified culture" concept of civilization also influenced the theories of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in the mid-twentieth century. Toynbee explored civilizational processes in his multi-volume A Study of History, which traced the rise and, in most cases, the decline of 21 civilizations and five "arrested civilizations". Civilizations generally declined and fell, according to Toynbee, because of moral or religious decline, rather than economic or environmental causes.

Samuel P. Huntington similarly defines a civilization as "the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species." Besides giving a definition of a civilization, Huntington has also proposed several theories about civilizations, discussed below.

[edit] Civilizations as complex systems Another group of theorists, making use of systems theory, look at civilizations as complex systems or networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures, and are defined by the economic, political, military, diplomatic, and cultural interactions between them.

For example, urbanist Jane Jacobs defines cities as the economic engines that work to create large networks of people. The main process that creates these city networks, she says, is "import replacement." Import replacement is when peripheral cities begin to replace goods and services that were formerly imported from more advanced cities. Successful import replacement creates economic growth in these peripheral cities, and allows these cities to then export their goods to less developed cities in their own hinterlands, creating new economic networks. So Jacobs explores economic development across wide networks instead of treating each society as an isolated cultural sphere.

Systems theorists look at many types of relations between cities, including economic relations, cultural exchanges, and political/diplomatic/military relations. These spheres often occur on different scales. For example, trade networks were, until the nineteenth century, much larger than either cultural spheres or political spheres. Extensive trade routes, including the silk road through Central Asia and Indian Ocean sea routes linking the Roman Empire India, and China, were well established 2000 years ago, when these civilizations scarcely shared any political, diplomatic, or military, or cultural relations.

Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single "world system," a process known as globalization. Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration began, and what sort of integration--cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic--is the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BCE. Central Civilization later expanded to include the entire Middle East and Europe, and then expanded to global scale with European colonization, integrating the Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or relatively homogeneous, like the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusades as the first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have expanded and shrunk since ancient times, and that the current globalized economy and culture is a product of recent European colonialism.

[edit] The future of civilizations Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington has argued that the defining characteristic of the 21st century will be a clash of civilizations. According to Huntington, conflicts between civilizations will supplant the conflicts between nation-states and ideologies that characterized the 19th and 20th centuries.

Currently, world civilization is in a stage that has created what may be characterized as an industrial society, superceding the agricultural society that preceded it. Some futurists believe that civilization is undergoing another transformation, and that world society will become an informational society.

The Kardashev scale classifies civilizations based on their level of technological advancement, specifically measured by the amount of energy a civilization is able to harness. The Kardashev scale makes provisions for civilizations far more technologically advanced than any currently existing.

[edit] Negative views of civilization Over the years many members of civilizations have shunned them, believing that civilization restricts people from living in their natural state. Religious ascetics in many times and places have attempted to curb the influence of civilization over their lives in order to concentrate on spiritual matters. Monasteries represent an effort by these ascetics to create a life somewhat apart from their mainstream civilizations. In the 19th century, Transcendentalists believed civilization was shallow and materialistic, so they wanted to build a completely agrarian society, free from the oppression of the city.

Karl Marx believed that the beginning of civilization was the beginning of oppression. As more food was produced and the society's material possessions increased, wealth became concentrated in the hands of the powerful. The communal way of life among tribal people gave way to aristocracy and hierarchy, which in turn gave way to the inequalities of industrial society. In addition, some feminists believe that civilization is the source of men's domination over women. Together, these ideas make up modern conflict theory in the social sciences.

Many environmentalists criticize civilizations for their exploitation of the environment. Through intensive agriculture and urban growth, civilizations tend to destroy natural settings and habitats. This is sometimes referred to as "dominator culture." Proponents of this view believe that traditional societies live in greater harmony with nature than civilizations; people work with nature rather than try to subdue it. The sustainable living movement is a push from some members of civilization to regain that harmony with nature.

Primitivism is a modern philosophy totally opposed to civilization for all of the above reasons: they accuse civilizations of restricting humans, oppressing the weak, and damaging the environment. A leading proponent is John Zerzan.

[edit] Problems with the term civilization 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.

Many 19th-century anthropologists backed a theory called cultural evolution. They believed that people naturally progress from a simple state to a superior, civilized state. John Wesley Powell, for example, classified all societies as Savage, Barbarian, and Civilized; the first two of his terms would shock most anthropologists today.

Today most social scientists understand that complex societies are not by nature superior, more humane, or more sophisticated than less complex groups. The cultural relativism of Franz Boas helped lead to this belief. When they speak of a civilization, they do not mean a superior or better society, just a complex and urban one.

A minority of scholars reject the relativism of Boas and mainstream social science. English biologist John Baker, in his 1974 book Race, gives about 20 criteria that make civilizations superior to non-civilizations. Baker tries to show a relation between the cultures of civilizations and the biological disposition of their creators.

Many postmodernists, and a considerable proportion of the wider public, argue that the division of societies into 'civilized' and 'uncivilized' is arbitrary and meaningless. On a fundamental level, they say there is no difference between civilizations and tribal societies; each simply does what it can with the resources it has. The concept of "civilization" has merely been the justification for colonialism, imperialism, genocide, and coercive acculturation.

For all of the above reasons, many scholars today avoid using the term "civilization" to refer to a specific kind of people. They prefer to use urban society or intensive agricultural society, which are much less ambiguous, more neutral-sounding terms. "Civilization," however, remains in common academic use, especially when talking about specific societies such as "Mayan Civilization."

[edit] Some civilizations in human history An Egyptian farmer using a plow drawn by domesticated animals, two developments in agriculture that led to the first civilizationsCivilizations can be distinguished from one another in several ways, and the number of distinct civilizations, their duration, and extent, are the subject of some debate. Historians may emphasize cultural distinctiveness, or may distinguish civilizations by degree of economic, political, and diplomatic integration. The list below includes a number of civilizations commonly identified by historians. Many cultures evolve through the fusion of elements from other cultures, so discerning sharp divisions between civilizations on the basis of culture is difficult indeed, and subject to varying interpretations. Civilizations may be lumped or split.

Most of the civilizations below possess cities, specialized occupations, political entities larger than a single settlement, extensive trade networks, and writing, but not all of the civilizations include all of these criteria. A number of cultures that possess certain of these characteristics are not included here.

Most of these civilizations are now gone; some disappeared, their people returning to a pre-urban way of life; others were conquered by or merged into other civilizations. How many distinct civilizations exist at present is also a subject of some debate.

Mesopotamian civilization (also called the Fertile Crescent civilization): begins with Sumerian city-states c. 3500 BCE, which developed cuneiform writing. Elements of the civilization were transmitted to neighboring and conquering states and peoples, including Akkad, Elam, Mitanni, Assyria, Babylonia. After sixth century BCE Mesopotamian civilization dominated by Hellenic-Roman and Iranian civilizations. Levantine/West Semitic civilization: includes the urbanized Northwest Semitic cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, including Ugarit, Syria, Phoenicia, Canaan, Kingdom of Israel. Developed alphabetic (strictly speaking, abjad) writing, and, in Israel, monotheism. Hittite civilization: The Hittites were an urbanized nation of eastern Anatolia from third millennium BCE to c. 600 BCE. their culture fused Mesopotamian (i.e. cuneiform writing), Indo-European, and autochthonous (Hattian) cultural elements. Persian civilization: developed on the plateau of Iran after 1000 BCE. Includes Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, Bactrian, Sogdian, and Sassanian states and empires. Culture combined Mesopotamian and Indo-European elements. Iranian religions were distinct, and included Magism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeanism, Mithraism. Iran dominated much of western and central Asia from c. 600 BCE to Islamic conquest after 636 CE. Egyptian civilization: developed in the Nile valley c. 3000 BCE. Includes Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, as well as neighboring Nubia. After fourth century BCE dominated by Hellenic-Roman civilization. Indic civilization: consisted of two distinct societies. Indus Valley Civilization: emerged after 2600 BCE, also called the Harappan civilization. Harappan script has not yet been deciphered. Vedic civilization: emerged in the valleys of the Indus and Ganges after 1500 BCE, initially as republics and kingdoms. Developed Maurya and Gupta empires and modern Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. The degree of continuity between Harappan and Vedic civilization is subject to considerable debate, and they may be distinct civilizations. Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations: emerged c. 2000 BCE around the Aegean sea and on its islands. Minoan writing has not been deciphered. Mycenaean culture took hold after the collapse of Minoan culture, and went into decline after 1100 BCE. The degree to which Aegean civilization is autochthonous, having emerged from the culture of Old Europe, or is derived from Afroasiatic cultures of Egypt and the Levant is subject to debate. Chinese (Sinic) civilization: emerged in the second millennium BCE in northern China, later spread to the rest of China, Korea, and Japan. Indigenous religions, Confucianism and Taoism, later supplemented by Buddhism, introduced from India. Greco-Roman civilization: emerged around the Aegean after the Greek dark ages, 1000 CE. Greek settlement around the Mediterranean and Black seas, and Alexander's conquest of the Persian empire in the fourth century, spread Hellenic civilization around the Mediterranean, where it was absorbed by non-Greek peoples, including the Romans. The Roman Empire adopted Christianity after the fourth century CE, and collapsed around the western Mediterranean during the sixth century. Western civilization: evolved from the Christian Latin-speaking portion of the Roman Empire, which grew to include most of western and central Europe during the Middle Ages. Generally understood to include Roman Catholic and Protestant nations of Europe, and the areas they later settled such as North America, Latin America, and Australia. This civilization was the first to develop into an industrial society. Byzantine civilization: the Greek-speaking portion of the Roman Empire continued after its collapse in the west, fusing Hellenic and Christian elements, and its culture was adopted by neighboring peoples. Historians who characterize Byzantium as distinct from Western civilization usually focus on the institution of Caesaropapism, which fused religious and state authority. Byzantine culture spread to eastern Slavic peoples, including Russia. Byzantium itself was conquered by Turkish armies in 1453. Southeast Asian civilization: includes the urban cultures that emerged in Southeast Asia and Indonesia during the first millennium CE, including Mon, Khmer Champa, Thailand, Burma on the mainland, and Srivijaya and Majapahit in Indonesia. Southeast Asian civilization absorbed cultural influences from India, including Hinduism and Buddhism, and from China, and later from Islam. Mesoamerican civilization: emerged with the first Olmec cities in the lowlands along the Gulf of Mexico in the first millennium BCE. Later developed in two centers: the Valley of Mexico, home to Teotihuacan, the Toltecs, and Aztecs, and the Maya civilization of Guatemala and the Yucatan. Conquered in the 16th century by Spanish, see also Spanish conquest of Yucatán. Andean civilization: developed in the first millennium BCE in the central Andes and the central Pacific coast of South America, including the urbanized cultures of Chavín, Moche, Ica-Nazca, Chimu, Tiwanaku, Aymara, and the semi-urbanized Inca. The Spanish conquered the Inca in the 16th century. Japanese civilization: initially developed as a fusion of indigenous (i.e. Shinto) and Chinese cultural elements, transmitted via Korea. Islamic civilization: emerged from the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century CE, and later spread to include most of western and Central Asia, northern Africa, and Indonesia. Early states include the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates; later examples include Seljuk and Ottoman Turkey. Chibchan civilization: developed in the Cauca and Magdalena river valleys of the northern Andes, in modern Colombia. Conquered in the 16th century by Spanish colonists. West African civilization: Large cities emerged c. 1000 CE, funded by wealth from the trade of gold and salt with other civilizations. First major kingdom was Ghana Empire; other early states included Mali, Kanem-Bornu, the Hausa cities, and the Songhai Empire. Mississippian civilization: included Cahokia and other cities of the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. Cities were abandoned by c. 1400 CE. Zimbabwean civilization: civilization of southwestern Africa. Great Zimbabwe was the major center, but by the 1500s was in ruin. [edit] External links BBC on civilization (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/interactive/civilisations/) Coalition Against Civilization (http://www.coalitionagainstcivilization.org/) Wiktionary: civilization, civilize

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization" Categories: History | Culture | Anthropology

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CIVILIZATION
Civilization From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For alternative meanings see Civilization (disambiguation) The Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan, Mexico. Building projects of this size require the social organization found in civilizations.A civilization or civilisation has a variety of meanings related to human society. The term comes from the Latin civis, meaning "citizen" or "townsman."

1. In a technical sense, a civilization is a complex society in which many of the people live in cities and get their food from agriculture, as distinguished from band and tribal societies in which people live in small settlements or nomadic groups and make their subsistence by foraging, hunting, or working small horticultural gardens. When used in this sense, civilization is an exclusive term, applied to some human groups and not others.

2. In a broader sense, civilization often can refer to any distinct society, whether complex and city-dwelling, or simple and tribal. This definition is often perceived as less exclusive and ethnocentric than the first. In this sense civilization is nearly synonymous with culture.

3. Civilization can sometimes refer to human society as a whole, as in "A nuclear war would wipe out Civilization" or "I'm glad to be safely back in Civilization after being lost in the wilderness for 3 weeks."

4. Civilization can also mean a standard of behavior, similar to etiquette. "Civilized" behavior is contrasted with "barbaric" or crude behavior. In this sense, civilization implies sophistication and refinement.

5. Another use of civilization combines the first and fourth meanings of the word, implying that a complex society is naturally superior to less complex societies. This point of view is associated with racism and imperialism; powerful societies have often believed it was their right to "civilize," or culturally dominate, weaker ones ("barbarians"). This act of civilizing weaker peoples was sometimes called the "White Man's Burden."

This article will mainly treat civilizations in the first, narrow, sense. See culture, society, etiquette, and ethnocentrism and for topics related to the broader senses of the term. See also Problems with the term.

Contents [showhide] 1 What makes a civilization

2 Civilization as a cultural identity

3 Civilizations as complex systems

4 The future of civilizations

5 Negative views of civilization

6 Problems with the term civilization

7 Some civilizations in human history

7.1 External links

[edit] What makes a civilization In the technical sense, a civilization is a complex society. It is distinguished from simpler societies but is not considered superior to them. Everyone lives in a society and a culture, but not everyone lives in a civilization. In general, civilizations share the following traits:

Intensive agricultural techniques, such as the use of animal power, crop rotation, and irrigation. This enables farmers to produce a surplus of food that will not be needed for their own subsistence. A significant portion of the population that does not devote most of its time to producing food. They can go into other occupations and trade for the food they need. This is called "specialization of labor." It is possible because of the food surplus described above. The gathering of these non-food producers into permanent settlements, called cities. A social hierarchy. This can be a chiefdom, in which the chieftain of one noble family or clan rules the people; or a state society, in which the ruling class is supported by a government or bureaucracy. Political power is concentrated in the cities. The establishment of complex, formal social institutions such as organized religion and education, as opposed to the less formal traditions of other societies. Development of complex forms of economic exchange. This includes the expansion of trade and may lead to the creation of money and markets. The accumulation of more material possessions than in simpler societies. Development of new technologies by people who are not busy producing food. In many early civilizations, metallurgy was an important advancement. Advanced development of the arts by those who don't have to farm for a living. This can include writing. By this definition, some societies, like China, are clearly civilizations, whereas others like the Bushmen clearly are not. However, the distinction is not always clear. In the Pacific Northwest, for example, an abundant supply of fish guaranteed that the people had a surplus of food without any agriculture. The people established permanent settlements, a social hierarchy, material wealth, and advanced artwork (most famously totem poles), all without the development of intensive agriculture. Meanwhile, the Pueblo culture of southwestern North America developed advanced agriculture, irrigation, and permanent, communal settlements such as Taos. However, the Pueblo never developed any of the complex institutions associated with civilizations. Today, many tribal societies live inside states and under their laws. The political structures of civilization have been superimposed on their way of life, so they too occupy a middle ground between tribal and civilized.

The first civilization was that of the Sumerians, who became an urban society around 3500 BC.

[edit] Civilization as a cultural identity "Civilization" can also describe the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of items and arts, that make it unique. Civilizations have even more intricate cultures, including literature, professional art, architecture, organized religion, and complex customs associated with the elite. The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures, sometimes assimilating them into the civilization (a classic example being Chinese civilization and its influence on Korea, Japan, Tibet, and so forth).

So many civilizations are actually large cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives is that person's broadest cultural identity. A female of African descent living in the United States has many roles that she identifies with. However, she is above all a member of "Western civilization." In the same way, a male of Kurdish ancestry living in Syria is above all a member of "Islamic civilization."

Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as single units. One example is early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler. He said that a civilization's coherence is based around a single primary cultural symbol. Civilizations experience cycles of birth, life, decline and death, often supplanted by a new civilization with a potent new culture, formed around a compelling new cultural symbol.

This "unified culture" concept of civilization also influenced the theories of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in the mid-twentieth century. Toynbee explored civilizational processes in his multi-volume A Study of History, which traced the rise and, in most cases, the decline of 21 civilizations and five "arrested civilizations". Civilizations generally declined and fell, according to Toynbee, because of moral or religious decline, rather than economic or environmental causes.

Samuel P. Huntington similarly defines a civilization as "the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species." Besides giving a definition of a civilization, Huntington has also proposed several theories about civilizations, discussed below.

[edit] Civilizations as complex systems Another group of theorists, making use of systems theory, look at civilizations as complex systems or networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures, and are defined by the economic, political, military, diplomatic, and cultural interactions between them.

For example, urbanist Jane Jacobs defines cities as the economic engines that work to create large networks of people. The main process that creates these city networks, she says, is "import replacement." Import replacement is when peripheral cities begin to replace goods and services that were formerly imported from more advanced cities. Successful import replacement creates economic growth in these peripheral cities, and allows these cities to then export their goods to less developed cities in their own hinterlands, creating new economic networks. So Jacobs explores economic development across wide networks instead of treating each society as an isolated cultural sphere.

Systems theorists look at many types of relations between cities, including economic relations, cultural exchanges, and political/diplomatic/military relations. These spheres often occur on different scales. For example, trade networks were, until the nineteenth century, much larger than either cultural spheres or political spheres. Extensive trade routes, including the silk road through Central Asia and Indian Ocean sea routes linking the Roman Empire India, and China, were well established 2000 years ago, when these civilizations scarcely shared any political, diplomatic, or military, or cultural relations.

Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single "world system," a process known as globalization. Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration began, and what sort of integration--cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic--is the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BCE. Central Civilization later expanded to include the entire Middle East and Europe, and then expanded to global scale with European colonization, integrating the Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or relatively homogeneous, like the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusades as the first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have expanded and shrunk since ancient times, and that the current globalized economy and culture is a product of recent European colonialism.

[edit] The future of civilizations Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington has argued that the defining characteristic of the 21st century will be a clash of civilizations. According to Huntington, conflicts between civilizations will supplant the conflicts between nation-states and ideologies that characterized the 19th and 20th centuries.

Currently, world civilization is in a stage that has created what may be characterized as an industrial society, superceding the agricultural society that preceded it. Some futurists believe that civilization is undergoing another transformation, and that world society will become an informational society.

The Kardashev scale classifies civilizations based on their level of technological advancement, specifically measured by the amount of energy a civilization is able to harness. The Kardashev scale makes provisions for civilizations far more technologically advanced than any currently existing.

[edit] Negative views of civilization Over the years many members of civilizations have shunned them, believing that civilization restricts people from living in their natural state. Religious ascetics in many times and places have attempted to curb the influence of civilization over their lives in order to concentrate on spiritual matters. Monasteries represent an effort by these ascetics to create a life somewhat apart from their mainstream civilizations. In the 19th century, Transcendentalists believed civilization was shallow and materialistic, so they wanted to build a completely agrarian society, free from the oppression of the city.

Karl Marx believed that the beginning of civilization was the beginning of oppression. As more food was produced and the society's material possessions increased, wealth became concentrated in the hands of the powerful. The communal way of life among tribal people gave way to aristocracy and hierarchy, which in turn gave way to the inequalities of industrial society. In addition, some feminists believe that civilization is the source of men's domination over women. Together, these ideas make up modern conflict theory in the social sciences.

Many environmentalists criticize civilizations for their exploitation of the environment. Through intensive agriculture and urban growth, civilizations tend to destroy natural settings and habitats. This is sometimes referred to as "dominator culture." Proponents of this view believe that traditional societies live in greater harmony with nature than civilizations; people work with nature rather than try to subdue it. The sustainable living movement is a push from some members of civilization to regain that harmony with nature.

Primitivism is a modern philosophy totally opposed to civilization for all of the above reasons: they accuse civilizations of restricting humans, oppressing the weak, and damaging the environment. A leading proponent is John Zerzan.

[edit] Problems with the term civilization 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.

Many 19th-century anthropologists backed a theory called cultural evolution. They believed that people naturally progress from a simple state to a superior, civilized state. John Wesley Powell, for example, classified all societies as Savage, Barbarian, and Civilized; the first two of his terms would shock most anthropologists today.

Today most social scientists understand that complex societies are not by nature superior, more humane, or more sophisticated than less complex groups. The cultural relativism of Franz Boas helped lead to this belief. When they speak of a civilization, they do not mean a superior or better society, just a complex and urban one.

A minority of scholars reject the relativism of Boas and mainstream social science. English biologist John Baker, in his 1974 book Race, gives about 20 criteria that make civilizations superior to non-civilizations. Baker tries to show a relation between the cultures of civilizations and the biological disposition of their creators.

Many postmodernists, and a considerable proportion of the wider public, argue that the division of societies into 'civilized' and 'uncivilized' is arbitrary and meaningless. On a fundamental level, they say there is no difference between civilizations and tribal societies; each simply does what it can with the resources it has. The concept of "civilization" has merely been the justification for colonialism, imperialism, genocide, and coercive acculturation.

For all of the above reasons, many scholars today avoid using the term "civilization" to refer to a specific kind of people. They prefer to use urban society or intensive agricultural society, which are much less ambiguous, more neutral-sounding terms. "Civilization," however, remains in common academic use, especially when talking about specific societies such as "Mayan Civilization."

[edit] Some civilizations in human history An Egyptian farmer using a plow drawn by domesticated animals, two developments in agriculture that led to the first civilizationsCivilizations can be distinguished from one another in several ways, and the number of distinct civilizations, their duration, and extent, are the subject of some debate. Historians may emphasize cultural distinctiveness, or may distinguish civilizations by degree of economic, political, and diplomatic integration. The list below includes a number of civilizations commonly identified by historians. Many cultures evolve through the fusion of elements from other cultures, so discerning sharp divisions between civilizations on the basis of culture is difficult indeed, and subject to varying interpretations. Civilizations may be lumped or split.

Most of the civilizations below possess cities, specialized occupations, political entities larger than a single settlement, extensive trade networks, and writing, but not all of the civilizations include all of these criteria. A number of cultures that possess certain of these characteristics are not included here.

Most of these civilizations are now gone; some disappeared, their people returning to a pre-urban way of life; others were conquered by or merged into other civilizations. How many distinct civilizations exist at present is also a subject of some debate.

Mesopotamian civilization (also called the Fertile Crescent civilization): begins with Sumerian city-states c. 3500 BCE, which developed cuneiform writing. Elements of the civilization were transmitted to neighboring and conquering states and peoples, including Akkad, Elam, Mitanni, Assyria, Babylonia. After sixth century BCE Mesopotamian civilization dominated by Hellenic-Roman and Iranian civilizations. Levantine/West Semitic civilization: includes the urbanized Northwest Semitic cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, including Ugarit, Syria, Phoenicia, Canaan, Kingdom of Israel. Developed alphabetic (strictly speaking, abjad) writing, and, in Israel, monotheism. Hittite civilization: The Hittites were an urbanized nation of eastern Anatolia from third millennium BCE to c. 600 BCE. their culture fused Mesopotamian (i.e. cuneiform writing), Indo-European, and autochthonous (Hattian) cultural elements. Persian civilization: developed on the plateau of Iran after 1000 BCE. Includes Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, Bactrian, Sogdian, and Sassanian states and empires. Culture combined Mesopotamian and Indo-European elements. Iranian religions were distinct, and included Magism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeanism, Mithraism. Iran dominated much of western and central Asia from c. 600 BCE to Islamic conquest after 636 CE. Egyptian civilization: developed in the Nile valley c. 3000 BCE. Includes Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, as well as neighboring Nubia. After fourth century BCE dominated by Hellenic-Roman civilization. Indic civilization: consisted of two distinct societies. Indus Valley Civilization: emerged after 2600 BCE, also called the Harappan civilization. Harappan script has not yet been deciphered. Vedic civilization: emerged in the valleys of the Indus and Ganges after 1500 BCE, initially as republics and kingdoms. Developed Maurya and Gupta empires and modern Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. The degree of continuity between Harappan and Vedic civilization is subject to considerable debate, and they may be distinct civilizations. Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations: emerged c. 2000 BCE around the Aegean sea and on its islands. Minoan writing has not been deciphered. Mycenaean culture took hold after the collapse of Minoan culture, and went into decline after 1100 BCE. The degree to which Aegean civilization is autochthonous, having emerged from the culture of Old Europe, or is derived from Afroasiatic cultures of Egypt and the Levant is subject to debate. Chinese (Sinic) civilization: emerged in the second millennium BCE in northern China, later spread to the rest of China, Korea, and Japan. Indigenous religions, Confucianism and Taoism, later supplemented by Buddhism, introduced from India. Greco-Roman civilization: emerged around the Aegean after the Greek dark ages, 1000 CE. Greek settlement around the Mediterranean and Black seas, and Alexander's conquest of the Persian empire in the fourth century, spread Hellenic civilization around the Mediterranean, where it was absorbed by non-Greek peoples, including the Romans. The Roman Empire adopted Christianity after the fourth century CE, and collapsed around the western Mediterranean during the sixth century. Western civilization: evolved from the Christian Latin-speaking portion of the Roman Empire, which grew to include most of western and central Europe during the Middle Ages. Generally understood to include Roman Catholic and Protestant nations of Europe, and the areas they later settled such as North America, Latin America, and Australia. This civilization was the first to develop into an industrial society. Byzantine civilization: the Greek-speaking portion of the Roman Empire continued after its collapse in the west, fusing Hellenic and Christian elements, and its culture was adopted by neighboring peoples. Historians who characterize Byzantium as distinct from Western civilization usually focus on the institution of Caesaropapism, which fused religious and state authority. Byzantine culture spread to eastern Slavic peoples, including Russia. Byzantium itself was conquered by Turkish armies in 1453. Southeast Asian civilization: includes the urban cultures that emerged in Southeast Asia and Indonesia during the first millennium CE, including Mon, Khmer Champa, Thailand, Burma on the mainland, and Srivijaya and Majapahit in Indonesia. Southeast Asian civilization absorbed cultural influences from India, including Hinduism and Buddhism, and from China, and later from Islam. Mesoamerican civilization: emerged with the first Olmec cities in the lowlands along the Gulf of Mexico in the first millennium BCE. Later developed in two centers: the Valley of Mexico, home to Teotihuacan, the Toltecs, and Aztecs, and the Maya civilization of Guatemala and the Yucatan. Conquered in the 16th century by Spanish, see also Spanish conquest of Yucatán. Andean civilization: developed in the first millennium BCE in the central Andes and the central Pacific coast of South America, including the urbanized cultures of Chavín, Moche, Ica-Nazca, Chimu, Tiwanaku, Aymara, and the semi-urbanized Inca. The Spanish conquered the Inca in the 16th century. Japanese civilization: initially developed as a fusion of indigenous (i.e. Shinto) and Chinese cultural elements, transmitted via Korea. Islamic civilization: emerged from the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century CE, and later spread to include most of western and Central Asia, northern Africa, and Indonesia. Early states include the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates; later examples include Seljuk and Ottoman Turkey. Chibchan civilization: developed in the Cauca and Magdalena river valleys of the northern Andes, in modern Colombia. Conquered in the 16th century by Spanish colonists. West African civilization: Large cities emerged c. 1000 CE, funded by wealth from the trade of gold and salt with other civilizations. First major kingdom was Ghana Empire; other early states included Mali, Kanem-Bornu, the Hausa cities, and the Songhai Empire. Mississippian civilization: included Cahokia and other cities of the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. Cities were abandoned by c. 1400 CE. Zimbabwean civilization: civilization of southwestern Africa. Great Zimbabwe was the major center, but by the 1500s was in ruin. [edit] External links BBC on civilization (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/interactive/civilisations/) Coalition Against Civilization (http://www.coalitionagainstcivilization.org/) Wiktionary: civilization, civilize

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization" Categories: History | Culture | Anthropology

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This page was last modified 17:02, 9 Dec 2004. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details). About Wikipedia Disclaimers

Native American- Indians
Civilization From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For alternative meanings see Civilization (disambiguation) The Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan, Mexico. Building projects of this size require the social organization found in civilizations.A civilization or civilisation has a variety of meanings related to human society. The term comes from the Latin civis, meaning "citizen" or "townsman."

1. In a technical sense, a civilization is a complex society in which many of the people live in cities and get their food from agriculture, as distinguished from band and tribal societies in which people live in small settlements or nomadic groups and make their subsistence by foraging, hunting, or working small horticultural gardens. When used in this sense, civilization is an exclusive term, applied to some human groups and not others.

2. In a broader sense, civilization often can refer to any distinct society, whether complex and city-dwelling, or simple and tribal. This definition is often perceived as less exclusive and ethnocentric than the first. In this sense civilization is nearly synonymous with culture.

3. Civilization can sometimes refer to human society as a whole, as in "A nuclear war would wipe out Civilization" or "I'm glad to be safely back in Civilization after being lost in the wilderness for 3 weeks."

4. Civilization can also mean a standard of behavior, similar to etiquette. "Civilized" behavior is contrasted with "barbaric" or crude behavior. In this sense, civilization implies sophistication and refinement.

5. Another use of civilization combines the first and fourth meanings of the word, implying that a complex society is naturally superior to less complex societies. This point of view is associated with racism and imperialism; powerful societies have often believed it was their right to "civilize," or culturally dominate, weaker ones ("barbarians"). This act of civilizing weaker peoples was sometimes called the "White Man's Burden."

This article will mainly treat civilizations in the first, narrow, sense. See culture, society, etiquette, and ethnocentrism and for topics related to the broader senses of the term. See also Problems with the term.

Contents [showhide] 1 What makes a civilization

2 Civilization as a cultural identity

3 Civilizations as complex systems

4 The future of civilizations

5 Negative views of civilization

6 Problems with the term civilization

7 Some civilizations in human history

7.1 External links

[edit] What makes a civilization In the technical sense, a civilization is a complex society. It is distinguished from simpler societies but is not considered superior to them. Everyone lives in a society and a culture, but not everyone lives in a civilization. In general, civilizations share the following traits:

Intensive agricultural techniques, such as the use of animal power, crop rotation, and irrigation. This enables farmers to produce a surplus of food that will not be needed for their own subsistence. A significant portion of the population that does not devote most of its time to producing food. They can go into other occupations and trade for the food they need. This is called "specialization of labor." It is possible because of the food surplus described above. The gathering of these non-food producers into permanent settlements, called cities. A social hierarchy. This can be a chiefdom, in which the chieftain of one noble family or clan rules the people; or a state society, in which the ruling class is supported by a government or bureaucracy. Political power is concentrated in the cities. The establishment of complex, formal social institutions such as organized religion and education, as opposed to the less formal traditions of other societies. Development of complex forms of economic exchange. This includes the expansion of trade and may lead to the creation of money and markets. The accumulation of more material possessions than in simpler societies. Development of new technologies by people who are not busy producing food. In many early civilizations, metallurgy was an important advancement. Advanced development of the arts by those who don't have to farm for a living. This can include writing. By this definition, some societies, like China, are clearly civilizations, whereas others like the Bushmen clearly are not. However, the distinction is not always clear. In the Pacific Northwest, for example, an abundant supply of fish guaranteed that the people had a surplus of food without any agriculture. The people established permanent settlements, a social hierarchy, material wealth, and advanced artwork (most famously totem poles), all without the development of intensive agriculture. Meanwhile, the Pueblo culture of southwestern North America developed advanced agriculture, irrigation, and permanent, communal settlements such as Taos. However, the Pueblo never developed any of the complex institutions associated with civilizations. Today, many tribal societies live inside states and under their laws. The political structures of civilization have been superimposed on their way of life, so they too occupy a middle ground between tribal and civilized.

The first civilization was that of the Sumerians, who became an urban society around 3500 BC.

[edit] Civilization as a cultural identity "Civilization" can also describe the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of items and arts, that make it unique. Civilizations have even more intricate cultures, including literature, professional art, architecture, organized religion, and complex customs associated with the elite. The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures, sometimes assimilating them into the civilization (a classic example being Chinese civilization and its influence on Korea, Japan, Tibet, and so forth).

So many civilizations are actually large cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives is that person's broadest cultural identity. A female of African descent living in the United States has many roles that she identifies with. However, she is above all a member of "Western civilization." In the same way, a male of Kurdish ancestry living in Syria is above all a member of "Islamic civilization."

Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as single units. One example is early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler. He said that a civilization's coherence is based around a single primary cultural symbol. Civilizations experience cycles of birth, life, decline and death, often supplanted by a new civilization with a potent new culture, formed around a compelling new cultural symbol.

This "unified culture" concept of civilization also influenced the theories of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in the mid-twentieth century. Toynbee explored civilizational processes in his multi-volume A Study of History, which traced the rise and, in most cases, the decline of 21 civilizations and five "arrested civilizations". Civilizations generally declined and fell, according to Toynbee, because of moral or religious decline, rather than economic or environmental causes.

Samuel P. Huntington similarly defines a civilization as "the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species." Besides giving a definition of a civilization, Huntington has also proposed several theories about civilizations, discussed below.

[edit] Civilizations as complex systems Another group of theorists, making use of systems theory, look at civilizations as complex systems or networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures, and are defined by the economic, political, military, diplomatic, and cultural interactions between them.

For example, urbanist Jane Jacobs defines cities as the economic engines that work to create large networks of people. The main process that creates these city networks, she says, is "import replacement." Import replacement is when peripheral cities begin to replace goods and services that were formerly imported from more advanced cities. Successful import replacement creates economic growth in these peripheral cities, and allows these cities to then export their goods to less developed cities in their own hinterlands, creating new economic networks. So Jacobs explores economic development across wide networks instead of treating each society as an isolated cultural sphere.

Systems theorists look at many types of relations between cities, including economic relations, cultural exchanges, and political/diplomatic/military relations. These spheres often occur on different scales. For example, trade networks were, until the nineteenth century, much larger than either cultural spheres or political spheres. Extensive trade routes, including the silk road through Central Asia and Indian Ocean sea routes linking the Roman Empire India, and China, were well established 2000 years ago, when these civilizations scarcely shared any political, diplomatic, or military, or cultural relations.

Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single "world system," a process known as globalization. Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration began, and what sort of integration--cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic--is the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BCE. Central Civilization later expanded to include the entire Middle East and Europe, and then expanded to global scale with European colonization, integrating the Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or relatively homogeneous, like the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusades as the first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have expanded and shrunk since ancient times, and that the current globalized economy and culture is a product of recent European colonialism.

[edit] The future of civilizations Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington has argued that the defining characteristic of the 21st century will be a clash of civilizations. According to Huntington, conflicts between civilizations will supplant the conflicts between nation-states and ideologies that characterized the 19th and 20th centuries.

Currently, world civilization is in a stage that has created what may be characterized as an industrial society, superceding the agricultural society that preceded it. Some futurists believe that civilization is undergoing another transformation, and that world society will become an informational society.

The Kardashev scale classifies civilizations based on their level of technological advancement, specifically measured by the amount of energy a civilization is able to harness. The Kardashev scale makes provisions for civilizations far more technologically advanced than any currently existing.

[edit] Negative views of civilization Over the years many members of civilizations have shunned them, believing that civilization restricts people from living in their natural state. Religious ascetics in many times and places have attempted to curb the influence of civilization over their lives in order to concentrate on spiritual matters. Monasteries represent an effort by these ascetics to create a life somewhat apart from their mainstream civilizations. In the 19th century, Transcendentalists believed civilization was shallow and materialistic, so they wanted to build a completely agrarian society, free from the oppression of the city.

Karl Marx believed that the beginning of civilization was the beginning of oppression. As more food was produced and the society's material possessions increased, wealth became concentrated in the hands of the powerful. The communal way of life among tribal people gave way to aristocracy and hierarchy, which in turn gave way to the inequalities of industrial society. In addition, some feminists believe that civilization is the source of men's domination over women. Together, these ideas make up modern conflict theory in the social sciences.

Many environmentalists criticize civilizations for their exploitation of the environment. Through intensive agriculture and urban growth, civilizations tend to destroy natural settings and habitats. This is sometimes referred to as "dominator culture." Proponents of this view believe that traditional societies live in greater harmony with nature than civilizations; people work with nature rather than try to subdue it. The sustainable living movement is a push from some members of civilization to regain that harmony with nature.

Primitivism is a modern philosophy totally opposed to civilization for all of the above reasons: they accuse civilizations of restricting humans, oppressing the weak, and damaging the environment. A leading proponent is John Zerzan.

[edit] Problems with the term civilization 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.

Many 19th-century anthropologists backed a theory called cultural evolution. They believed that people naturally progress from a simple state to a superior, civilized state. John Wesley Powell, for example, classified all societies as Savage, Barbarian, and Civilized; the first two of his terms would shock most anthropologists today.

Today most social scientists understand that complex societies are not by nature superior, more humane, or more sophisticated than less complex groups. The cultural relativism of Franz Boas helped lead to this belief. When they speak of a civilization, they do not mean a superior or better society, just a complex and urban one.

A minority of scholars reject the relativism of Boas and mainstream social science. English biologist John Baker, in his 1974 book Race, gives about 20 criteria that make civilizations superior to non-civilizations. Baker tries to show a relation between the cultures of civilizations and the biological disposition of their creators.

Many postmodernists, and a considerable proportion of the wider public, argue that the division of societies into 'civilized' and 'uncivilized' is arbitrary and meaningless. On a fundamental level, they say there is no difference between civilizations and tribal societies; each simply does what it can with the resources it has. The concept of "civilization" has merely been the justification for colonialism, imperialism, genocide, and coercive acculturation.

For all of the above reasons, many scholars today avoid using the term "civilization" to refer to a specific kind of people. They prefer to use urban society or intensive agricultural society, which are much less ambiguous, more neutral-sounding terms. "Civilization," however, remains in common academic use, especially when talking about specific societies such as "Mayan Civilization."

[edit] Some civilizations in human history An Egyptian farmer using a plow drawn by domesticated animals, two developments in agriculture that led to the first civilizationsCivilizations can be distinguished from one another in several ways, and the number of distinct civilizations, their duration, and extent, are the subject of some debate. Historians may emphasize cultural distinctiveness, or may distinguish civilizations by degree of economic, political, and diplomatic integration. The list below includes a number of civilizations commonly identified by historians. Many cultures evolve through the fusion of elements from other cultures, so discerning sharp divisions between civilizations on the basis of culture is difficult indeed, and subject to varying interpretations. Civilizations may be lumped or split.

Most of the civilizations below possess cities, specialized occupations, political entities larger than a single settlement, extensive trade networks, and writing, but not all of the civilizations include all of these criteria. A number of cultures that possess certain of these characteristics are not included here.

Most of these civilizations are now gone; some disappeared, their people returning to a pre-urban way of life; others were conquered by or merged into other civilizations. How many distinct civilizations exist at present is also a subject of some debate.

Mesopotamian civilization (also called the Fertile Crescent civilization): begins with Sumerian city-states c. 3500 BCE, which developed cuneiform writing. Elements of the civilization were transmitted to neighboring and conquering states and peoples, including Akkad, Elam, Mitanni, Assyria, Babylonia. After sixth century BCE Mesopotamian civilization dominated by Hellenic-Roman and Iranian civilizations. Levantine/West Semitic civilization: includes the urbanized Northwest Semitic cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, including Ugarit, Syria, Phoenicia, Canaan, Kingdom of Israel. Developed alphabetic (strictly speaking, abjad) writing, and, in Israel, monotheism. Hittite civilization: The Hittites were an urbanized nation of eastern Anatolia from third millennium BCE to c. 600 BCE. their culture fused Mesopotamian (i.e. cuneiform writing), Indo-European, and autochthonous (Hattian) cultural elements. Persian civilization: developed on the plateau of Iran after 1000 BCE. Includes Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, Bactrian, Sogdian, and Sassanian states and empires. Culture combined Mesopotamian and Indo-European elements. Iranian religions were distinct, and included Magism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeanism, Mithraism. Iran dominated much of western and central Asia from c. 600 BCE to Islamic conquest after 636 CE. Egyptian civilization: developed in the Nile valley c. 3000 BCE. Includes Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, as well as neighboring Nubia. After fourth century BCE dominated by Hellenic-Roman civilization. Indic civilization: consisted of two distinct societies. Indus Valley Civilization: emerged after 2600 BCE, also called the Harappan civilization. Harappan script has not yet been deciphered. Vedic civilization: emerged in the valleys of the Indus and Ganges after 1500 BCE, initially as republics and kingdoms. Developed Maurya and Gupta empires and modern Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. The degree of continuity between Harappan and Vedic civilization is subject to considerable debate, and they may be distinct civilizations. Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations: emerged c. 2000 BCE around the Aegean sea and on its islands. Minoan writing has not been deciphered. Mycenaean culture took hold after the collapse of Minoan culture, and went into decline after 1100 BCE. The degree to which Aegean civilization is autochthonous, having emerged from the culture of Old Europe, or is derived from Afroasiatic cultures of Egypt and the Levant is subject to debate. Chinese (Sinic) civilization: emerged in the second millennium BCE in northern China, later spread to the rest of China, Korea, and Japan. Indigenous religions, Confucianism and Taoism, later supplemented by Buddhism, introduced from India. Greco-Roman civilization: emerged around the Aegean after the Greek dark ages, 1000 CE. Greek settlement around the Mediterranean and Black seas, and Alexander's conquest of the Persian empire in the fourth century, spread Hellenic civilization around the Mediterranean, where it was absorbed by non-Greek peoples, including the Romans. The Roman Empire adopted Christianity after the fourth century CE, and collapsed around the western Mediterranean during the sixth century. Western civilization: evolved from the Christian Latin-speaking portion of the Roman Empire, which grew to include most of western and central Europe during the Middle Ages. Generally understood to include Roman Catholic and Protestant nations of Europe, and the areas they later settled such as North America, Latin America, and Australia. This civilization was the first to develop into an industrial society. Byzantine civilization: the Greek-speaking portion of the Roman Empire continued after its collapse in the west, fusing Hellenic and Christian elements, and its culture was adopted by neighboring peoples. Historians who characterize Byzantium as distinct from Western civilization usually focus on the institution of Caesaropapism, which fused religious and state authority. Byzantine culture spread to eastern Slavic peoples, including Russia. Byzantium itself was conquered by Turkish armies in 1453. Southeast Asian civilization: includes the urban cultures that emerged in Southeast Asia and Indonesia during the first millennium CE, including Mon, Khmer Champa, Thailand, Burma on the mainland, and Srivijaya and Majapahit in Indonesia. Southeast Asian civilization absorbed cultural influences from India, including Hinduism and Buddhism, and from China, and later from Islam. Mesoamerican civilization: emerged with the first Olmec cities in the lowlands along the Gulf of Mexico in the first millennium BCE. Later developed in two centers: the Valley of Mexico, home to Teotihuacan, the Toltecs, and Aztecs, and the Maya civilization of Guatemala and the Yucatan. Conquered in the 16th century by Spanish, see also Spanish conquest of Yucatán. Andean civilization: developed in the first millennium BCE in the central Andes and the central Pacific coast of South America, including the urbanized cultures of Chavín, Moche, Ica-Nazca, Chimu, Tiwanaku, Aymara, and the semi-urbanized Inca. The Spanish conquered the Inca in the 16th century. Japanese civilization: initially developed as a fusion of indigenous (i.e. Shinto) and Chinese cultural elements, transmitted via Korea. Islamic civilization: emerged from the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century CE, and later spread to include most of western and Central Asia, northern Africa, and Indonesia. Early states include the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates; later examples include Seljuk and Ottoman Turkey. Chibchan civilization: developed in the Cauca and Magdalena river valleys of the northern Andes, in modern Colombia. Conquered in the 16th century by Spanish colonists. West African civilization: Large cities emerged c. 1000 CE, funded by wealth from the trade of gold and salt with other civilizations. First major kingdom was Ghana Empire; other early states included Mali, Kanem-Bornu, the Hausa cities, and the Songhai Empire. Mississippian civilization: included Cahokia and other cities of the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. Cities were abandoned by c. 1400 CE. Zimbabwean civilization: civilization of southwestern Africa. Great Zimbabwe was the major center, but by the 1500s was in ruin. [edit] External links BBC on civilization (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/interactive/civilisations/) Coalition Against Civilization (http://www.coalitionagainstcivilization.org/) Wiktionary: civilization, civilize

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Indian Civilization
Daily Life in Ancient India

What did the ancient Indians wear? What did they eat? Did kids play with toys? Did they go to school? This site shares daily life in three major time periods of ancient India history; the mysterious and so cool Indus Valley Civilization, the Vedic & Epics Periods, and the Age of Empires. To move around our site quickly, click on this sign to reach to Table of Contents: Welcome to Ancient India!

Table of Contents

The Mysterious Indus Civilization 3000-1500 BCE Aryan Civilization Daily Life 1500-500 BCE Vedic Period 1500-1000 BCE

Epics Period 1000 - 500 BCE Age of Empires Daily Life 500 BCE-700 CE

Links Credits Lessons

ANCIENT INDIA & ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA (in one book) We're published! Please take a look at the Mr Donn and Maxie Series of Educational Materials for Social Studies Teachers! Each unit includes complete lesson plans and creative activities to keep your students busy and productive for weeks.

Have a great year!

Indus Valley Civilization Daily Life 3000-1500 BCE

We know very little about this civilization, but what we know is fascinating! Over 4,000 years ago, in the Indus Valley, people built huge, planned cities, with straight streets, and brick homes with private baths! Kids played with toys and women wore lipstick!

How do we know this? In 1922, archaeologists found something exciting! They found the remains of an ancient city called Harappa. They found another city, located 400 miles southwest of Harappa, called Mohenjo-Daro. Other ancient cities from the same period, arranged in the same way, have been found since. Collectively, this civilization is referred to as the Indus Valley Civilization (sometimes, the Harappan civilization). This civilization existed from about 3000-2,500 BCE to about 1500 BCE, which means it existed at about the same time as the Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations.

What was life like, over 4,000 years ago, in Harappa and in Mohenjo-Daro, two busy cities of about 35,000 people each? Would you have wanted to live in one of these flourishing ancient cities? (I think they sound neat!) Let's see what you think!

Homes: Houses were one or two stories high, made of baked brick, with flat roofs, and were just about identical. Each was built around a courtyard, with windows overlooking the courtyard. The outside walls had no windows. Each home had its own private drinking well and its own private bathroom. Clay pipes led from the bathrooms to sewers located under the streets. These sewers drained into nearly rivers and streams. This was a very advanced civilization!

Clothing: Men and women dressed in colorful robes. Women wore jewelry of gold and precious stone, and even wore lipstick! Among the treasures found was a statue of a women wearing a bracelet. (Bracelets with similar designs are worn today in India.)

Entertainment: A beautiful small bronze statue of a dancer was found, which tells us that they enjoyed dance and had great skill working with metals. In the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro, scientists have found the remains of a large central pool, with steps leading down at both ends. This could have been a public swimming pool, or perhaps have been used for religious ceremonies. Around this large central pool were smaller rooms, that might have dressing rooms, and smaller pools that might have been private baths.

Food: Dinner might have been warm tasty wheat bread served with barley or rice. It would appear they were very good farmers. They grew barley, peas, melons, wheat, and dates. Farms raised cotton and kept herds of sheep, pigs, zebus (a kind of cow), and water buffalo. Fish were caught in the river with fish hooks! Each town had a large central storage building for grain. Crops were grown, and the harvest stored centrally, for all in the town to enjoy.

Toys: Some of the toys found were small carts, whistles shaped like birds, and toy monkeys which could slide down a string!

Art: This ancient civilization must have had marvelous craftsmen, skilled in pottery, weaving, and metal working. The pottery that has been found is of very high quality, with unusually beautiful designs. Several small figures of animals, such as monkeys, have been found. These small figures could be objects of art or toys. There are also small statues of what they think are female gods. So far, scientists have found no large statues. They have found bowls made of bronze and silver, and many beads and ornaments. The metals used to make these things are not found in the Indus Valley. So, either the people who lived in this ancient civilization had to import all of these items from some other place, or more probably, had to import the metals they used to make these beautiful things from somewhere else.

Transportation: The people used camels, oxen and elephants to travel over land. They had carts with wooden wheels. They had ships, with one mast, probably used to sail around the Arabian Sea. Seals with a pictographic script, which has not as yet been deciphered, were found at the Indus Valley sites. Similar seals were found in Mesopotamia, which seems to indicate possible trade between these two civilizations.

The Riddle of the Indus: What does it take to build a city with straight streets and well designed sewers? It takes smart engineers and a lot of planning! These well organized cities suggest a well organized government and probably a well-developed social life.

What is amazing is that it appears the Harappan cities did not develop slowly, which suggests that whoever built these cities learned to do so in another place. As the Indus flooded, cities were rebuilt on top of each other. Archaeologists have discovered several different cities, one built over the other, each built a little less skillfully. The most skillful was on bottom. It would appear that builders grew less able or less interested in perfection over time. Still, each city is a marvel, and each greatly advanced for its time.

So far, scientists have found no wall carvings or tomb paintings to tell us about their life. We do know they had a written language, but only a few sentences, on pottery and amulets, have been found. We don’t know what it says. Scholars have quite a few mysteries to solve about the ancient Indus civilization. For one thing, the people who lived in these marvelous cities disappeared around 1500 BCE. Perhaps they ran out of wood to hold back flooding, or perhaps their soil gave out and no longer would grow crops. No one knows what happened these people, or where they went. Historians are very curious. It will be interesting to see what archaeologists "dig up" next!

UPDATE ON THE INDUS VALLEY! (Spring, 1998)    Thanks to modern technology and international rivalry, nearly 1,400 Indus sites (towns!) have now been discovered. That is a very big civilization, large enough to be called an empire, only there is no evidence that these people were governed by emperors who lived in palaces or large estates. Rather, the opposite has been discovered. Some homes are a bit larger than others, but that might be due to a larger family unit.

What else have scientists discovered about this fascinating culture? LOTS! Their towns were laid out in grids everywhere (straight streets, well built homes!) These people were incredible builders! Scientists have found what they think are giant reservoirs for fresh water. They have also found that even the smallest house at the edge of each town was linked to that town's central drainage system. (Is it possible that they not only drained waste water out, but also had a system to pump fresh water into their homes, similar to modern plumbing? What a neat thought! Who were these people? Remember-these systems were built over 3,500 years ago!)

Although scientists can not yet read the language, they are beginning to believe these people had a common language! That's incredible! As well, scientists have found artifacts at different sites (towns) with the same or similar picture of a unicorn on them. India Today suggested humorously that perhaps it was a logo - like Pepsi and Coke, only this one was Unicorn!

What next? Scientists remain very curious about these people, who lived about the same time in history as the ancient Mesopotamians and the ancient Egyptians. Did these ancient civilizations know each other in ancient times? My personal opinion is - yes! As scientists continue to unravel the riddle of the Indus, we may find we will have to rewrite history! Was it the ancient Mesopotamians who first invented the sailboat and the wheel, or was it perhaps the people in the Indus Valley? Where did these people come from, and where did they go? It's a fascinating riddle.

To explore the ancient city of Harappa in pictures and articles, see Harappa!

Didn't find what you needed? Try this!

Aryan Civilization Daily Life The Vedic & Epics Periods 1500-500 BCE

The Red Dot on Foreheads: Have you ever wondered why Indian women place a red dot on their foreheads, between their eyes? We did, so we asked a few people what the red dot meant. Here are two replies!

"This goes back to Aryan days! In ancient times, a groom used to apply a spot of his blood on his bride's forehead, in recognition of wedlock! Today, married Indian women may choose to wear this mark. A married woman does not have to do this, but she can if she wants. However, if a woman is single, divorced or a widow, she can not wear this mark. It's a sign of marriage!" (Sudheer Birodkar)

"At one time, the tilak or bindi as it is called, was a sign of a happily married woman. Today, it is much more a fashion accessory--it can be any colour, any shape or size, and women often wear more than one." (Gerald L Harrison; Adult educator: Asian Studies Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Canada)

Things do change over time. Things certainly changed in the Indus Valley when a new group arrived, called the Aryans. The Aryans came from Central Asia (modern day Russia). They entered the Indus Valley through the fabled Khyber pass. The Aryans were nomads. They raised livestock, rode chariots, and loved to gamble. They had no sophisticated government. They grouped in clans, and were ruled by warrior chiefs called rajas. Their history is one of constant war amongst themselves, between the various clans. We have little archaeological evidence, but have something else we can use to learn about them. The Aryans created marvelous stories, stories they told or sang for centuries.

The VEDAS: The Aryan beliefs and daily life are described in the four Vedas, a collection of poems and sacred hymns, composed in about 1500 BCE. Veda means knowledge. The Vedas are composed of the Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva Vedas. This is why the period from roughly 1500 BCE to 1000 BCE is called the Vedic Period. It is named after the Vedas.

The Ramayana & the Mahabharata: Around 1000 BCE, the Aryans started to create two marvelous epics. We know about daily life during this period from these famous epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. These epics are stories about Aryans life, wars, and accomplishments. School kids in India, today, know these stories very well. They're great stories! The Ramayana tells a story in which the (good) aryan king Rama destroys the (evil) pre-aryan king Ravana. The other epic, Mahabharata, talks of Aryan wars amongst themselves, where two clans, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, battle it out, and the Pandavas emerge victorious. This is why the period from roughly 1000 BCE to 500 BCE is called the Epics Period. It is named after these two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

How did the Aryans live? The Aryans clans, or tribes, settled in different regions of northwestern India. The tribes were called Gana (literally a "collection" - of people). The chief of each tribe was an hereditary job. If your father was the chief, someday, you would be chief. It was the only way to become a chief. The chief made decisions, after listening to a committee, or perhaps even to the entire tribe. People had a voice, but the chief was the boss.

Aryan Houses: The people in the Vedic period lived in straw and wooden huts. Some homes were made of wood, but not until later, during the Epics Period.

Yagna (central fire-place): The life of the tribal Aryans was focused around the central fireplace called the Yagna. Dinner time was social time. The tribe would gather around the central fireplace, and share news, and the days happenings. Those who tended the central fireplace also cooked for the rest of the tribe. This was a very special job. The fire tenders were the go-between between the fire god and the people. These fire tenders, later on, formed the caste of priests. The Aryans ate meat, vegetables, fruit, bread, milk, and fish. The word for guest was Go-Ghna or eater of beef.

What did they do when they were not working or fighting each other? The Aryans loved to gamble. They introduced the horse to ancient India and raced chariots. They played fighting games. They loved to tell stories. The ancient Aryans were proud and fierce, and deeply religious. They had many gods and goddesses.

Jobs: As the Aryans settled in and began to grow crops, people started to have occupations. In each tribe, people began to belong to one of four groups: the Brahmana (priests), Kshatriya (warriors), Vaishya (traders and agriculturists), and Shudra (workers). In the beginning, these were just occupations. You could move from group to group. This changed over time, until a person's occupation or group depended upon birth. If your father was a farmer, you had to be farmer. Change from one group to another became very difficult.

Education Kids were taught by a guru (a teacher). Even chiefs sons had to obey the guru. All students followed a rigorous course of studies which were imparted orally. Writing was done on bark and leaves, and hence was perishable, so we have very few rock edicts to tell us what they studied or what they wrote.

Clothing was initially made of animal skins. As the Aryans settled down, clothing began to be made of cotton.

Age of Empires Daily Life 500 BCE - 647 CE

The next thousand years saw a great many kings and emperors! Some did fabulous things, like plant trees along the roads and built rest houses for travelers. Other started great public works programs. Let's take a closer look at just one of the empires - my favorite - the Gupta Empire.

The Gupta Empire (320 CE to about 500 CE). The Gupta Empire existed at about the same time as the Roman Empire. It dominated northern India. The Gupta Empire was neat. Villages were protected from bandits and raids with local military squads. Each squad was made up of one elephant, one chariot, three armored cavalrymen and five foot soldiers. In times of war, all the squads were brought together to form the royal army!

People were happy during the Gupta period, the "Golden Age" of ancient India. They had religious freedom. They were given free medical care, which included simple surgery. Criminals were never put to death. Instead, they were fined for their crimes. Rewards of money were given to writers, artists, and scholars to encourage them to produce wonderful work, and they did. Very few of the common people were educated, but the Gupta Empire had many universities. Students came from as far away as China to study at Gupta universities!

Gupta homes: In the villages and towns, homes were mostly one room huts made of wood or bamboo, with thatched roofs. Even the palaces were made of wood! Larger homes had several rooms and balconies.

Gupta villages: Streets between the homes were narrow and twisted. Stalls for selling things were located on both sides of the street. People mostly walked where they wanted to go inside their village. Villages were very noisy places. Not only were they full of happy, busy people, they were full of animals. A monkey might sneak up and steal food right out of your hand! Imagine coming home from the market, and telling your mother that the monkeys stole the food you bought, again!

Art: The craftsmen worked with iron and copper. Their iron work, especially, was outstanding. Even today, statues exist from this period, made of iron, that show very little rust!

Jobs: People worked on roads and other public works, but, (as they were in ancient Egypt), they were paid for their work. In the Gupta Empire, wheat was the main crop, and they kept cows for milk. This civilization produced great works of literature and marvelous works of art. Sculpture was their thing, though. They were very good at it.

They were also very smart scientists. They believed the earth was a sphere, and rotated around the sun. They also figured out that the solar year had 365.358 days. (Today, our scientists think it's probably more like 365.242, which means they only missed by 3 hours!) They were great with math. Ancient India gave us the number system we use today - 9 digits, the zero, and the decimal!

What did they eat? The concept of breakfast did not exist. In earlier times, meals were both vegetarian and non-vegetarian, depending upon your religious beliefs. After the coming of Buddhism, Jainism and other pacifist religion and reforms in Hinduism, vegetarian food (strictly excluding animal and fish meat) became the norm for as much as half of the population. In the Gupta Empire, they mostly ate vegetables, cereals, fruits, breads, and drank milk.

School: Older kids, who went to school, lived at school. School (ashram) life was tough. You had to do everything yourself. There were no servants. Even princes had to wash their clothes, cook their food, and follow a rigorous course of studies. They had a lot to learn. They studied math, science, engineering, literature, art, music and religion.

Marriage: In ancient India, the most popular form of marriage was called Swayamvara. In this type of marriage, potential grooms assembled at the bride's house and the bride selected her spouse. Instances of Swayamvara ceremony are found in India's national epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. There were other types of marriage as well, such as Gandharva Vivaha (love marriage) and Asura Viviha (marriage by abduction).

Sports and Games: Ancient Indians invented many of the games we play today, like chess, polo, and playing cards (which are said to have gone from India to the other parts of our globe). They practiced martial arts, wrestling, and fencing. Hunting was also a favorite pastime of the nobility.

What kind of pets did they have? The pets were mainly birds like parrots. The royals had peacocks. (Monkeys were not usually pets. Monkeys were mostly a nuisance, but cute!)

Clothing:

in Northern India: In the north, Ancient Indians wore (some still wear) an unstiched garment called dhoti. This was a 9 meter long cloth that was draped around the legs and tied at the abdomen. Both sexes wore it the same way. Women wore bright colours. Men wore either white or dark colors.

Ancient Indians did not use banks, so the family "fortune" was worn by the Vaishnav women in the northern half of India. In the north, they wore lots of jewelry. It was used both by men and women. Jewelry included armbands, waist belts, leg and ankle bangles for both sexes, ear rings, nose rings, rings on fingers and toes, crowns and other hair adornments. In 326 BCE, Alexander the Great (that great Greek!) invaded northwest India. Here's his account: They use parasols as a screen from the heat! They wear shoes made of white leather and these are elaborately trimmed, while the soles are variegated, and made of great thickness, to make the wearer seem so much taller. in Southern India: In the south, however, ancient scriptures describe women as wearing saris. A sari is a single cloth wrapped around the body. It covers the woman from head to toe. A dhoti is less modest. In ancient times, it was considered very important for women to be covered from the neck down to the feet. The southern half of India has been almost exclusively Shaivite for thousands of years. Shaivites typically have very, very few possessions. A Shaivite woman would not have worn such jewelry. Shaivite men have typically worn only a loin cloth and perhaps a cloth on the head to protect from the sun, never jewelry.

Here are some great sites about ancient India!

We would like to thank Sudheer Birodkar, an Indian novelist and historian, who generously shared with us a great deal of information about ancient India daily life! This site could not have been written without his help! Sudheer has placed online some very interesting pages that share his knowledge and love of ancient India. Here are just a few of them:

Sites Sudheer Birodkar's Sites

For more information, click on these sites! Ancient India A Timeline of Ancient India The Hindu Kids Universe (great site!) INDOlink - ancient & modern Indian stories, coloring book

Mrs Donn's The Buddha The Vedas The Ramayana Mr Donn's Ancient History Page: Ancient India

Daily Life in Ancient

Egypt   Greece     Rome     India     China

Mrs Donn's: The Life & Times of Early Man!

Free Fun! Bittorrent, Morpheus, Clipart, Games! Maxie's Great Guides to: Free Downloads Free Clip Art |  Free Shockwave Games  | Free Word Games

CREDITS

Our thanks to author/historian, Sudheer Birodkar, for sharing with us detailed information about ancient India daily life!

and to Dr Adams, Awesome Library, for his guidance and great links!

FAQs

Native American Indian Civilizations
Indian Civilizations

Mayas, Aztecs and Incas

Taken from http://home.att.net/~jgarciaduran/

Machu Pichu (Photo by Katie Garcia, Houston, Texas)

Cuzco       © Angus McIntyre

The Inca Trail and Machu Pichu   http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/SouthAmerica/Peru/IncaTrail/

Latin American Indian Civilizations  http://www.mayalords.org/

Los Mayas   http://www.honduras.net/copan/index.html

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