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A civilization (US) or civilisation (UK) is any complex society characterized by urban development, social stratification, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems), and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment by a cultural elite. Civilizations are intimately associated with and often further defined by other socio-politico-economic characteristics, including centralization, the domestication of both humans and other organisms, specialization of labor, culturally ingrained ideologies of progress and supremacism, monumental architecture, taxation, societal dependence upon farming as an agricultural practice, and expansionism.〔〔〔〔〔 Historically, a ''civilization'' was a so called "advanced" culture in contrast to more supposedly primitive cultures.〔〔〔 In this broad sense, a civilization contrasts with non-centralized feudal or tribal societies, including the cultures of nomadic pastoralists or hunter-gatherers. As an uncountable noun, ''civilization'' also refers to the process of a society developing into a centralized, urbanized, stratified structure. Civilizations are organized in densely populated settlements divided into hierarchical social classes with a ruling elite and subordinate urban and rural populations, which engage in intensive agriculture, mining, small-scale manufacture and trade. Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings.〔Michael Mann, ''The Sources of Social Power,'' Cambridge University Press, 1986, vol.1 pp.34-41.〕 The earliest emergence of civilizations is generally associated with the final stages of the Neolithic Revolution, culminating in the relatively rapid process of state formation, a political development associated with the appearance of a governing elite. This neolithic technology and lifestyle was established first in the Middle East (for example at Göbekli Tepe, from about 9,130 BCE), and later in the Yangtze and Yellow river basins in China (for example the Pengtoushan culture from 7,500 BCE), and later spread. But similar "revolutions" also began independently from 7,000 BCE in such places as the Norte Chico civilization in Peru〔Haas, Jonathan; Winifred Creamer, Alvaro Ruiz (23 December 2004). "Dating the Late Archaic occupation of the Norte Chico region in Peru," ''Nature'' 432 (7020): 1020–1023. doi:10.1038/nature03146. PMID 15616561〕 and Mesoamerica at the Balsas River. These were among the six civilizations worldwide that arose independently.〔Kennett, Douglas J.; Winterhalder, Bruce (2006). ''Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture''. University of California Press. pp. 121–. ISBN 978-0-520-24647-8. Retrieved 27 December 2010.〕 Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identified as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops and the development of cursive script, Mathematics, Astronomy and Agriculture." The Neolithic Revolution in turn was dependent upon the development of sedentarism, the domestication of grains and animals and the development lifestyles which allowed economies of scale and the accumulation of surplus production by certain social sectors. The transition from "complex cultures" to "civilisations", while still disputed, seems to be associated with the development of state structures, in which power was further monopolised by an elite ruling class.〔Carniero, R.L. (Ed) (1967), "The Evolution of Society: Selections from Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Sociology", (Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1967), pp. 32-47,63-96, 153-165.〕 Towards the end of the Neolithic period, various Chalcolithic civilizations began to rise in various "cradles" from around 3300 BCE. Chalcolithic Civilizations, as defined above, also developed in Pre-Columbian Americas and, despite an early start in Egypt, Axum and Kush, much later in Iron Age sub-Saharan Africa. The Bronze Age collapse was followed by the Iron Age around 1200 BCE, during which a number of new civilizations emerged, culminating in the Axial Age transition to Classical civilization. A major technological and cultural transition to modernity began approximately 1500 CE in western Europe, and from this beginning new approaches to science and law spread rapidly around the world. == History of the concept == The English word ''civilization'' comes from the 16th-century French ''civilisé'' (civilized), from Latin ''civilis'' (civil), related to ''civis'' (citizen) and ''civitas'' (city).〔Larry E. Sullivan (2009), (''The SAGE glossary of the social and behavioral sciences'' ), Editions SAGE, p. 73〕 The fundamental treatise is Norbert Elias's ''The Civilizing Process'' (1939), which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the Early Modern period.〔It remains the most influential sociological study of the topic, spawning its own body of secondary literature. Notably, Hans Peter Duerr attacked it in a major work (3,500 pages in five volumes, published 1988–2002). Elias, at the time a nonagenarian, was still able to respond to the criticism the year before his death. In 2002, Duerr was himself criticized by Michael Hinz's ''Der Zivilisationsprozeß: Mythos oder Realität'' (2002), saying that his criticism amounted to a hateful defamation of Elias, through excessive standards of political correctness. ''Der Spiegel'' (40/2002 )〕 In ''The Philosophy of Civilization'' (1923), Albert Schweitzer outlines two opinions: one purely material and the other material and ethical. He said that the world crisis was from humanity losing the ethical idea of civilization, "the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress." Adjectives like ''civility'' developed in the mid-16th century. The abstract noun ''civilisation'', meaning "civilized condition," came in the 1760s, again from French. The first known use in French is in 1757, by Victor Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau, and the first use in English is attributed to Adam Ferguson, who in his 1767 ''Essay on the History of Civil Society'' wrote, "Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilisation."〔cited after Émile Benveniste, "''Civilisation. Contribution à l'histoire du mot''" (Civilisation. Contribution to the history of the word), 1954, published in ''Problèmes de linguistique générale'', Éditions Gallimard, 1966, pp.336–345 (translated by Mary Elizabeth Meek as ''Problems in general linguistics'', 2 vols., 1971)〕" The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, in the active pursuit of progress characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, during the French revolution, ''civilization'' was said singular, never plural, and meant the progress of humanity as a whole. This is still the case in French.〔 The use of ''civilizations'' as a countable noun was in occasional use in the 19th century,〔e.g. in the title ''A narrative of the loss of the Winterton East Indiaman wrecked on the coast of Madagascar in 1792; and of the sufferings connected with that event. To which is subjoined a short account of the natives of Madagascar, with suggestions as to their civilizations'' by J. Hatchard, L.B. Seeley and T. Hamilton, London, 1820.〕 but has become much more common in the later 20th century, sometimes just meaning culture (itself in origin an uncountable noun, made countable in the context of ethnography).〔"Civilization" (1974), ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' 15th ed. Vol. II, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 956. Retrieved 25 August 2007. Using the terms ''civilization'' and ''culture'' as equivalents is controversial and generally rejected, so that for example some types of culture are not normally described as civilizations.〕 Only in this generalized sense does it become possible to speak of a "medieval civilization," which in Elias's sense would have been an oxymoron. Already in the 18th century, civilization was not always seen as an improvement. One historically important distinction between culture and civilization is from the writings of Rousseau, particularly his work about education, ''Emile''. Here, civilization, being more rational and socially driven, is not fully in accord with human nature, and "human wholeness is achievable only through the recovery of or approximation to an original prediscursive or prerational natural unity" (see noble savage). From this, a new approach was developed, especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder, and later by philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. This sees cultures as natural organisms, not defined by "conscious, rational, deliberative acts" but a kind of pre-rational "folk spirit." Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful in material progress, is unnatural and leads to "vices of social life" such as guile, hypocrisy, envy, and avarice. In World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled Germany, argued in New York that this opinion of civilization was behind Nazism and German militarism and nihilism.〔"(On German Nihilism )" (1999, originally a 1941 lecture), ''Interpretation'' 26, no. 3 edited by David Janssens and Daniel Tanguay.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Civilization」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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