Civilisation
From Paragon
A civilisation is a complex human society. Technically, anthropologists distinguish civilizations in which many of the people live in cities and get their food from agriculture, from band societies, in which people live in nomadic or semi-nomadic groups, and tribal societies, in which people may live in small semi-permanent settlements. Civilisation (as in Theizan civilisation) may also refer to culture. Culture generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance.
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Classification
Civilisations can be classified in many different ways. Modern historians tend to employ the Smith system. The Smith system attempt a chronological classification through a "family tree" of civilisations, not unlike that used to classify languages. This can be difficult due to establishing and proving links between cultures and civilisations based on sketchy evidence.
Other taxonomies exist. For example:
- The Berger system divides civilisations firstly into ancient and modern. Ancient civilisations existed before the fall of the Antarii Dominion in 435 AD. Modern civilisations exist afterwards. The system then divides civilisations by the material which defines the society. The Berger system has been criticised for an Eloran bias but apologists defend this as being the influence of Berger's time.
- The Dalton system classifies civilisations into three groups: savage, barbarian and civilised. The civilised group was further decomposed into the Olanderrean model (based on the characteristics of the Antarii Dominion) and the Rosalic model (based on the characteristics of Ancient Theiza). It has fallen out of favour due to its connotations that "savages" are worth less than the "civilised" peoples.
Timeline
The following are two timelines describing the predominant cultural and/or political regimes of the world at various times and in various places.
Ancient
Modern
