1. The concept of civilization
Human civilization is part of world history of human development. The documents stated that human was developed from the era of Savagery, Barbarism, to Civilization (Edward Mcnall Burns “Western Civilizations”, 1963). The world human society has developed both in physical, and social and cultural aspects. Long time ago when we call human as “prehistoric human”, the human during that era was not erected yet. It was until they learned through time how to erect themselves, stand and walk. Human has also developed their learning ability (using brain) by the changing environment, until their adaptation becomes called “culture”. Human develops their culture through their social gather and communication (from only signs and pictures to oral to written communication), settlement (from roaming from place to place, to building living places with simple materials with temporary style to complicated one), and ways to earn living (from hunting to cultivation and ways to earn living as nowadays). And it is today that human society can be classified into rural and urban living (Alice Magenis and John Conrad Appel, “History of the World”, 1963).
In the modern day, civilization is an outcome of strong culture and religion of the society. Strong cultural and religious growth play important role for a strong society, gives strong identity to one society which initiates other small societies to join or bigger population of same society who follow their ideology. Thus a large and strong and large society is established. So, cultural and religious growth of the society in one era is civilization.
The classical context, civilization primarily refers to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally urbanized. This definition can be seen from the world’s ancient and lost civilization, for example the Roman Empire, Persian Empire.
In term of society and culture, in a classical context, people were called: “civilized” to set them apart from “Barbarian” people (The Barbarians- those who were perceived the “uncivilized”.), while in a modern-day context, “civilized peoples” have been contrasted with “primitive” peoples.
Civilization also refers to the society with developed writing language such as the Sumerian.
Nowadays, the word civilization has been used in a less strict way. So the meaning of civilization becomes the same thing as “CULTURE” that defines a particular human society that has a certain level of advancement-especially the founding of cities.
The level of advancement of a civilization
The level of advancement of a civilization is often measured by its progress in agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism. Moreover, to define a level of advancement of civilization for a society, some elements will be used such as a developed