What IsA Civilization? In elementary school I was taught it was any social organization meeting 3 criteria:
build cities (UrbAn)
Here's a list of 5 requirements, which seems poorly structured.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization
In college I enjoyed Sigmund Freud's "Civilization and its Discontents" (excerpt )
Feb'2007: Kevin Kelly assembles a taxonomy of models of stages of Civilization. The most robust multi-axis space of possible civilizations that I’ve come across is one created as a world-creation tool kit for role playing games: The Cosmic Creation Netbook (Beyond Heroes)... The earliest ones rank civilizations by their use of materials (stone, brass, iron), the later ones rank by a society’s use of energy, and most recently the schemes rank by the civilization’s control of information.
No-one ever expects the Collapse Of Complex Societies!
As my "IsA" usage implies, why does it matter how one defines civilization? It only matters when one generalizes. "Because A IsA civilization,...", either "it's better than B which isn't" or "it alienates people", or whatever.