IV.

Classification

Historians have found difficulties in delimiting a particular society and correctly labeling it a civilization; they use the term civilization to refer to a number of past and present societies that manifest distinctive cultural and historical patterns. Some of these civilizations are the Andeanone, which originated about 800 bc; the Mexican (about the 3rd century BC); the Far Eastern, which originated in China about 2200 bc and spread to Japan about AD 600; the Indian (about 1500 bc); the Egyptian (about 3000 BC); the Sumerian (about 4000 bc); followed by the Babylonian (about 1700 BC); the Minoan (about 2000 bc); the Semitic (about 1500 BC); the Greco-Roman (about 1100 bc); the Byzantine, which originated in the 4th century AD; the Islamic (8th century ad); and the Western, which arose in Western Europe in the early Middle Ages.

See Aegean Civilization; Africa; Archaeology; Aztec Empire; Babylonia; Byzantine Empire; Carthage; Celts; China; Egypt; Etruscan Civilization; Europe; Germanic Peoples; Greece; Hittites; Inca; India; Islam; Japan; Jews; Judaism; Maya; Minoan Culture; Palestine; Ancient Rome; Sumer; Syria.