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Q: What determines if a civilization has ended?
You always hear about China's thousands year old continuous civilization. What makes it continious? The UK has had a Monarch system for a thousand years and they don't talk about this stuff. Same with lots of places in Europe. What gives? Is there even such a thing?
Not sure that either a monarchy or an imperial form of government is synonymous with a civilization. When we talk about 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' do we mean the end of Roman civilization or just the end of an era? When Communism took over in China and there were no more emperors did the Chinese civilization end? Cultures and governing styles change but a civilization remains so long as the people of a country stay where they are.
Damn, I shouldn't have attempted this. 
The Chinese people who brag about this to me usually (ureraly) use the word Culture, and not Civilization. There may be some subtle difference there. Although I've found the place lacking in the former, and hardly anything I would call "civil".
China nutswingers, don't despair and tell me how awful the USA is....I still enjoy my time here, mostly 
After revealing that I was of English, German, Austrian, and Czechoslovakian descent, my students burst into oohs and ahhs. When prompted why, they said that people who were mixed race were the most attractive. In my experience, the long running culture of Chinese 'civilization' isn't meant to sound as ultra-nationalistic as it may sound to us foreignGers.
In general a civilisation has 'ended' when the historians have generally agreed on the fact, which obviously can only happen many years after the event. So some are now arguing that the USA domination / world superpower era / empire has ended, but as we are still within it (or it's dying embers if that is your belief) we cannot tell.
With the fall of Rome, it was pretty obvious when the Barbarians sacked Rome that it had fell, but in China there has always been some remnant of the previous era that has carried through, and while 5000 years is not sustainable 4000 genuinely is.
mattsm84:
But Rome didn't fall after barbarians sacked Rome. Or even when they sacked Ravenna. It ended functionally after the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 or formally when last Palaiologos emperor ceded his crown to the Ottoman empire.
Hugh.G.Rection:
Like I said, it's pretty obvious. In fact it's so obvious that the vast majority of historians agree that the Roman Civilisation ended with the Barbarian sack of Rome.
mattsm84:
No, and crack open a god damn book you moron. Most contemporary historians consider the Eastern Roman Empire to be the Roman Empire. The fall of Rome, and Roman civilization, then corresponds to the fall of Constantinople, the Roman Capital. No serious historian considers the sack of Rome by the Gauls in 390 BC, the Sack of Rome by the Visigoth's in 410 AD, or the sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455 AD to have been the end of the Western half of the Empire. They used to consider the sack of Ravenna, the capital of the Western half of the Empire, in 476 to be the end of the Empire after Romulus Augustus was forced to abdicate. They don't even do that anymore because the current consensus is that the Eastern Roman Empire is in fact just as much the Roman Empire as the Western Roman Empire. Prior to the switch, they considered them separated but they stopped because the only reason for it was a western European bias. On a related note, do you ever get tired of being wrong all the time? Seriously, if you think something is true, try doing a little research before reaching for your keyboard.
Amonk:
The Eastern Roman... Byzantine Empire, last I checked, is being considered a neo-Roman Empire. They had lots of cash with which they attempted to buy their way into a heritage resembling the 'real' Roman Empire. Is the US a part/offshoot of the UK empire? Depends who you ask.
Anyway, I think the friggin point was that you don't know until well after it actually happens... as evidenced by this argument you two are having.
DaqingDevil:
Amonk is friggin' right. So was I when I said I shouldn't have attempted to answer the question and perhaps neither should have you guys!
mattsm84:
Then at what point do the eastern roman provinces cease to be a part of the Roman Empire? When Diocletian instituted the techarchy? Then why do we consider France and North Africa to be part of the Roman Empire after that date when they were separate administrative regions? Or what about when Constantine formally moved the capital of the whole thing to Constantinople? Or what about when the Eastern half of the empire abandoned Latin as the state language in the 600s, well after the end of the Western half of the empire had ceased to exist? Or considering that Roman culture was really a fusion of central Italian latin culture, and Hellenic culture from southern Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and Syria wouldn't changes that occurred in Greece and Asia minor still be part of the same culture? Considering the two states to be culturally different is just too problematic, that's another reason why historians don't do it.
