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Identifications for Early Civilizations

Page history last edited by ColinBreheny 15 years, 5 months ago

 

 

Section 2

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Features of civilization - EXAMPLE [McEachen]

 

ASPIRES [acronym to help you remember the features of civilization] -  (using an acronym is not required, but they are good study tools)

Definition: Characteristics of civilization - (we will use this acronym all year)

  • (A) Arts and culture - express talents, beliefs, and values of people in a society

  • (S) Social – division of social classes

  • (P) Political organizations – government and its bureaucracy

  • (I) Intellectual - system of writing

  • (R) Religion – belief systems

  • (E) Economic – job specialization

  • (S) Science - technology

 

Example: The Tigris-Euphrates civilization started from scratch. The Sumerians were characterized by a the first known writing system, intense religious beliefs, development of astronomical sciences, agricultural prosperity, and tightly organized city-states. 

Different civilzations throughout history

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stages of hominid development

 

 

Paleolithic Era - Kelly Best

 

  • From the Greek palaios, “old” and lithos, “stone” “Old Age Of Stone”

  • Known as the Old Stone Age

  • From 2,500,000 B.C. - 8000 B.C.

  • 2,492,000 years long

  • Great artistic talent (realistic cave paintings

    Men and women were both responsible for obtaining food.

    Possible both genders hunted

    Women took care of children

    Believed decision-making and influence shared by both genders

    No formal way of writing

    Cave paintings and possibly verbal forms of communication

    Fire was used and likely invented during this age

    Believed animals were worshipped or paid tribute to in rituals

    Crude, nomadic way of life

    Food gathered seems to have determined status 

     Simple stone and bone tools improved (ex: from sharp stones to hand axes to spears and bows and arrows) (ex: using bone to make delicate fishhooks and sharp harpoon spears)

    Lived to benefit most from surroundings

 

         

(Left) depiction of a hunter of the time (Right) Simple sharpened stone tools

Sources  Spielvogel, Joseph. World History. Glencoe. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005. 

  http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/1/18/300px-Neanderthal_2D.jpg

http://anthropologynet.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/paleolithic-stone-tools.jpg

 

 

Neolithic era- Courtney Blythe

- In Greek, this is known as the "New Stone Age"; began about 10,000 B.C. in the Middle East.

- Humans began to move away from the collection of food to the production of food.

- It was the rise of agricutural forms of economic production.

- This was the era when agriculture was 1st developed and people began to settle down in communities, instead of living as hunting gatherers.

- One of the greatest transformations of human society; ended with the discovery of bronze.

- Pottery and oil paintings were the typical types of art during the Neolithic Era.

 This is an oil painting; it looks to be some sort of cattle, representing the time period well because of the fact that husbandry was on the rise.

 

Mesolithic era -Jenny Borowski 

  • Ranged from about 10,000 BCE to 5,000 BCE.

  • Nomadic hunting and gathering which preceded the domestication of plants and animals.

  • A time when humans developed new techniques of stone working.

  • Most art was statuette sized work and paintings in shelter caves.

  • Paleolithic art was very colorful and realistic. Mesolithic art had no realistic figures and was only painted in the color red.

     This painting was found on the walls of a cave near Madhya Pradesh in India.

 

Clans, tribes, and bands - Colin Breheny

Period - Prehistoric and to today.

- A clan is a group of people with a common ancestor. A usually consists of a number of clans that work together for the common good. Where as a band is usually temporary and breaks up easily.

 

A band of hunters hunting a mamoth

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Cuba_-_Parque_Baconao_-_prehistoric_scene.jpg

 

Hunting and gathering societies-Alison Chang

 

 -period during Paleolithic  and ealry mesolithic.

-a band of edilble-plant gatherers and hunters(25-100)people,and till mesolithic got tribes and bands

- burial rituals and ancestor worship. Priests and sanctuary servants appear in the prehistory.

-Mobile lifestyle — caves, huts, tooth or skin hovels, mostly by rivers and lakes

-use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools

(image needs a caption)

A 19th century engraving of an Indigenous Australian encampment. engraving of an indigenous australian encampment

Neolithic (or Agricultural) revolution- Tyler Cornett 

·         This is when the first agricultural revolution took place around 10,000-14,000 years ago in modern-day Turkey and the Levant. (The Levant consists of Iraq, Israel, Iran, Jordan, and Syria.)

·         The Neolithic Revolution helped transfer the human race from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies.

·         Many staple facets of human society were created. These include:  the institution of official marriage, urban development, slavery, animal domestication, social elites, property, and specialized non-agricultural professions.

·         Surplus trading was popularized in this period.

·         The human population greatly increased over this time.

·         With the population increasing and humans in closer capacity to each other in urban areas, disease spread more easily than in the hunter-gatherer societies. 

(map needs a caption)

www.mathildasanthropologyblog.files.wordpress.com

 

Domestication - Michael Decker

Domestication is the process by which a population of plants or animals, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to the provision and control of other plants or animals.  Domestication came about during the Neolithic revolution.  It was characteristic of all agricultural societies.  It first arose around 15, 000 B.C.E. with the advent of the domesticated dog.  Animals were first domesticated for their use in agriculture and as a means of food (meat).  Plants were first domesticated for their aesthetic appeal.  Then the early people expanded the domestication of plants to include agricultural food products such as wheat, barley, potatoes, and rice.  The process of domestication is complicated and long process.  The scientific community debates the process of domestication as an application of natural selection or selective breeding. It is most likely that both play a key and mutually interdependent role.   Animals have some requirement for them to be candidates for domestication.  They include: flexible diet, reasonable growth rate (grow quicker than humans so breeding can take place), ability to be bred in captivity, pleasant disposition (not harmful to humans), temperament which makes them unlikely to panic (will not flee captivity in times of panic), and modifiable social hierarchy (can see humans as being dominant). 

 

Domestication was one of the most profound shifts in human history.  It allowed a working force that could help in the process of harvesting food.  It provided harvestable food that could be used year-round.  And it gave humans the ability to stay put and still have two sources of food – meat and vegetables.  This provided for the development of civilizations and complex social structures. 

 

 Dogs and sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated.

Dogs and Sheeps were the first to be domesticated.

     "Domestication." Wikipedia. 2008. MediaWiki. 5 Sep 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication>. 

 

Herding societies - Rachel Franks 

  • Herded animals- nomads

  • They moved from place to place to find food
  • Camps usually consisted of 20 to 30 people
  • Ran by Council of Elders or chiefs
  • They had no system of writing
  • Believed in Polytheism and they worshiped animals
  • Men hunted and women and children gatered berries, nuts, and other food
  • Used stone tools

 my picture was of a tent a herding society might live in.

 

 

slash and burn agriculture

 

Specialization of labor- (Laura Guidry)During the Neolithic Revolution, metalworking became a practiced trade. With the discovery of metal working, people began to specialize in the making of metal tools. This specialization of labor was made possible by the agricultural society. The metal workers simply learned to trade for food. This new development in labor began the gradual shift to towns where industry and commerce would eventually thrive.

 

 Ancient Jericho, one of the earliest Neolithic settlements due to Specialization of Labor

Kagan, Donald, and Steve Ozment. The Western Heritage.Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998.

The Bronze Age (importance of metal tools)

 

 

Catal Huyuk By: Cory Hume

  • Built in Turkey about 6,500 BC

  • The dead were buried inside houses

  • People lived by farming. They grew wheat and barley and they raised flocks of sheep and herds of goats. They also kept dogs.

  • Made figurines of clay and stone, which may have been gods and goddesses

  • Trade goods and materials have been found from the Anatolian plateau, throughout the Near and Middle East, which shows that traders must have regularly visited the city

  • A great, enclosed, mysterious, sacred city towered over it all

  • Average population of between 5,000 to 8,000

  • No footpaths or streets were used between the homes and other buildings, which were clustered in a honeycomb-like maze. Most houses were accessed by holes in the ceiling.

 

[no picture yet]

This is a picture of the actual city of Catal Huyuk. Here you can see how the homes were built in layers, kind of like a staircase. They were also built of mud, as were a lot of buildings. On the outskirts of the city, some land is visible where it might have been used for agriculture.

 

Cultural Diffusion (Brianna Kosko)

  • Cultural diffusion is the spreading of knowldege, technology, skills, etc. from one culture to many.
  • It took place among the Japanese and Akkadians.
  • It is important because without it, many ideas and technology would not have been passed on throughout history. For example, when the Sumerians were invaded by the Akkadians, the Akkadians continued to use many of the inventions of the Sumerians, therefore keeping many of their original traditions alive.
  • It was spread because in order to better influence a culture, new ideas are needed in order to make its own. For example, Japan was introduced to Buddhism by the Koreans. Without the Koreans, the Japanese would not have had a religion at that point in time.
  • It was found in many places, particularly Mesopotamia and Japan.
  • It took place at many different times. For Japan, it took place between 206 and 700 A.D. and in about 2300 B.C., the Akkadians took over the Sumerians and started using their ideas and inventions.

 bri wiki.wps......for picture and caption (please upload a saved file of your image and type your caption in - I can't open your file)

 

Sumerians and cuneiform (Sarah Mann)

  • The Sumerian people started living in Mesopotamia around 3000 B.C.

  • Cuneiform is the earliest known form of writing invented by the Sumerians around 3200 B.C.
  • They engraved wedge-shaped characters on soft clay tablets with a stylus, a sharp-pointed instrument. The tablets were then hardened by baking them.
  • The word “cuneiform” means wedge-shaped.
  • The Sumerian alphabet included about 550 characters.
  • Years of strict schooling were needed to learn cuneiform.
  • Cuneiform was mainly used for commerce to keep track of imports and exports.
  • Cuneiform was also used to write literature (hymns, epic tales, and myths).
  • The first form of cuneiform was a pictographic writing with pictures representing words.
  • The next form was ideograms which represent an idea, not a certain word or phrase.
  • Finally, cuneiform developed in the wedge-shape characters.  

http://www.answers.com/topic/civilization

This 26th century B.C. Sumerian cuneiform script listed gifts given to the high priestess of Adab after her election. 

  • Croft-Crossland, Chris. "SUMERIANS." World History. 2001. 4 Sep 2008 <http://home.cfl.rr.com/crossland/AncientCivilizations/Middle_East_Civilizations/Sumerians/sumerians.html>. 
  • T.N.and T.D.H, "The Evolution of Cuneiform." 19 March 1998. Rich East High School. 4 Sep 2008 <http://www.richeast.org/htwm/cune/cune.html>.

 

Gilgamesh epic-Sara Marshall

-->The Gigamesh Epic is believed to be one of the oldest written stories on the face of the earth.

-->It was originally written on twelve clay tablets in cunieform script.

-->It was written somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE.

-->The story was based on the King of Uruk in Babylonia: Gilgamesh. (he lived about 2700 BC)

-->Gilgamesh Epic is from Ancient Sumeria.

-->It was written to tell the story of Gilgamesh and emphasize immortality.

 

 This is a piece of one of the twelve Gilgamesh epic tablets.

 

 

Hammurabi's Law Code-Richard Monroe

  • Hammurabi was one of the first and most important rulers of the Babylonian Empire; the creator of the Law Code

  • The Law Code is a set of examples of law and order in the empire. For example, If a man has committed robbery and is caught, that man should be put to death. It also gave historians a insight on social status of kin, slaves, and women.

  • Hammurabi's Empire and the Law Code is dated to 1750 BCE.

  • Discovered on a slab in Iran. Babylonia is located in Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and the Euphrates River. The main cities of Babylonia were Babylon and Ur.

  • The Law Code was obviously made to keep order among the Babylonian Empire. Provides vital insights into the nature of social relations and family structure in this ancient civilizations

 

Egyptian Book of the Dead- "the spell for coming forth by day", Jordan Hubbard (other section)

  • Egyptologist Karl Lepsius published the collection of ancient funerary spells, passwords, and hymns in 1842 and called it the "Book of the Dead".
  • He collected the spells from tomb walls, earlier translations (Pyramid and Coffin Texts), papyrus, linen, and engravings on sarcophaguses.
  • The spells and passwords were put in the deceased's coffin to help them pass trials to enter the underworld and live happily in the Field of Reeds.
  • The spells one received depended on social status; the rich could afford to hire scribes to personalize a spell after themselves while poorer people had to make do with existing spells.
  • There are over 200 chapters in the "Book of the Dead" and it began to appear around 1600 BC in Egypt but some of the texts like the "Papyrus of Ani" are from 1240 BC.  
  • Vignettes are drawings of the spells and trials that can be found on the tomb walls or on papyrus.
  • One trial was the weighing of the heart against Ma'at (Truth); if the heart of the dead did not weigh less than a feather because it was full of sin that person could not move on into the afterlife.
  • Osiris is the king of the underworld and he judges the dead. 

This scene, from the Papyrus of Hunefer, shows the Hunefer's heart being weighed against the feather of truth. If his heart is lighter than the feather, he is allowed to pass into the afterlife. Vignettes such as these were a common illustration in Egyptian books of the dead.

A vignette of the weighing of the heart.

 

 

Egyptian pyramids- Matt Myers

 

-          There are over 100 ancient Egyptian pyramids; most of them were built in the Old and Middle Kingdom time periods.

-          The Great Pyramid of Giza, also called Khufu's Pyramid, is the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world still in existence.

-          These pyramids were architectural wonders, and the method of their constrution still boggles scientists today.

-          It is generally understood that pyramids were meant to serve as burial monuments for deceased pharaohs; some of the pyramids even consisted of a thin shaft that extended throughout the height of the pyramid, which was meant to “propel” the souls of the departed pharaohs into the afterlife.

-          The shape is thought to symbolize the rays of sun and all pyramids were built on the west bank of the Nile, the site of the setting sun, which was an aspect of Egyptian mythology.

This is a picture of the three pyramids at Giza, which are

the most popular Egyptian pyramids, from the plateau

on the south end of the site.

 

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:All_Gizah_Pyramids.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramids

 

 

 

Egyptian hieroglyphics (Shampa Panda)-

Ancient Egyptians utilized heiroglyphics, a system of pictorial symbols, as an alphabet. There are 604 basic heiroglyphics that represented words or sounds, and three groups that each fell in:

Ideograms/Logograms:  the pictures were reflective of the meaning

Phonograms: Based on how the word sounds

Determinative: gave a general idea of the meaning of the word

     This picture consists of examples of Egyptian heiroglyphics, some of which are pictograms (vulture, man).

 

Hittites - (who did this?)

Ancient people living in Anatolia modern day Turkey and in the northern region Syria. They established two kingdoms the Old Hittite Kingdom 1680-1500 BCE and the New Hittite Kingdom 1400-1200 BCE. Their main city was Hattusha in the land of Hatti, and spoke an Indo-European language called Nesian.  As with other civilizations agriculture was a main a source of the economies foundation with wheat and barley being the main crops, while cattle and sheep where the main livestock kept.  Their mines were well stocked with copper, iron, silver and lead; adding more support to the belief that they were the first people to work iron.  Their King was considered the supreme priest, military commander and judge, with authority levels not being so controlling, usually a fining or restitution was the penalty for a crime with a couple of severe acts leading to the death penalty.  This legal system was a modification of the Babylonian system for they did not want a strict system in which anything could lead to your death.  Society, just as their art and architecture was influenced by their neighbors, partly for the reason that they were a conquest society.

 

http://i-cias.com/e.o/hittites.htm

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/HITTITES.HTM

http://history-world.org/hittites.htm

 

 

Assyrians

(Rishi Simha):  Assyrians were mighty warriors who lived in a region of northern Mesopotamia called Assyria, or Ashur.  Their empire reached its greatest heights during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.  They spoke a Semitic language called Akkadian.  Colossal, winged bulls and lions are just just one example of the art they created. 

 

This winged, human-headed bull stood at the entrance of an Assyrian king’s palace. 

Sources:  Starr, Ivan. "Assyria." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. 2008. Grolier Online. 1 Sep. 2008 <http://gme.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0018760-0>.

 

Persian Empire-Crystal Tsang

 

Earliest known point of Persians comes from an Assyrian inscription in 844 BC that calls them the Parsu and mentions the area of Lake Urmia

1. The most widespread entity considered to have been a Persian Empire was the

2. Median Empire 727-549 B.C. Founded by the Medes, is considered the first Iranian empire, the largest until Cyrus’s Achaemid Empire. Cyrus, who united the median and Persian emires into the huge Persian Empire, conquered media.

Achaimenid Empire(550–330 BC) under Darius and Xerxes — famous in antiquity as the foe of the classical Greek states- Zoroastrianism became influential in the Southwestern regions of Iran, especially to the Shah, where it then became very important to the culture of Persia. It spread to the rest of the empire, and developed astral and temple aspects, very advanced for the time. It was here where the sacred Magi became influential.what’s important about this is the war between Greece and Persia, which Greece won (both times) and the dates of its greatest point, 550-330 B.C

-annexed Egypt under Cambyses II

-Annexed European kingdom of Thrace under Darius I, who lost to the Greeks at the battle of Marathon.

-Darius divided the kingdom into 23 provinces (satrapies) lead by governors (satraps). He had other modern conventions, such as taxation, a postal system, and private officers of his law.

-Never conquered Greece, but was conquered by Phillip of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s father) and Alexander the Great in 336 B.C. This is the reason for strong Greek culture, and cities named ‘Alexandria’

 www.wikipedia.org

                                                                                    Figure 1-1: This is a picture of the Persian Empire during the reign of Xerxes (550 BCE)

 

Indus River Valley: Harappa

 

Indus River Valley: Mohenjo-Daro- Leya Wood

This began in 2600 BCE.  It was in South Asia.  It is important because it was one of the world’s first civilizations.  It was the biggest and most developed city at its peak.  It brought about the beginning of Hinduism, the world’s oldest practiced religion.  Name means Mound of the Dead. 

 

Picture of the city in ruins.

 

 

Huanghe River Valley- Lauren Sink

 

  • ·         Developed in isolation 
  • ·         Praised the godlike kings of early civilization, starting with the mythic ancestor of the Chinese, Pa’n Ku 
  • ·         Organized state that carefully regulated irrigation in the river valley 
  • ·         Produced an advanced technology and developed an elaborate intellectual life 

o    Learned how to ride horses 

o    Skilled in pottery

o    Used bronze well 

o    Learned to work iron with coal 

  • ·         Writing progressed from knotted ropes to scratches of lines on bones to the invention of ideographic symbols 
  • ·         Chinese art emphasized delicate designs and the Chinese claim an early interest in music 
  • ·         Lived in simple houses built of mud due to lack of building supplies
  • ·         A line of kings called the Shang ruled over the valley and constructed some impressive tombs and palaces

 

 

The Huanghe valley played a major role in the early history of China including the foundations of Chinese agriculture, society, government, and arts.

 

Polytheism (early religions)- Alexandra Bauer

 

Polytheism is the belief in multiple gods.

-The early civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt both played host to polytheism

-Polytheism stems from a series of myths created in an attempt to explain the natural phenomenon of the world.

-The main points of polytheism include activity of the gods in every day lives and gods that are representative of the physical elements of the earth or certain experiences.

-As a result of polytheism, the art of the eras dominated by societies whose religions were polytheist, is very often a depiction of the numerous gods and goddesses.

-Polytheism played a huge role in the government of the civilizations it was found in. Religion was seen as vital to the proper ruling of the kingdom

-Priests, trained in interpretation of the gods will were key to polytheist societies

For example:

-Within the ancient Egyptians believed in a series of gods each with their own individual knowledge and powers. The belief in an after life was key to Egyptian civilization and their version of such an afterlife was linked to Egyptian polytheism. Tombs are adorned with images of the gods of the afterlife, including, Osiris, the god of death, for the people hoped that would ensure safe passage into the afterlife.

-Many of the gods of the Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations are quite similar.

 The Egyptian gods, Isis, goddess of simplicity, and Osiris, the god of death.

 

 

Hebrews and monotheism

 

Phoenicians and the alphabet- Estefania Delgado

 From 1200 to 800 B.C

-          The Phoenicians themselves were also known as Sidonians.

-          The Semitic-speaking Phoenicians lived and prospered on the Mediterranean coast north of Palestine.

-          Their mains cities were Tyre and Sidon.

-          They gained fame as sailors and traders.

-          They were excellent traders within the Mediterranean. Its trade was possible by its excellent navy.

-          They occupied a string of cities along the Mediterranean coast, in what is today Lebanon and Syria.

-          In 1800 BC, Phoenicia was invaded by the Egyptians and was kept under Egyptian control until 1400 BC.

-          The downfall of the Phoenicians occurred when Alexander the Great defeated Persia in 333 BC.

  Its writing reads is from right to left, and some symbols

Were later re-used and made into vowels.

 

Lydians and coinage

 

 

 

 

 

 

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