Foundations of Civilization
Prehistory - 500 BCE
Prehistory - 500 BCE
- history is the slow process of human development
- early civilizations affect present
- Development of Humanity
- spread from eastern Africa globe
- 2 million years ago
- Paleolithic Age (“Old Stone Age”)
- Homo sapiens sapiens
- population
- rituals
- life, death
- Cave paintings
- Lascoux, France
- abstract thinking
- Migration
- Africa Europe, Asia, Australia, North America
- ***ECONOMIC BENEFIT***
- food, climate, resources, space
- Neolithic Revolution
- greatest economic shift in humanity
- hunting & gathering farming
- spreads all throughout the world
- Middle East - 8000 BCE
- India - 7000 BCE
- Central America - 6500 BCE
- China - 6000 BCE
- Southeast Asia - 5000 BCE (Central America fades away)
- changes
- permanent settlements
- domestication of animals
- specialization of jobs
- civilization
- 5 aspects
- advanced cities
- specialized workers
- complex institutions
- record keeping
- advanced technology
- Jarmo, Iraq
- earliest settlement
- 9000 BCE
- Catal Huyuk, Turkey
- move through roofs and use ladders
- walled city
- no social hierarchy
- ancestor worship
- skulls & skeletons buried beneath floors of houses
- hunted & gathered
- slow transition toward permanent settlements
- all aspects of daily life were symbolic
- River Vally Civilizations (“Bronze Age”)
- Bronze = alloy of tin & copper
- malleable
- nice cutting surface
- present in Huang He, Egypt, Indus River, and Tigris & Euphrates River Valleys
- Mesopotamia
- 1st to go through Neolithic Revolution
- starts from scratch
- farmed wheat & barley
- achievements
- inventions
- cuneiform
- counting based on 60
- writing
- clay tablets
- taxes
- donations
- ideas
- science
- astronomy
- calendar
- know when to harvest and plant
- architecture
- ziggurats
- “houses of gods”
- politics
- city-states
- Hammurabi’s Code of Law
- religion
- polytheistic
- Epic of Gilgamesh
- fickle gods
- cruel system for explanation of geography
- Indo-European Migrations
- 2000 BCE
- Caucasians move for economic aide
- ***MIGRATIONS CAUSE SOCIAL DISRUPTION***
- Egypt
- continuous system
- deserts, regular flow of water
- cyclical nature = controlled gods
- achievements
- politics & religion
- organized
- pharoah
- “big house”
- god-like protector, top of social class
- economy
- organized & regulated by state
- unified
- hieroglyphics
- papyrus scroll
- 24 “letters” + 700 phonetics
- The “Sea Peoples” Invade
- Indo-European
- Hitte Empire tells of the Sea People
- Indus Civilization “Harrapan”
- modern day Pakistan
- Mohenjo-Daro
- planned cities
- used right angles & squares
- indoor plumbing
- Harappan Writing
- indecipherable to date
- Aryan Invasions
- over Hindu-Kush mountains
- mix with culture
- Harappan civilization collapses
- Yellow River (Huang He) Valley Civilization
- isolated = independent developement
- Chinese writing
- pictographs
- semantic-phonetics
- oracle bones
- ancestors influence daily life
- inscribe questions on bones, then interpreted
- isolation = no invaders
- Andean South America & Mesoamerica
- Norte Chico, Chile
- aquaculture (sardines)
- Olmec, Mexico
- influence Maya, Aztec, Inca
- stoneheads with African features
- artifacts destroyed by Europeans, history relies on legends
- Heritage of River Valley Civilizations
- accomplishments in writing, science, and politics
- origins of modern civilization groups
- carries through to present day
- Mesopotamia = Judaism (monotheism)
- Phoenician alphabet
- Summary
- human development slowly
- Neolithic Revolution began “civilization”
- writing & records
- 5 centers
- Mesopotamia
- Egypt
- Indus
- Huang He
- Americas
- ***THE RIVER VALLEY CIVILIZATIONS SET MANY OF THE PATTERNS OF REGIONAL CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT***
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