Notable Civilizations and Cultures (and All Notable Facts inc. Peoples/Groups/Languages, Politics/Policies, Military, Events, Religion, Economy, Social Structure, Art, Architecture, Music, Philosophy, Writings, etc.)

2000 BCE - 1200 BCE - Apennine Culture (All Facts)

• Located in central and southern Italy

• Characterized by “inhumation burials”

1900 BCE - 1500 BCE - Erlitou Culture (All Facts)

• Group of people that constructed a palace

  • on a platform of earth in the namesake city near Yenshi in Henan (Honan), a site which has already been occupied for several centuries

  • whose inhabitants

    • use bronze to make carefully crafted ritual vessels as well as a variety of tools and weapons

    • produced fine jade work

1800 BCE - 200 BCE - Nuragic Civilization (All Facts)

• Typified by the construction of cone-shaped towers of uncertain purpose known as “nuraghe” (hence the name)

• Characterized by

  • extensive working of bronze

  • trade in bronze items such as daggers, swords, bracelets, and axes

  • trade with Mycenaean Greece, Crete, and Cyprus

1700 BCE - 1150 BCE - Terramare Culture (All Facts)

• Characterized by villages protected by earthworks and moats

• Characterized by rectilinear streets and houses sometimes erected on pilings

1700 BCE - 500 BCE - Lapita Culture (All Facts)

Group of people who

• established themselves across a wide swathe of islands in Melanesia who migrated there from the Bismarck of Archipelago

• tended to build their settlements in coastal areas or on small offshore islands

• reared pigs and cultivated root crops such as yams and taro, as well as nut and fruit bearing trees, many of which they brought with them from their homeland in the Bismarck Archipelago

• collected shellfish and hunted green sea turtles and fish with intricately designed shell hooks

• whose diet included chicken, pigs, and dogs; which they brought with them from their homeland in the Bismarck Archipelago

• who carried with them a number of distinctive stones including obsidian and their own unique style of pottery ware

1300 BCE - 750 BCE - Urnfield Culture (All Facts)

• Located in Europe north of the Alps, in which the 400-year recession in the Mediterranean has scarcely affected the economy; it was a way of life which spread from central to north and west Europe

• Characterized by a burial ritual in which the body is burnt and the cremated remains are put in the namesake type of pottery, to which it is placed in a large cemetery of pots each with his own namesake burial object and other objects left with the dead, called the namesake, which is also from which the namesake derives its name

• Characterized by the use of “peat bogs” for the deposit of “votive offerings”

  • Torques, bracelets, ankle rings, and human corpses of both sexes; were contained inside them

  • The people in them are known as the “bog people”

• Group of people in which bronze production has soared as

  • new deep mines for copper were opened up

  • mercenaries introduced new techniques of making sheet-bronze armor and helmets

  • bronze swords have become plentiful

• Group of warriors who learned techniques of fighting on horseback

• Group of landowners, where better crops were grown with the latest varieties of wheat being grown over the winter

• Group of field-surveyors, which are dominated by hillforts, which are fortresses of earth and timber where the warriors feast and drink from gold and bronze vessels

• Lived in hierarchical societies based on agricultural villages

1200 BCE - 450 BCE - Hallstatt Culture (All Facts)

• Dominated central and western Europe by 600 BCE

• Comprised of Celtic chieftains who were influenced by eastern culture, who, like those cultures, became reliant on the horse

  • However, these horses that run freely across the steppes are rare in this region and only the privileged few keep them

  • These people immortalized these horses in the carving of their furniture

  • These Celtic aristocrats liked to be buried in their wagons, with harnesses and bits beside them

• The warlike leaders of these people feasted freely and drank wine imported from Greece and Rome, although they slept on animal skins in crude houses

• The hilts of their swords were decorated with fine geometric patterns

• Characterized by their bronze urns which they used in their houses that were decorated in the Veneto-Illyrian style

• Characterized by their pottery - finer than their jewelry - with its decorative circles, lozenges, chevrons, and hatching

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• Manifested an inter-connected cultural network with shared farming tech, tools, and housing types that covered all of Europe except Greece and Italy

• Characterized by fortified hilltop settlements and fine metalwork in Iron, Bronze, Gold, and Silver

• Economy was agricultural: raising crops and herding animals

• Developed complex trading network with the Mediterranean World

• Characterized by high-status having inhumation burials, sometimes wearing full armor and accompanied by a chariot

• Eventually became what is now considered a more ancient form of the Celts by the Greeks, and later, by the Romans themselves, around 500 BCE

1200 BCE - 700 BCE - Villanovan Culture (All Facts)

• Civilization that was centered in Bologna in Central Italy around 770 BCE

• Offshoot of central-European Urnfield Culture

• They lived in villages of huts on hills

• Their way of life was based on agriculture, but they were also keen traders and metalworkers

• They valued martial art, maintaining a detachment of combat cavalry

• Characterized by use of pottery urns, sometimes in the shape of huts, that contained cremated remains

  • They cremated their dead and consigned their ashes to urns

  • Reintroduced “inhumation burials” in chamber tombs used by aristocratic elites

• Collected

  • Amber necklaces from the Baltic

  • Bronze armor from the Greek world

900 BCE - 250 BCE - Chavin Culture (All Facts)

• Society which emerged and dominated in the Andes in Peru which reached as far as the Moche Valley north and Nazca Valley south, it was centered on the namesake, “de Huantar” site, a magnificent temple which the people in the society built

• Its people were skilled at work in stone, pottery, gold, and textiles

• It was characterized by a feline deity cult from which social, military, and religious practices were derived

• Group of people who dedicated a large temple complex to a feline deity cult at their namesake city on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera Blanca in northern Peru where animal and human sacrifice was practiced

• Group of people from Peru who traded with coastal settlers

• Society which soon decayed as the people shifted to the Peruvian desert

800 BCE - 100 BCE - Paracas Culture (All Facts)

• Society which emerged on the Southern Pacific coast in Peru

• Characterized by their curious burial rituals in which dead men’s bodies were mutilated and preserved

  • Dug subterranean vaults through desert rock to fill with precious “mummy bundles” of their dead

  • The hot dry desert climate there helped in the mummification process

• Characterized by their mummification process which involved the removal of the internal organs, after which the body was tied up in a fetal position and circular holes are gouged out of the top of the skull of the corpse with bone tools

  • “Mummy bundles” of these bodies were brought from north and south of the peninsula to be buried in the tomb at the namesake Caverns

• Characterized by its people having created exquisite fabric designs and colors

• At its namesake Necropolis

  • Vaults were filled with a rich assortment of burial offerings including gold ornaments, weapons, pottery, and textiles

  • Long mantles were packed with beautifully embroidered cotton and brightly patterned textiles woven in elaborate designs

500 BCE - 200 CE - Nok Culture (All Facts)

• Located in Taruga in the namesake valley in Nigeria

• Characterized by its use of iron implements in the place of stone tools, thus revolutionizing farming life and society there

  • Its sophistication was made possible by the manufacture and use of Iron, which provided the technology to clear the forest and produce an agricultural surplus, thus allowing the general population to fulfill their spiritual and artistic ambitions

• Their blacksmiths were revered by the general population as having stolen fire from the gods and possessing magical powers

  • As a result, they made full use of their new prestige by becoming the religious leaders in the region and forging a very strict hierarchical society

    • This resulted in subdued behavior by the people

• Characterized by their having made beautiful terracotta figures including

  • Humans, whose faces were elaborately stylized

  • Animals including elephants, monkeys, and snakes; who were made naturalistically and possibly derived from wood-carving styles

• Characterized by an ornate dress style that did not distinguish itself sexually

500 BCE - 15 BCE - La Tene Culture (All Facts)

• Evolved seamlessly from and was successor to the Hallstatt Culture

  • Formed from peoples having rebelled against many Celtic rulers for their greed

    • These Celtic rulers’ lack of mitigation concerning social inequalities and tensions led to the large growths and movements in population

    • The older centers of Celtic thus lost their power in Burgundy and southern Germany by the 400’s BCE

    • Fortresses like the Heuneburg in Bavaria were overrun, looted, and razed to the ground

    • Sculptures were violated

    • Dynasties were overthrown

• Located near Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland

• Characterized by

  • widespread use of Iron for tools including long, double-edged iron swords

  • heavy necklaces of solid gold and bronze

  • artistic decorations derived from native, Etruscan, and south Russia sources

  • fantastic stylized works of animal art

• Based on developing warrior societies whose members

  • launched raids to capture slaves

  • ventured into Italy and Anatolia, where they clashed with Greeks and Romans

  • ended up as mercenaries in Greek armies

• Would eventually evolve into the Celts

500 BCE - 100 CE - Adena Culture (All Facts)

• Society in Ohio that built towns and villages

• Characterized by the burial mounds they built for their dead

200 BCE - 800 CE - Nazca Culture (All Facts)

• Society which emerged on the narrow coastal plain between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean

• Society which was well-organized

  • Its capital was at Cahuachi

    • Featured a 20-meter-high stepped-pyramid which dominated the city and in which power was centered

• Characterized by its irrigation canals, which spread outwards from the namesake river by which it was centered around

  • Its survival depended on effective irrigation

  • Maize crops flourished there

  • Farming techniques were developed

• Characterized by their textiles which were

  • bright

  • multi-colored

  • jaguar-embroidered

    • Its people had a religion that worshipped the jaguar

• Characterized by their pottery which

  • was gaily painted

  • was molded and decorated as trophy heads

  • depicted their mythical being / namesake god

100 BCE - 500 CE - Hopewell Culture (All Facts)

• Society in eastern North Africa

• Characterized by

  • Trade

  • Use of Copper

  • Smoking of Tobacco

Phrygians (All Facts)

• Were an ancient Indo-European speaking people who migrated from Thrace in the Balkans into the Anatolian plateau by invading it and sacking the Hittite Empire’s capital there, Hattusas (Boghazkoy) around 1200 BCE

Sardinians (All Facts)

• Emerged around 800 BCE, they were located on the namesake island (now a part of Italy)

• Characterized by

  • its distinctive architecture and sculpture

    • Their sculptors created bronze statues of men, animals, and divinities; including a “great goddess” portrayed as a woman cradling a child in her arms

  • dry-stone towers that they built in the shape of truncated cones and surrounded by stone walls

Thracians (All Facts)

• Were an ancient Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe and Anatolia by 715 BCE

• Were a nomadic people

  • Their families fled to Eastern Europe after crossing the Caucuses mountains after having been forced from their lands by the Scythians

  • They moved from their native steppe region beyond the Black Sea with herds of fine and highly-bred horses

• Were known for their high-standard craftsmanship

  • This was due to their land that they settled in having been rich in gold, silver, and copper deposits

  • They were known for their fine filigree work in silver and gold, especially in the standards they set fashioning jewelry, helmets, and breastplates decorated from these precious metals

    • Their eastern influences were reflected in the unusual combinations of human and animal subjects that these gold and silver pieces depicted

  • One example was their production of a characteristic bronze stag

  • At the height of their power, their craftwork and treasure was internationally famous

• One of the few civilizations in history in which its leaders used the ability to generate items of wealth as a weapon in campaign to win allies and influence friends

Cimmerians (All Facts)

• Warlike nomads from southern Russia

• Crossed the Caucuses Mountains where they entered Western Asia

• Harassed

  • Phrygia in Anatolia, where they ransacked King Midas and his kingdom around 705 BCE

  • Kingdom of Lydia, where they captured the city of Sardis and killed their iconic king Gyges around 652 BCE

• Made alliances with the Manneans and the Medes (in Iran)

• Defeated the Urartian forces prior to the Assyrians completely overtaking the Urartians

• Swept through the western shores of Anatolia from their home near the Black Sea, having captured and razed Ephesus by 640 BCE

Scythians (All Other Notes)

• Group of nomadic warriors, they lived in tents and shifted from pasture to pasture with their herds of animals

  • Were prevalent in the Middle East and Caucasus Mountains, they came from the steppes of Central Asia around the Volga River but eventually poured into Western Asia

  • They threatened the frontiers of Assyria and the region around and beyond the Black Sea that began to disrupt the people of Europe and the existing order within the Middle East by 715 BCE

  • Eventually, by 700 BCE, they formed large permanent communities in the western steppe lands in which such settlements were rich but hierarchical

  • Invaded Iran from the Caucasus Mountains, having exercised their military and political influence there ever since their invasion in the 600’s BCE

  • Entered Syria, crossed the country, and reached the Egyptian border with little to no resistance from the Assyrian armies there

    • Swept through Syria crushing all opposition

    • Made successful raids into Assyria and Palestine

    • Defeated the Assyrians despite King Ashurbanipal’s alliance-making with their chief Madyes

  • Took a bribe from King Psamtek of Egypt, who had met them in Palestine and paid them a hefty sum with the promise that they would not invade and thus that he had them save Egypt from being ruled by the namesake groups

• Forced other groups to move on from their lands including the Cimmerians (of Southern Russia) and King Midas and the Phrygians (in Anatolia)

• Were known to be fearsome and fierce mounted warriors who fought on horseback with powerful bows, which were made of both wood and bone rather than single pieces of wood, thus giving them greater strength and accuracy as they used their bows and arrows from the saddle and moved swiftly from one place to another

• Were no respecters of property, living in tents themselves and moved into settled territory wherever they could find it, plundering villages and terrorizing the local inhabitants

• Reared cattle, sheep, and horses, and did farming and hunting

Scythians (Subgroups)

• Greek term used to refer to Indo-Europeans who remained in central Asia

  • Sometimes are referred to as Cimmerians, Ashkuza, Saka, and Massagetae - groups which they were in numbers, part of, or associated with

• Massagetae

  • Dwelt near the Caspian Sea

  • Worshipped the sun

  • Lived mostly on milk

  • Cannibalized their dead

Scythians (Culture)

• Portrayed by the Greeks as violent and bloodthirsty

• Their philosopher Anacharsis was counted as one of the “Seven Wise Men of the Greek World”

  • He invented the bellows and potter’s wheel

    • However, he was immediately executed upon return home for participating in Greek culture

• They loved gold

• They smoked marijuana

• They built a city made entirely out of wood called “Gelonus”

• Characterized by a style of art in which animals were heavily used that spread to other parts of the ancient world, especially marked on their tattoos

  • Were considerable craftsmen, with vigorous and individual styles of pattern and design, often based on animal motifs

Scythians (Military History)

• 612 BCE - participated in the destruction of Nineveh of Assyria

• 531 BCE - Massagetae kill King Cyrus the Great of Persia in battle

• 513 BCE - Darius I of Persia fails to invade their homeland

• 339 BCE - Their King Ataias is killed in the Battle of Dobrudja with Philip II of Macedon

• 329 BCE - ATG defeats their army west of the Caspian Sea

Sarmatians (All Facts)

• Subgroup of Scythians

• Believed to have sprung from a union of Scythians and Amazon women

• Ruled by women (“no girl can marry until she has killed a man in battle’”)

Etruscans (All Other Facts)

• Were influential to the founding and development of Roman Civilization and its culture, but they were not Romans themselves

  • Eventually helped build the city of Rome during the Roman Kingdom period

    • The last 3 Kings of Rome during the Roman Kingdom belonged to this civilization

  • Some might consider them a link between the Villanovans and the Romans

    • However, they were their own people who just happened to migrate into and inhabit the lands of the future Romans

  • Culturally characterized by their borrowing of both Villanovan and Greek / Hellenistic influence

  • People-group that the Romans had to fight off who made attempts to retake the city of Rome

• Descended from Asiatic immigrants who arrived by sea from the eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and/or Anatolia and established settlements, and eventually city-states, in Etruria (Tuscany) in Italy by the time of the end of the Hittite Empire

  • Eventually integrated with the Villanovan people, spreading their knowledge of gold-working there among other skills

• They consisted of 12 independent cities that did not form a unified whole

  • Each city was ruled by a “lucumo” (King)

  • The King was

    • A political and religious leader

    • supported by a warrior aristocracy

  • Some cities developed into aristocracies or oligarchies

  • These city-states were united in a religious league, but each controlled their own destiny, which allowed itself to grow both economically and militaristically in a unique way

  • Their metallurgical knowledge helped them develop iron weapons that allowed them to rule much of the central peninsula of Italy through the kings of small city-states

• Enjoyed the good life: had banquets with men and women together

  • Had musicians and dancers

  • Had no privacy

• Women enjoyed considerable liberty prior within their society

• Civilization which began to decline in the 390’s BCE as Rome overtook it in power and influence to the rest of Italy

  • Underwent a series of changes as their namesake land was integrated into the Latin world

Etruscans (Writing)

• Used an alphabet developed from that of the Greeks to write a non-Indo-European language that is still undeciphered and their names cannot be derived from any known language

• Their alphabet would be brought into Rome by their namesake Kings of the Roman Kingdom period

• Their city-states were introduced to alphabetical writing by Greek settlers from Euboea around 690 BCE

  • As a result, they adopted the Chalcidian version of the Greek alphabet to transcribe their own language onto stone, bronze, wood, papyrus, and even gold

  • Taken from the Greeks, they passed this alphabet onwards to the Romans

• Their language was based on the Greek alphabet, their culture distinctly Hellenic in its origins

Etruscans (Art)

• Were known for their statuary

  • Characterized by their use of terracotta rather than stone or bronze

  • Their statuary developed more lifelike and rhythmical forms under Greek influence

• Their most famous statuary work was the terracotta Apollo located at their Temple of Veii

  • Characterized by its being rendered with a feeling of charm and physical strength

  • Its face is lit up by almost eyes and a mysterious smile

• Characterized by its realistic and spontaneous qualities, it experienced a major shift after Rome had invaded their lands and began the decline of their civilization around the 390’s BCE

Etruscans (Military History)

• Conflicts

  • Early history of expansion into North and South Italy

  • Came into conflict with the Greeks of Southern Italy

  • Collaborated with the Carthaginians to resist Greek intrusions into their markets

  • Gained a foothold in Corsica after the Battle of Alalia

  • Suffered several defeats at the hands of the Greeks

  • Lost their holdings south of the Tiber River

  • Lost their holdings of the Po River Valley at the hands of the Celts

• Their heavily-armored soldiers used chariots to expand south into Campania in Italy

Etruscans (Economy)

• Was

  • Highly developed

  • Based on trade and manufacturing

  • Admired for their metalwork, especially in Iron

• They developed their own iron-working culture

  • They did this while busily exploiting ore deposits on the island of Elba

• Were skilled traders, having established strong trading with the Greeks (in Sicily) and Phoenicians

  • Some of the best-preserved Greek pottery comes from Etruria rather than Greece

• Expanded into the Po River Valley and began to exploit the rich soil there

• If the Greeks were the best pot-makers during their time, they were the best metalworkers

Etruscans (Culture)

• Elements of its culture were borrowed by the Romans including

  • Its “century” system of organizing its armies

  • Its gladiatorial games

  • Its military “triumphs”

Etruscans (Religion)

• Established on the belief that the natural world was controlled by divinities who could be influenced to a particular course of action

• To ascertain the will of the gods, they used divination, based on an interpretation of signs received from the gods

  • Their priests took “auspices” (inspecting flights of birds) for indications of the outcome of future events, among other signs

• Had a vision of the afterlife that was similar to that of the Egyptians in that life after death was a perpetuation of all the best aspects of life on Earth

• Tuchula, Vanth, and Charun were the Demons of the Underworld

  • Vanth is a demon

  • Charun is the guide

Etruscans (Death)

• “City of the Dead”

  • Constructed by their aristocrats

  • Marked by groves of cypress trees comprising hundreds of multi-roomed stone-cut underground tombs

  • The walls of the tombs had carved into them implements that were used in everyday life; instead of putting artifacts in their tombs, they carved their artifacts into their tombs

  • Characterized by marble coffins or sarcophagi that contained the remains of married couples who remained united in death just as they had been united in life

  • Built big underground tombs with big mounds of Earth over them planted with Cyprus trees at the top

  • Some of the best Greek pots are found in Greek tombs

  • Most of the tombs were robbed

• Their tomb paintings

  • reflected Villanovan and Hellenic influences

  • Showed portraits of the dead men and their wives at banquets

  • Showed scenes of daily life with vivid pictures of boating, fishing, and hunting

• Funerals

  • Marked by athletic contests, such as wrestling matches, in honor not only of the death but also of the gods of the underworld

  • Their wrestling-like funeral games to celebrate their dead influenced the Roman gladiators

• Decline in political affairs (Celts invade the North, Greeks invade the South) is reflected in their funeral practices, which evolve with a more sinister tone

  • They begin to feat that the uncertainty in their earthly lives might follow them after death, and therefore developed rituals intended to appease the demons of the underworld

  • The funeral games now involved ritual fights-to-the-death and were accompanied by human sacrifice

  • Their understanding of the afterlife is affected:

    • They are unhappy in this life AND in the afterlife

    • Got to sacrifice humans to get a good deal

      • So they please the demons before they die so they do not get tortured

    • You have to sacrifice humans in order to please the demons

    • The wrestling marches turn into fights to the death

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• Their tombs testify to the strong belief they held that the spirit survives after death

• Their dead were interred in barrow-like tombs with everything necessary for a comfortable life in the afterworld

• Characterized by their

  • having represented the material needs of the dead in pictorial form

  • extremely realistic paintings, which were designed to re-create the forces of life such as birds and vegetations, together with a funerary portrait

• Practiced cremation, with some believing that it was the point at which the soul was liberated from the shackles of life towards a celestial sphere

  • Placed the ashes of their dead into

    • “house-shaped” urns

    • vases representing the face of the dead person

• Funerary practices shifted after their civilization sets in decline due to the Roman invasions

  • Burials replaced cremation

  • Sarcophagi replaced funeral urns

Celts / Gauls (All Notes)

• Composed of many different groups / tribes throughout the different regions of Gaul (Ancient France), Italy, Iberia (Ancient Spain), and England; all of these groups:

  • Shared many of the same cultural attributes

  • Spoke the Celtic language (language made them who they were)

  • Functioned as independent nations, which:

    • Made their own treaties

    • Issued their own coinage

  • Some of these groups had writing including

    • The Lepontic Language System

    • The Iberian Script

    • The Ogham Alphabet

• Characterized by

  • Housing: Settlements that consisted of a large town dominated by a hill fort called an “Oppidum”

  • Government

    • Decentralized

      • Each people was governed by a kind or council of warrior aristocrats or oligarchs

  • Art

    • Stylized and abstract forms

    • Complex curvilinear patterns

    • Decapitated Heads

    • Very individualistic

    • Contrasted the Greco-Roman standard of structure according to established models

• Invade Italy in 500 BCE

  • Rome was very scared of them

  • They were real examples of Barbarians

• Attack Rome via raiding party in 390 BCE

• Sent raiding parties from Northern Italy down during the summer to the southern parts of Italy

Celts / Gauls (Religion)

• Polytheistic

• Administered by a class of priests called “Druids”

  • Carried out rituals such as divination and sacrifice to the gods

    • Shrines are located in isolated places such as groves of trees and “sacred pools”

• Accounts of their religion include

  • Possible engagement in human sacrifice

  • Belief in reincarnation

  • Large amounts of poetry that had to be memorized

  • Having a role in the culture’s judicial processes

Celts / Gauls (Economy)

• Characterized by agriculture and metalwork

  • The metalwork was highly prized

  • Characteristic metalwork included

    • “Torques” (neck rings)

    • “Fibulae” (brooches)

    • Weapons

    • Jewelry

  • Imports such as

    • Athenian Pottery

    • Baltic Amber

    • African Ivory

  • Maintenance of extensive trading networks in Europe and Asia

Celts / Gauls (Warfare)

• Engaged in conflict often

• Undisciplined

  • Battles began when they shouted insults at the enemy, working themselves up in a fury and charging

  • Very individualistic, unlike Greco-Roman warfare being organized and disciplined (exemplified by phalanxes)

• Had metal torques forged around their necks

  • The only way to remove one was to decapitate a slain warrior

    • This practice made them famous

  • Some fought naked, attributing magical powers to the torque for protection

  • Were “headhunters”

    • If one defeated an enemy in battle, they would cut off their head, put it up on their shelf, to show how brave they were

• Primary weapon: long slashing sword

• Fighters made themselves look more terrifying before battle by smearing wet lime into their hair to make it stand straight back when it dried

• Would jump up and down naked, shaking their swords, and charge directly into the enemy and the Greeks and Romans would just head into the other direction terrified

• Influenced Greco-Roman art, which depicted many of them dying such as “The Dying Gaul”

• They were unstoppable in their first few years of existence, but that soon gave way

• 390 BCE - Sacked Rome via their undisciplined charge and howling voices

Celts / Gauls (Gender Roles)

• Gender Roles

  • Women

    • Were free to have sexual affairs like the men

    • Were able to participate in war and government

  • Men

    • Preferred male lovers over female lovers

      • Might reflect male bonding rituals similar to those used by the Greeks

Celts (All Facts)

• Were a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia, identified by their use of the namesake language

  • Lived north and west of the Alps

    • They established direct trading contacts with the Greek colonies of the western Mediterranean by 600 BCE

  • Lived from Bohemia to Burgundy by 520 BCE

    • They were part of a military aristocracy which

      • controlled the trade routes between Europe and the Mediterranean

      • built fortifications at strategic points, usually on hilltops

Celts (Technology)

• Mastered iron manufacture, which was once a Hittite military secret, by 700 BCE

  • After the Hittite Empire’s collapse, they eventually learned how to make iron and adopt the strong and cheap iron-making method, which would eventually be used more widely

  • Initially consisted of a rising class of unscrupulous warriors who seized economic and political power via the emergence of the iron sword

    • Their blades of knives and long slashing swords were ground sharper - and therefore deadlier - than ever

Celts (Economy)

• They traded heavily with the Greeks and Etruscans in which

  • They gave raw materials like tin and amber

  • They received luxury items, art works, and wine

    • These added to the considerable wealth and lifestyles of their princes

Celts (Religion)

• Tribe unified by language but also by religion

• They believed in rebirth after death

• They worshipped various gods

• Their priesthood, the Druids, had the greatest power

  • Were the educators of the young

  • Had the power to order human sacrifices

Celts (Burials)

• Their tribe chieftains built up riches in hilltop palaces throughout Europe

  • Their wealth was buried along with them, in the form of gold and bronze objects and other precious possessions including

    • The Greek “Krater of Vix”

      • Was five feet high

      • Its neck was decorated in relief with warriors

      • Its lid was decorated in relief with chariots

      • Its handle was a statuette of a young woman, with a gold diadem on her head

    • Greek Bronze Cauldrons

    • Etruscan Bronze Vases

    • Clay Athenian Cups

Gauls (All Facts)

• Group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period

• Began to use Iron, their namesake city flourished as a trading center for Western Europe

  • There, Etruscans, Phoenicians, and Greeks imported jewels, weapons, ceramics, wine amphorae, and bronze objects and loaded their ships with goods for export throughout the Mediterranean world

Samnites (All Facts)

Mamertines (All Facts)

Sabines (All Facts)

• Fierce alliance of pastoral peoples living in the Apennines that long coveted Latium’s access to the sea, its fertile land and winter pastures

• Sought the salt available to the Romans at Ostia

• By 450 BCE, they were prepared to accept Romanization

  • However, the Romans adopted one of their gods called Sancus

• During their countless campaigns against the Romans, they often succeeded in getting to the city walls

  • On one occasion, they actually occupied the Capitoline Citadel on the Capitoline Hill itself before Rome could call in allies from Tusculum to assist in their ejection from the Citadel

Saharans (Subgroups)

• Composed of several peoples including the

  • Adyrmachidae

  • Giligammae

  • Asbustae

  • Macea (wore mohawks)

  • Nasamonians (nomadic herders who harvested wild dates and locusts)

  • Gindanes (had women who wore leather aklets for each lover they had had)

  • Logotphagi

  • Machylans

  • Auseans

  • Gaetuli (known for horses and purple dye; inhabited the region between the Atlas Mountains and the Saharan oases)

  • Numidians

  • Garamantes

  • Berbers

Saharans (All Facts)

• Group of herders driven from their pastures north into the Magreb, south into west and central Africa, and east into Egypt due to the fierce heat, constant drought, and ever-advancing sands of the namesake region

  • This gradual migration has profoundly influenced the outlying regions

    • In west and central Africa, they brought new agricultural techniques

    • In Egypt, they brought about an agricultural revolution due to the need to feed the growing population there

• Wherever they went, they threatened political upheaval and potential anarchy

• Occupied by mixed farmers

• Inhabitants used caves as shelters and their cave paintings tell the story of the region’s decline

  • The earliest paintings show elephants, rhinoceros, and the extinct Bubalus antiquus, which was replaced by domestic cattle

  • The latest paintings show men on horse-drawn chariots

• Their north-south trade by two-wheeled horse chariots thrived by 670 BCE, stimulated by trade with Carthage and the production of copper and iron

Saharans (Technology)

• As the namesake region they inhabited gradually turned to desert, they adapted by using camels instead of horses for trade, as horses became increasingly impractical to use

Numidians (All Facts)

• Occupied areas closer to the coast

• Famous for their calvary

Garamantes (Settlements)

• Best known people of the deeper Sahara Desert at the time of the early Roman Kingdom days

• Had several towns, of which the most important was Garama (Germa today)

• Had a large number of smaller fortified settlements, with preserved walls over 10 feet high

• Were occasionally raided by members of nearby settled areas

Garamantes (Lifestyle)

• Were primarily peaceful farmers who pursued agriculture in the oases of desert regions with minimal rainfall by utilizing

  • Wells

  • Cistern water storage

  • Elaborate irrigation systems

    • “Foggara” - artificial channels 2-5 feet large and 130-feet deep that were constructed to access fossil water sources

• Raised wheat, figs, dates, olives, and grapes

Garamantes (Economy)

• Were the primary beneficiary of trans-Saharan trade, primarily focused on the exchange of slaves

• Were both transporters and consumers of trade goods, enjoying a long period of economic prosperity based on the exploitation of both commerce and agriculture

Berbers (All Facts)

• Lived on the fringes of the Sahara south of the densely popular coastal regions

  • Those who lived more to the north practiced settle agriculture

  • Those in the South led oasis-based nomadic lives, keeping herds of cattle, sheep, and goats

  • Camels introduced around the 100’s CE

• All of the people groups spoke Afro-Asiatic languages, a North African linguistic group

• Regularly recruited into the Carthaginian and Roman armies

Nabataean Arabs (All Notes)

• Oasis-based Arabs who inhabited the dry territory between Syria and Arabia from the Euphrates River to the Red Sea; they extended their control all the way to Syria and Damascus

• First appeared in the period after the Jewish Liberation in Babylon in the 500’s BCE

• Were able to retain their independence due to their familiarity with desert life

  • Were able to ward off the Seleucids in the late 300’s BCE

• Expanded to occupy the port city of Aqaba

• Gained a reputation as pirates

• Raised horses

• Expanded the construction of their capital city of Petra

• Their gods were represented as simple blocks of stone, some of which were made out of cliffs or mountain tops

Nabataean Arabs (Economy)

• Benefited from commerce between east and west

• Engaged in trade with

  • Southern Arabia for frankincense, myrrh, and spices

  • Egypt for Bitumen

• Their capital city of Petra was the center of a camel-trading network that extended across the Persian Gulf to Damascus and to the Red Sea

Nabataean Arabs (Technology)

• Graced by an extensive system of water collection that preserved water from flash floods in cisterns for use during dry periods

• Had sophisticated irrigation techniques that maximized the effect of the minimal rainfall allowing for the cultivation of date palms and balsam poplar

Nabataean Arabs (Writing)

• Developed a written language using the Aramaic alphabet, which had developed out of the Phoenician alphabet

• A cursive form of their script would evolve to become the Arabic alphabet

• Their Aramaic alphabet featured added characters that indicated the presence of vowels

• Although none of their literature or documents survive, a high literacy rate among their population is suggested given that what does survive is lots of graffiti

Olmecs (All Facts)

• Society which was located and which developed on the east coast of Mexico

• Characterized by their

  • Distinctive great basalt heads, which reached up to 12 feet in height and were placed next to their pyramid temples

    • These huge sculptures carved in the Gulf of Mexico spectacularly demonstrate the devotion inspired by their religious cults

    • Its colossal sculpted heads looked out over the Gulf of Mexico

  • Distinctive sculptures made from jade, terracotta, and bone, which depicted their religious beliefs and fat eunuchs with innocent expressions as well as jaguars and serpents

  • Accurate calendar they designed from their study of the stars

• Their most famous pyramid temples were those of La Venta, San Lorenzo, and Tres Zapatas in the Central American region of Mexico

  • The interiors of these buildings were decorated with finely carved pillars, altars, and coffins

• Society that learned how to count, calculate, and write

• Their ideas and beliefs eventually spread to neighboring eastern and central Mexico and further afield to central America, as far as Guatemala and El Salvador

Zapotecs (All Facts)

• Society which emerged in Mexico around 500 BCE

• Built a famous city at Monte Alban on the west coast of Mexico

• Built Temple complexes in the valley of Oaxaca in southern Mexico

• The namesake mountaintop was flattened and levelled and the temples have been designed around a large plaza

• Its settlers

  • evolved distinctive styles of pottery, sculpture, and architecture

  • formalized astronomical observations and a calendar system

Mixtecs (All Facts)

• Society which emerged in Mexico around 1500 BCE until 1500 CE

• Characterized by carpeting their buildings with exquisite mosaics

Khoisan People (All Facts)

• Settled in the area around the modern-day Cape of Good Hope (on the coast of South Africa)

• Domesticated dogs to be used for hunting for the first time around 1000 BCE

Bantu People (All Facts)

• Gained influence in what is not Zambia and Angola

• Spoke the namesake language

• Characterized by their “Stumpa” pottery

• Characterized by their use of iron metallurgy

  • This knowledge of ironworking soon spreads elsewhere, to West Africa, where it penetrated the forest belt running along the West African coastal hinterland by 370 BCE

• Were farmers

• Emerged around 380 BCE - 370 BCE

Cuiculico / Tlatico (All Facts)

• Located in central Mexico, they formed a cult based on the worship of a female fertility deity and in which they construct a pyramidal mound around 550 BCE

Ancient Germans (All Facts)

• Their peasant farmers established the first settlements in the central lowlands of northern Europe, where ironworking was developed around 600 BCE

Aetolians (All Facts)

• Felt frustrated at the political reorganization of Greece by Rome, which had declared all Greek cities free

Mayans (All Facts)

• Built enormous pyramid complexes in Guatemala

• Developed urban centers in Mexico around 200 BCE

  • At their city of El Mirador, they constructed the Tigre and Danta pyramids around

  • Society in which initially, a number of villages in the Teotihuacan Valley merged into one with a total population of about 50K