General History: Notable Terms and Concepts

Civilization (All Facts)

• Entity characterized by the presence of one (or more)

  • Urban centers

  • Complex social structures

  • Centralized government(s)

  • Organized religion

  • Monumental architecture

  • Writing systems

  • Economic systems / trade

  • Division of labor

• Entity whose earliest variants developed in or around river valleys where reliable, fertile land was easily found

Fluvial Civilization (All Facts)

• Type of civilization founded near rivers

• Rivers and the water they provide were vital to early civilizations, offering

  • Water for

    • Drinking

    • Cultivating crops

    • Caring for domesticated animals

  • A gathering place for wild animals that could be hunted

  • Rich soil deposits as a result of regular flooding

Theocracy (All Facts)

• Rule by religious leaders

• Notable examples include

  • The Aztecs

Autocracy (All Facts)

• Rule by a single ruler serving as the head of the government and often was the main religious ruler as well

  • These rulers are often tyrannical, militaristic leaders who control all aspects of life including religious activity, law, and trade

Matrilineal Society (All Facts)

• Societies in which social standing was determined by the woman’s side of the family, rather than the man’s side of the family

  • For example, when the Great Sun Chief of the Mississippians died, the title passed not to his own son, but to one of his sister’s sons

• Societies which had these included

  • Ancient Egypt

  • Ancient Kush

Polygyny (All Facts)

• Practice of having more than one wife at the same time

• Practice which was rejected by

  • Vietnamese women

Casus Belli (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to the act or event that either provokes or is used to justify a war

Irrigation (All Facts)

• System of techniques to help direct water where it is most needed in order to sustain herds of domestic animals and in order to nourish crops of various sizes and quality

• The increasing need for it led to a more concentrated population and complex social systems

Proto-Industrialization (All Facts)

• Set of economic changes in which people in rural areas made more goods than they could sell

• Relied on home-based or community-based production using simple equipment

Dorian Invasion (All Facts)

• Hypothetical theory that tries to explain the end of the Mycenaean civilization and the growth of classical Greece

• Ancient tradition refers to these events as “the return of the Heracleidae” or the “sons (descendants) of Hercules”

• Theory which somewhat aligns with the destruction of the ancient world by the Sea Peoples

Chattel Slavery (All Facts)

Domestic Slavery (All Facts)

Debt Bondage (All Facts)

Commune Movement (All Facts)

• Movement in medieval northern Europe in which towns claimed independence from royal authority

• By 1145, it reached Rouen in France