First Societies, The Great Northern Continuum, Agropastoralism, Megaliths, and Mesopotamian Cities

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering terms, definitions, and concepts from Lectures 0 through 4 on First Societies, cold-weather and river communities, agropastoral developments, megaliths, and early Mesopotamian civilizations.

Knapping

The process by which a stone object is shaped by breaking off pieces of it, requiring knowledge of material properties and natural stone locations in the landscape.

Ochre

A natural mineral pigment used by early human societies for cave paintings, body preparation, clothing, and death rituals, associated symbolically with vitality, blood, birth, and ancestral identification.

First Societies

A term referring to the broad range of pre-agricultural cultures that did not transition or shift to farming, residing in savannas, steppes, forests, or river basins.

!Kung

A San population residing along the western edge of the Kalahari Desert whose traditional foraging lifestyle, huts, and community dances were closely adapted to an arid environment.

Gravettian Culture

An Upper Paleolithic cold-weather hunting culture (33,000–20,000 BP) known for hunting big game like mammoths, gendered division of labor, ceremonial clothing, and carved Venus figurines.

Goahti

A traditional dwelling constructed and used by the indigenous Sami people in northern Scandinavia.

Tipi

A portable conical tent structure developed by Plains Indians, featuring a tilted profile for ventilation, skin binding jacket, tied top poles, and surface imagery.

The Jłmon

An ancient salmon-oriented foraging culture (ca. 14,000–300 BCE) in present-day Japan known for pit houses, coastal/inland fishing, and early clay pottery and figurines.

Pit house

A dwelling built with its floor level scooped out below the surrounding ground surface, leaving sunken hollows in archaeological sites.

Potlatch

A ceremonial feast practiced among Indigenous Northwest Coast communities where leaders redistributed accumulated food surpluses to host guests and gain social prestige.

Pastoralism

A social organization and economic system based primarily on raising and herding livestock.

Agropastoralism

A form of social organization and economy combining crop cultivation with livestock raising.

Maasai

A pastoral, Maa-speaking group in East Africa whose nomadic lifestyle centers around tending herds within circular thornbush enclosures called kraals.

Kraal

A circular thornbush enclosure or group of houses surrounding an inner area used to contain livestock.

Stele

An upright stone slab or pillar bearing carved inscriptions or relief designs, frequently used as a ritual, commemorative, or grave marker.

Excarnation

The practice of leaving human bodies exposed to the elements so flesh decomposes prior to collecting bones for final disposal or secondary burial.

Second burial

A delayed burial ritual occurring after body decomposition, transitioning the deceased individual from the social world of the living into the realm of the dead.

Göbekli Tepe

A monumental pre-agricultural ritual complex in present-day Turkey (ca. 9,000–7,500 BCE) featuring circular enclosures with large T-shaped carved limestone pillars.

Çatalhöyük

A dense Neolithic agropastoral settlement in present-day Turkey (ca. 7,400–5,500 BCE) characterized by mudbrick houses built wall-to-wall with roof access, wall murals, and bucrania installations.

Menhir

A large standing stone set upright in the ground, occurring either individually as a single monolith or organized in monumental groups.

Alignments

Linear arrangements of standing stones erected in single or parallel rows across a landscape.

Dolmen

A prehistoric portal tomb structure formed by upright standing stones supporting a large flat capstone.

Tumulus

An earthen or stone mound covering a dolmen, chamber tomb, or passage grave; also called a barrow.

Cursus

An elongated, avenue-like earthwork feature defined by parallel ditches extending across landscape distances.

Henge

A circular prehistoric earthwork feature consisting of a ring-shaped bank, ditch, or arrangement of timber posts and standing stones.

Sumer

The earliest known urban civilization, situated in southern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Empire

A major political structure in which a single sovereign authority or city controls vast territories and diverse populations through annexation or domination.

Ziggurat

A monumental stepped temple-tower of ancient Mesopotamia featuring receding terraced levels connected by grand exterior staircases.