AP World History Unit 0 Vocabulary and Key Concepts

Paleolithic era

The long period during which human societies sustained themselves through gathering, hunting, and fishing without the practice of agriculture; such ways of living persisted well after the advent of agriculture.

Agricultural Revolution

Perhaps the most transformative process in all of human history, these terms refer to the domestication of plants and animals, which led to both farming and pastoral societies.

Pastoral societies

Based on an alternative kind of food-producing economy focused on the raising of livestock, pastoral societies emerged in the Afro-Eurasian world where settled agriculture was difficult or impossible; pastoral peoples often led their animals to seasonal grazing grounds rather than settling permanently in a single location.

Patriarchy

A social system in which women have been made subordinate to men in the family and in society; often linked to the development of plow-based agriculture, intensive warfare, & private property.

Forager

Get their food by hunting or gathering wild fruit, roots, and grains.

Domesticate

Tame & control plants/animals.

Neolithic

"New stone" age; humans began to farm and invented new tools.

Civilization

Comprised of cities of 10s to 100s of thousands of people.

Hinduism

A religion based on the many beliefs, practices, sects, rituals, & philosophies in India; in the thinking of nineteenth-century Indian reformers, it was expressed as a distinctive tradition, an Indian religion.

Upanishads

Indian mystical & philosophical works written between 800 and 400 B.C.E.

Samsara

Rebirth or reincarnation.

Karma

The idea that pure actions, appropriate to one's station in life, resulted in rebirth in a higher social position or caste.

Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha)

The Indian prince whose exposure to human suffering led him to develop a path to Enlightenment that became the basis for the emerging religious tradition of Buddhism; lived ca. 566 - ca. 486 B.C.E.

Theravada Buddhism

"Teaching of the Elders," the early form of Buddhism according to which the Buddha was a wise teacher but not divine; emphasizes practices rather than beliefs.

Mahayana Buddhism

"Great Vehicle," the popular development of Buddhism in the early centuries of the Common Era, which gives a much greater role to supernatural beings and to compassion and proved to be more popular than original (Theravada) Buddhism.

Bhakti movement

Meaning "worship," this Hindu movement began in south India and moved northward between 600 and 1300 C.E.; it involved the intense adoration of and identification with a particular deity through songs, prayers, & rituals.

Confucianism

The Chinese philosophy first enunciated by Confucius, advocating the moral example of superiors as the key element of social order.

Han dynasty

The Chinese Dynasty (206 B.C.E. - 220 C.E.) that emerged after the Qin dynasty collapsed, establishing political and cultural patterns that lasted into the twentieth century; made Confucianism the official ideology of the Chinese state.

Daoism

A Chinese philosophy or popular religion that advocates a simple & unpretentious way of living.

Jesus of Nazareth

A peasant/artisan "wisdom teacher" and Jewish mystic (ca. 4 B.C.E. - 29 C.E.) whose life, teachings, death and alleged resurrection gave rise to the new religion of Christianity.

Saint Paul

An early convert and missionary (ca. 6-67 C.E.) and the first great populizer of Christianity, especially to Gentile (non-Jewish) communities.

Perpetua

Christian martyr (181-203 C.E.) from an upper-class Roman family in Carthage; her refusal to renounce her faith made her an inspiration for other early Christians.

Muhammad

The Prophet and founder of Islam whose religious revelations became the Quran, bringing a radically monotheistic religion to Arabia and the world.

Quran

Also transliterated as Qur'an and Koran, this is the most holy text of Islam, which records the words of God through revelations given to the Prophet Muhammad.

Ulama

Islamic religious scholars, both Sunni and Shia, who shaped and transmitted the core teachings of Islamic civilization.

Sharia

Islamic law, dealing with political, economic, social, & religious life; it literally translates as "a path to water," which is considered the source of all life.

Madrassas

Formal colleges for higher instruction in the teachings of Islam as well as in secular subjects like law, established throughout the Islamic world beginning in the eleventh century.

Sufism

An understanding of the Islamic faith that saw the worldly success of Islamic civilization as a distraction & deviation from the purer spirituality of Muhammad's time; by renouncing the material world, meditating on the words of the Quran, chanting the names of God, using music and dance, and venerating Muhammad and various "saints," Sufis pursued an interior life, seeking to tame the ego & achieve spiritual union with Allah.

Silk Roads

Land-based trade routes that linked many regions of Eurasia; they were named after the most famous product traded along these routes; linked China to the Mediterranean world.

Sea Roads

The world's largest sea-based system of communication and exchange before 1500 CE; centered on India, it stretched from southern China to eastern Africa.

Sands Roads

A term used to describe the routes of the trans-Saharan trade, which linked interior West Africa to the Mediterranean and the North African world.