Prehistoric and Ancient Societies: Key Archaeological Sites and Cultures

Blombos Cave

100,000 - 70,000 BP, South Africa

Rhino Cave

70,000 BCE, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana

The Social Package, 100,000 BP

tools

ochre

symbolic expression

sacred landscapes

dance

bands, or kin-based groups

Social package: tools, knapping

Sharpening object by breaking off pieces/where stones can be found in landscape

Social package: ochre

"Paint," often applied to caves and clothing, used during death rituals, ex blood, vitality, birth, and menstruation

Social package: symbolic expression

Engraved stones showing an expression

Social package: sacred Landscapes

Defines the relationship between nature and humans, animals and humans, living and the dead.

Social package: dance

Defines relationships, may last for days even months

Social package: Bands, or kin-based groups

40% of their time hunting, gathering, and hut building

60% of their time socializing, dancing, resting

First societies

did not change or shift to agriculture

Venus of Willendorf

A figurine from Willendorf, Austria, dated 24,000-22,000 BCE.

Sannai-Maruyama Site

Japan, 4,000 to 2,000 BCE

First society: Savanna and Scrubland Societies

!Kung populations today

First society: Gravettian Culture and Steppe Cold-Weather Hunting Societies

Hunted mammoths, reindeer, and horses

Women created warm clothing and footwear for the hunting men

Venus figurines

Bear cults and worship

Likely presence of shamanism, enters altered state of consciousness to interact with the spirit world

Sami in Sweden and Norway, Goahti, and Lavvu

Plains Indians in the US belonged to this group until the nineteenth century

First society: Forest and river societies

Rivers supported farming, trade, and permanent settlements. Forests provided resources leading to villages, social hierarchies, and early religion

Gravettian Culture

33,000 - 20,000 BP

Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)

A period from 26,000 to 20,000 BP.

Holocene

Began 9700 years ago after the last ice age, marking the warming of the climate and rise of agriculture.

Tipi

Tilting structure allows for better temperature control

Animal skin binds pieces together

Poles tied at top to keep rain out

Easily portable

Reusable elements

The Jomon

14,000 - 300 BCE, salmon-oriented along rivers and seacoasts, small communities in pit houses, survived by hunting, fishing, and gathering.

Known for their pottery, including simple jars and bowls, later figurines

Pit House

A dwelling in which the floor level is below the surrounding ground level.

The Haida

North American people of Haida Gwaii

Economics based on fishing (salmon, halibut, and cod) and hunting

Plentiful annual salmon supported the tribes artistic and ceremonial pursuits

Known for their art and architecture that creatively used wood

Potlatch

A ceremonial feast used to display rank

Pastoralism

Social organization based on livestock raising as the primary economic activity

Agropastoralism

8,000 BCE

A way of life based on the growing of crops and raising of livestock as a primary economic activity

Plant Selection

A small handful of plants tended to in first societies became modern plants

In Africa and Eurasia...

Modern plants included taro, millet, sorghum, rice, oats, wheat, and barley

In the Americas...

Modern plants included squash, potatoes, corn (originally teosinte), and tomatoes

Maasai

Speakers of Maa, an eastern sundanic language

Nomadic, wandering in bands and subsisting on almost entirely meat, blood, and milk of their herds

Their kraal consists of a large circular thornbush fence around a ring of muddung houses, which hold four to eight families and their herds.

Kraal

An enclosure or group of houses surrounding an enclosure for livestock.

Göbekli Tepe

Turkey, 9,000 - 7,500 BCE

Stele

Upright stone slab or column with a commemorative inscription or relief design, often serving as a gravestone.

Excarnation

The exposure of human corpses to the elements to facilitate the decomposition of the flesh before the bones are buried.

Second burial

Period of waiting between the first burial and a second burial that often coincides with the duration of decomposition.

What is the importance of a second burrial?

To create a passage from the visible society of the living to the invisible one of the dead

Elements of the Emergent Agropastoral World

Plants and animals

- grain (bread), milk, and meat

manufactures

- pottery, leather, (obsidian) tools and weapons

rituals

- ritual centers, animal/grain worship

Çatalhöyük

Turkey, 7,400 to 5,500 BCE

Tell es-Sawwan

Iraq, 6,000 to 3,500 BCE

Carnac stones

Brittany France, 3,500 BCE

Newgrange

County Meath, Ireland 3,200 BCE

Menhir

Large standing stone found as a single upright monolith or in a group.

Alignments

Either large stones with wide spaces and smaller stones with more closed spaces.

Dolmen

Structure of upright stones supporting a horizontal capstone, partial tomb.

Tumulus

If a dolman is covered with earth or small stones, don't always have a tomb within.

Cursus

Avenue-like construction defined by ditches that crosses the landscape, stretched for several kilometers, found in England.

Henge

Circular arrangement of stones, timber posts, or ditches.

Stonehenge

Wiltshire, England, 3,000 BCE.

Megalithic Temples of Malta

Malta, 3,600 - 2,500 BCE.

Elements of the Megalithic world in Malta

Oracular pronouncements, sleep-based trances, a mother goddess cult, sacred landscape, temples built for visitors created temple-based tourism.

Sumer (Sumerians)

Earliest known civilization, southernmost part of Mesopotamia (Iraq), settled 4500 - 4000 BCE by Ubaidians.

Ubaidians

The first civilizing force in Sumer, draining the marshes for agriculture, developing trade, and establishing industries like weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery.

Eridu

Iraq, 4500 - 3800 BCE.

White temple

Uruk, Iraq, 4000 BCE.

Elements of the first cities of Mesopotamia

Irrigation efforts to control flooding, grain production, hierarchically organized with powerful rulers with institutions that allow them to exert their power, such as temples, pantheon of gods, bureaucracies and armies

The Akkadian Empire (akkadians)

The name Akkad was founded by Semitic Conqueror Sargon 2300 BCE

Sargon united the city-states and extended his rule to encompass Mesopotamia which stabilized this region

Development of art, literature, science, agricultural advances, and religion

After Sargon's fall in 2150 BCE, the central Iraq region was ruled by Sumerians and Akkadians

Empire

Major political unit where a single authority controls large territories or multiple peoples, either formally or informally.

Great Ziggurat at Ur

Ur, Iraq, 2100 BCE.

Ziggurat

Ancient Mesopotamian staged temple-tower of pyramidal form in which each successive stage is smaller than that below it, leaving a terrace all around it

What did they trade in Mesopotamia?

Wood: build houses

Baked bricks: construct temples and palaces

Copper: Increased rulers' prestige

Intensifiers of the Agropastoral world: Obsidian tools/weapons

7000 BCE

Intensifiers of the Agropastoral world: Copper tools/weapons

5000 BCE

Intensifiers of the Agropastoral world: Casting of bronze

3600 BCE

Intensifiers of the Agropastoral world: Invention of the wheel

3600 BCE

Intensifiers of the Agropastoral world: Invention of writing

3200 CE

Intensifiers of the Agropastoral world: Centralization of power

3000 BCE (ex. Kings)

Intensifiers of the Agropastoral world: Domestication of camels

2500 BCE

Mari

on the Euphrates, Syria, 2200 - 1800 BCE

Mastaba

ancient-Egyptian mausoleum, the exterior of which has battered sides, a flat roof, and plain with a tomb chamber underground

Ka

ancient-Egypt belief that the spiritual part of a person or God that survived after death and dwells in the statue

Step Pyramid of Djoser (Zoser)

Saqqara, Egypt 2650 BCE

Serdab (ka-chapel)

narrow chamber of ancient Egyptian mastaba, accessible by a narrow passage and containing a statue of the deceased

The Pyramids at Giza

Giza, Egypt, 2580 - 2525 BCE

The Minoans (Minos)

Bronze age civilization of Crete that flourished 3000 - 1100 BCE, peaked in 1600 BCE, its known for its great cities, palaces, trade, and writing. Sophisticated art included seals, pottery (light on dark style) and vibrant frescoes

Temple/palace at Knossos

Knossos, Crete, 1700 - 1400 BCE

The Mycenaeans

Group of warlike Indo-European peoples who entered Greece in 1900 BCE and established a bronze age culture on the mainland. Dependent on the Minoans who politically dominated them, then threw off Minoan control in 1400 BCE till invaded in 1150 BCE

Propylon

outer monumental gateway standing before main gateway

Megaron

square/rectangular room with raised center and columns supporting the roof

Mycenae

Greece, 1600 - 1000 BCE

Treasury of Atreus

Mycenae, Greece, 1250 BCE

Tholos

circular building with a conical domed, vaulted roof

Dromos

long, narrow passage, partly open and within a mound giving access to tholos tombs.

The Hittites

1400 - 1200 BCE, established one of the great empires of the ancient Middle east. The empire encompassed Central Turkey, Northwestern Syria, and upper Mesopotamia.

Famous for skills in building, using chariots, and the use of iron

Hattusas

Bogazkoy, Turkey, 1600 BCE

Temple Complex of Karnak

Thebes, Egypt, 1550 BCE

Temple of Amun-re

Pylon

portal of an ancient-Egyptian temple with two decorated battered towers

Hypostyle hall

large room with a flat roof carried on many columns in rows

Old kingdom

Emergence of mortuary complexes, mortuary complex of Djoser at Saqqara and Pyramid of Khufu

Pharohs are in complete control

Religion and preparations for the afterlife are reserved for the elite

Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut

outside Thebes, Egypt, 1470 BCE