History Unit 1 test

Ethnocentrism

having or based on the idea that your own group or culture is better or more important than others.

Cultural relativism

Judging other cultures only based on your own experience

The problem with representation

Different perspectives cause history to change. Ex. a king writing history vs. a peasant.

Who writes the history?

The winners

Cultural diffusion

Process in which a new idea or a product spreads from one culture to another.

City-state

Advanced, complex societies, with same culture but different laws and leaders. Ur was the first city state in Mesopotamia (applied)

Polytheism

Belief in more than one god

SURPLUS

More than enough of something.

Rivers

Important to societies because they provide fresh water sources, job specialization, irrigation, and fertile soil.

Natural barriers

Mountains, river, ocean (defensive, or prevents you from seeing others)

BC

Before Christ

BCE

Before common era

AD

Anno Domini (year of the Lord)

CE

Common era

Neolithic Revolution

Transition from nomadic life: settled farming. Happened in 10,000 B.C

Prehistory

Before the invention (development) of writing

Artifacts

Men-made objects

Archaeology

Study of artifacts (history through artifacts)

Anthropology

The study of cultures

Paleolithic

Before 10,000 BCE (before invention of writing)

Neolithic

After 10,000 BCE (after invention of writing)

Nomad

A person who has no permanent home and continuously moves from place to place

Hunter/Gatherer

A person or member of a society who obtains all or most of their food by foraging wild vegetation, fishing, and hunting animals rather than practicing agriculture or domesticating livestock

Animism

Spiritual people believed there were spirits in nature and everyone had a spirit.

Domestication

Taming of plants and animals to adapt them for human need.

Agricultural Surplus

The amount of food or crop production that remains after a household, community, or nation has met its own basic consumption, seed retention, and production requirements

Civilization

Is a complete, highly organized social order

Artifacts

Any portable object made, modified, or used by humans that holds cultural, historical, or scientific value

Characteristics of civilization

• Job specialization

• Religion  

• Government 

• Shared culture 

• Architecture  

• Social structure 

• System of writing

Ur

Sumerians first city-state

Tigris & Euphrates Rivers

Are a major river system in southwestern Asia. Mesopotamia was in between them.

Cuneiform

First form of writing that Sumerians used

Cultural Diffusion

Process in which a new idea or product spreads from one culture to another.

(Code of) Hammurabi

First codified list of civil laws, dealt with crime and punishment, women’s rights.

Fertile Crescent

Area of the Persian Gulf, and Mediterranean Sea in Southwest Asia

Sumerians

First writing form (cuneiform)

Hittites

Made strong iron weapons

Assyrians

Made first library

Phoenicians

Made alphabet

Mohenjo Daro & Harappa

The 2 major cities of the Indus River Valley

Infrastructure - how do we know they were advanced?

These cities were well planned with wide streets, public and private wells, drains, bathing platforms and reservoirs, showing they were very advanced.

System of writing in the Indus River Valley

Can’t decipher, called the Indus script

Nile River

Longest river in the world (4,100 miles)

Pharaoh

The absolute monarch and supreme religious leader of ancient Egypt

Hieroglyphics

Egyptian form of writing that was made up of about 800 picture signs

Rosetta Stone

A stone found along the Nile River in 1799 that helped us understand the Egyptian language. (3 languages: Hieroglyphics, Greek, and Demotic

Papyrus

Reed plant that grows along the Nile river that was made into paper for the Egyptians.

Scribes

People who traveled throughout Egypt to keep records of details great and small.

Yellow River

The second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world

Silt

Fine sand, clay, or other material carried by running water and deposited as a sediment

Shang

First dynasty/civ in china. xia came first but we don't count it as first cause they didn’t have a writing system

Oracle bones

Pieces of ox shoulder blades (scapulae) and turtle lower shells (plastrons). In the Shang dynasty they would keep records on them.

Social hierarchy (farmers above merchants)

Farmers ranked higher than merchants in the social hierarchy because agriculture was viewed as the foundational base of survival and wealth, while merchants merely profited from buying and selling other people's goods

Nationalism

An ideology that places a nation's loyalty, over other needs

Immigration

Arriving at a new country

Immigration vs. Emigration

Immigration: arriving at a new country vs. Emigration: leaving your country

Push Factors

Move out of the current area.

Pull Factors

Pulled into a new area.

Environmental pull and push factors

Natural disasters, warmer water, closer to port/ocean

Cultural pull and push factors

Religious persecution, war

Economic pull and push factors

Better job, high tax to lower taxes (job related or money related).

Rural

Farm land, more spread out

Internal migration

Permanent movement within the same country.

Refugee

People who are forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion.

Assimilation

The process by which an immigrant or a minority group adopts the language, values, cultural norms, and social behaviors of a host society, gradually becoming similar to the dominant population

Cultural Diffusion

Process in which a new idea or product spreads from one culture to another.

Suburban

Living in the area outside a major city.

SURPLUS: How does it lead to cities?

When you have enough food you have time to think and invent new things. For example: the invention of writing, and job specialization.