SS
Technology
Humans have the ability to create new technology
Lets them expand to new environments and become a dominant species
Ability to create symbols
Language, the ability to share information
All the ways human beings interact with their environment beyond what their bodies can do
All humans to multiply and conserve energy
Allows us to extend our power as a species
“Imagined Order”
Make things up/ to conceive of things that are not objectively real
Imagined realities
Hunter Gatherers develop social practices that allow them to be independent, they don’t rely on anyone else
Social control: State and religion
People hold power, make rules, raise armies, and manage and build public works
Empires create a social and political hierarchy
The emperor was the son of the heavens and would do many rituals at the temple of heaven
Egalitarian
Environment unpredictable, move around a lot
Resources not limited
Diet food from the land plants and animals
Size Small
Low population density
Very little food storage (No surplus)
Leveling mechanisms: Gift giving, sharing food
Inequality is minimized
Everyone must share
Rely on knowledge and skill
If you don’t like the way someone treats you, you can just move away
Leaders are not given more then everyone else
Power is shared
Groups rely on shaming to control the group
Men and women have seperate roles (Division of labor by gender)
Food gathered by men is more desirable than by women (Unequal by gender)
Gloku said the real food is “Buffalo Meat”
The sacred and profane
Sacred: Anything that is supernatural
Profane: Anything that is a port of the natural world (Real)
Ritual: an act performed in honor of the sacred world
Waterlily: Sun dance (Ritual), a tree (Profane) is turned into a holy object (Sacred)
Animism
The belief that there is multiple different spirits in the world
Trees, animals, rocks etc. have spirits
“Personhood”
Hunter-Gats want a reciprocal relationship w spirits in nature to gain its cooperation
Waterlily: Men dance in rituals to the great spirits for assistance
Dancers fast for serval days before the sun dance
They want to be in a trance state, believe they are closer connected to the spirits in this state
They sacrifice themselves, by cutting they skin
They need someone to suffer so the group can strive
Shaman a priest like figure
A religious experience keeps people together and creates solidarity
Domestication
Agriculture revolution: shift to raising animals and growing plants
Domestication: modifying plants and animals to make them better for humans
Substance strategy: How people use resources to live
Nature is something to control and make better for humans
Carrying Capacity
Agriculture increases carrying capacity
Maximum people who can live in an area with the current tech
Women have higher fertility rates, which inc. pop. density
Allows for an economic Surplus
Surplus
Allows society to be more complex
Division of labor: People specialize in certain tasks
Stratification: Structured inequality in society, power wealth is unequally distributed
More people lived near each other, brought potential conflict between different people
Need institutions to bring people together
People w power appreciate surplus
The Three Prostratins and the Nine Kowtows
A traditional for deep respect.
Performed at imperial courts, religious ceremonies, and ancestors worship
Three Prostrains mean kneeling three times
9 kowtows is kneeling until the head touches the ground
Both done a a sign of respect
Reconquista
Spain’s military and cultural project
Got rid of the Muslims in modern day Spain, forced the people to convert to christianity
The Encomienda System
Columbian exchange, food animals and disease from the new world to the old world and vice versa
Encomendar: To entrust
The Laws of Burgos: authorized the encomienda system
Where entrusted with a number of natives
Expected to protect and teach the natives christianity and make them do labor
Natural Slavery
Humans have two elements reasons and passions
Freeman reason governs passions
Natural slave reason is unable to govern passions
Natural slave depends on master to guide him
Freedom is unnatural to the slave
Just war theory
War is undertaken by legitimate authority
War is carried out in self defense
• War is pursued in the interests in establishing order and protecting the innocent