Anthropology Final Review

Anthropology Final Review

General

• Major World Civilizations

• What is a civilization? Complex governments, living patterns, social structure

• Characteristics of State Societies: 

• States Collapse: Warfare, Environmental Change, 

People

• Childe -Urban revolution

• Wittfogel - Hydraulic Theory: Societies had to increase their production (food source)

• Boserup - Population Growth: Argued that pop growth was in effect due to the increase of food source

• Carneiro - Warfare and Conscription: controlling fighting groups and land that led to state-level societies

• Flannery - Centralization and Segregation: How these societies become more complex

• Wright - Chiefly Cycles: Eventually these chiefs become dominant, and the competition of the chiefs is not always through violence

Mesopotamia

• Choga Mami: Small Neolithic site on the edge of the Mesopotamia plane, and the general area where the first irrigation canals were connected

• Ubaid Period: Where the first true low-land farming occurred, allowed by the extension of irrigation canals

• Eridu: One of the first towns that we start to see urban development and urban centers and the population is growing; religious centers and temples are being constructed

• Ziggurat: Large stepped structures with huge stairs that were temples and religious centers 

• Uruk Period: see true social hierarchy, see hints of the first writing system, changes into the Sumerian period

• Sumerian Civilization: Large enough to be called state-level societies, writing, constructed into different city-states (territorial states and city-states), the foundations for large exchange systems (almost international) and starts with the Ukrainian plateau; rich in agricultural produce

• Ur: One of the city-states that was developed and is most famous for the royal burials that were excavated, had subterranean tombs that were built, high-quality crafts, fairly large numbers of people being sacrificed when the rulers died

• Lapis Lazuli: blue stone and highly prized because blue represents royalty, one of the materials that was widely traded and very expensive

• Mashkan-Shapir: small Sumerian town, there was a ziggurat a city hall and a boat import area and it was all about trade, abandoned early

• Susa (5000 - 3200 BC): Large site on the edge of the Mesopotamia plane, became a major trading center because it was positioned halfway, major water source, became a focal point for the state that developed ___ later

• Elamite State: Metal production, many natural resources

Harrapa

• Kot Diji: One of the first true urban centers

• Mohenjo Daro: Excavated by British archeologist, important because there was extensive excavation and the first time the degree of urban planning could be seen, area that was excavated was known as the citadel, consistent pattern of control

• Harappan Urban Planning: Real focus on water, public baths, public rituals (not see because they are usually private and for the elite), water drains bringing fresh water in and sewage drains bringing bad water out, clearly concern on access to fresh water, established large granaries that were taking on the surplus, evidence of a writing system but no one has been able to understand it yet

• Harappan water systems

• The collapse of the Harappan Civilization: Shows you just how much of an effect environmental change can have, a massive drought occurred and was severe, major tectonic activities which caused the collapse of a river system where many sites were, a huge population decline in the Harrapan river valley and pop increase in Genghis river valley

• Shiva: cattle play a sacred role 

East Asia

• China: the very complex history of developing into urban societies

  • Longshan: considered to be the foundation for the Chinese civilization, earliest writing system is related to divination, writing developed to communicate with ancestors as a conduit to talking with their gods

  • Xia/Erlitou: The first bronze artifacts, known by the leaders that existed that existed there and characterized and knowing how to control the floods of the yellow river, strong evidence of increased warfare

  • Shang: Clear evidence of oracle bones and communication with the ancestors

    • Zhengshou: early emperor, very elaborate burial items

    • Styles of Bronze: seen as a mark of wealth (even more than gold), being used in ceremonies, ceremonial bronze items being produced, long extended cup, a picture, and a three-legged statue, people were being buried with these to reflect how much wealth they had

    • Anyang: Characterizes by large workshops, royal tombs where rulers are being buried (most have been looted but not all), they were buried with a lot of artifacts and there were many human sacrifices when the emperor died

    • Qin: the first true emperor

      • Qin Shi Haung: first true emperor, rather than sacrifice all these people with him, instead make them out of clay, each one is made individually and each one is made and modeled after a real person

    • Bronzes: very elaborate bronze artifacts

    • Hang-tu: ran earth buildings, platforms being built, forbidden city has them

    • Korea

      • Three Kingdoms: start to have the first true civilized societes in korea

      • Great Silla: korea becomes unified and capital is in south korea

    • Japan

      • Yamato: period of unification where different kingdoms are being controlled, massive burial mounds being constructed where rulers were buried

      • Kofun

      • Korean Relations: lots of trade

    • Cambodia

      • Angkor War: largest religious structure in the world, very ellaborate

    
    

    Egypt

    • Upper Egypt: Upper Nile, all Nile water is exotic, riches of the Nile valley were because of the floods, developed as a pre-state-level society, at the beginning of the old ruler he united Egypt and turned it into a true territorial state

    • Lower Egypt: Lower Nile

    • Old Kingdom: started 3000 years ago and the period when the large pyramids were built and some of the others, began with the unification of egypt, period when the pharohs (rulers) were considered to be gods,

    • Middle kingdom: when it gets reorganized again, considered the classic egypt, period with massive amount of building going on like temples and other buildings, a lot f writing from egypt is from this period, pharaohs were no longer considered gods and instead bureaucrats, expanding trade 

    • New kingdom: pharaohs roles changed to military leaders and warfare was a big part of this, seen as great imperial period, movies modeled over this period, existence of royal acropolis, when king tut died, lots of military activities, first written treaty, last of these pharohs was cleopatra 

    • Role of pharohs

    • Sphinx: modeled after one the pharohs son

    • Howard Carter

    • Namer (Menes)

    • Valley of the Kings: royal necropolis

    • Saqqara

    • Giza: where the largest old kingdom periods are, royal necropolis 

    • Cleopatra

    
    

    South America

    • Moseley: the fisheries were so rich that they could 

    • El pariaso: start to see urban development with small pyramid

    • Kotosh: 

    • Cerro Sechin: violent, milotary guys iwth military guards decapitating people

    • Caral: first site with massive ceremonial structure

    • Chavin de Huantar: 

    • Raimondi Stone: Amozaonian-based imagery 

    • Moche: considered by some to be an empire, largest structures to be ever built in south america (waca), built out of adobe bricks, eventually abandoned 

    • Sipan: found the royal burial that wasn't looted, included ground dug spindle shells

    • Tiwanku: the appearance the staff god

    • Wari Empire: empire built on warfare 

    • Nazca Lines: almost double the number that we see, large creations in the desert that we know are now associated with trails and temples and possibly pilgrimage activity 

    • Chan Chan: miniature fortified statues built out of adobe brick

    • Tawantinsuyu: means land of the four quarters, they saw their empire extended into four areas

    • Sacsahuaman

    • Cuzco: naval/center of the empire where all the knowledge and power was

    • Mach Picchu: a very large trading center on top of the Andes mountain, existed as a way of controlling trade in the Andes, largest road system in native america

    • Split Inheritance: the source of the downfall, a ruler who is in power and he conquers new territory, he retains the power after he dies to tax the land and this power is passed don to the royal family, a system that will fail no matter what

    • Tupac Amaru: last inca ruler who was killed in the andes

    • Athualpa: the spanish captured him and then require dhim to fill rooms full of gold and then killed him

    
    

    Writing

    • Bulla and tokens: associated with Mesopotamia, symbolic systems, shapes associated with the tokens 

    • Cuneiform: wedge-shaped writing with different patterns of wedges

    • Sanskrit: language of the Hindu civilization

    • Oracle Bones: source for writing in china

    • Hieroglyphs (means words of the gods): writing that occurred in egypt

    • Quipu: incan used in south america

    
    

    Rivers

    • Tigris: india

    • Euphrates: india

    • Indus: india

    • Ganges: india

    • Yellow: china

    • Yangtze: egypt

    • Nile: egypt

    
    

    Religion

    • Sumerian Religion: polytheistic religion, each city-state had its own gods but they als o had shared gods

    • Sanatana Dharma: hindu religion, four goals in life

    • Di: reliogion that developed in the himalayas based on trying to find an exalted state of exisetnce

    • Buddhism

    • Egyptian Religion:polythesistic reliogion

    • Staff God