Chapter 1 - From Human Prehistory to the Early Civilizations

@@Introduction@@

  1. Human origin – 2.5 million years ago
    • 1/4000 of earth’s existence – 24 hour day – last 5 minutes
  2. Human negatives and positives
    • Aggressiveness, long baby time, back problems, death fears
    • Grip, high/regular sex drive, omnivores, facial expressions, speech
  3. Paleolithic (Old Stone) Age –
  4. 5 million to 12000 BCE
    • Simple tools – increase in size, brain capacity – Homo erectus

Late Paleolithic Developments

  1. Homo sapiens sapiens – 120,000 years ago – killed off others?
    • Population growth required change – 1 square mile to hunt/gather for 2 people
      • Long breast feeding – limit fertility
    • Relative gender equality – women harder, but both contributed
    • Rituals for death, explain environment, rules for social behavior
    • Greatest achievement – spread over earth
      • Fore/Animal skin
    • 14,000 Great Ice Age Ended
    • Tools – sharpen animal bones, rafts
    • Domesticated animals
    • Conflicts w/ others – bone breaks/skull fractures
  2. Knowledge of ‘cavemen’ based on cave paintings, the tool remains, burial sites

Neolithic (New Stone) Age Revolution

  1. Agriculture changed everything – could support more people
    • Settle one spot – focus on economic, political, religious goals
    • 14,000-10,000 BCE – 6 million to 100 million people
  2. Causes of Agriculture
    • Population increase – better climate
    • Big game animals decreasing – hunting yield declined
    • Gradual change – harvesting wild grains to planting seeds
  3. New animals domesticated – pigs, sheep, goats, cattle
    • Meat, skins, dairy
    • Advantage to Europe?
  4. Why Middle East?
    • Water source, fertile area, not forested, lacked animals
  5. “Revolution” gradual – many combined changes w/ hunting gathering – 1000 years
  6. Effects

   

  1. longer work week
  2. build houses, villages
  3. varied clothing
    1. Resistance – too complicated, boring, difficult
  4. Disease – those in villages developed immunity – nomads died off/joined
  5. Some isolated societies still avoid
    • Hars Climate, No exchange of knowledge
    • Tough, Nomadic Invaders
  6. Nomads – not that influential except for interaction
    1. Changes

   

  1. Specialization
  2. Technology – control of nature – storage facilities, pottery
  3. Metal tools – Bronze Age 3000 – Iron Age 1500 BCE

Civilization

  1. Hunter/gatherer – no bigger than 60 people – food runs out

   

  1. Other options – slash and burn
  2. Tribal bands – strong kinship – relatively small
    1. Benefits of settling

   

  1. Houses, wells, improvements used by future, irrigation
  2. Irrigation/defense required work together – organization from above
    1. Catal Huyuk – Turkey – 7000 BCE civilization studied

   

  1. Rooftop activity – broken bones
  2. Religious responsibilities/fertility gods – images
  3. Trade w/others for peace
    1. Definition – societies economic surplus > division of labor/social hierarchy

   

  1. Formal political organizations – no relation to family unit
  2. City benefits – wealth, exchange of ideas, artistic/intellectual expression, manufacturing/trade specialization
    1. Writing

   

  1. First - Cuneiform – wedge-shaped Middle East
  2. Tax efficiently
  3. Contracts/treaties
  4. Build on past wisdom
  5. People look at world as something to be understood rationally
  6. Not all peoples literate, each civilization only a minority
    1. Greek term - Barbarians – civilization vs. nomads – wanderers
    2. Negatives of civilization

   

  1. Class/caste distinctions - slavery
  2. Separation between rulers/ruled
  3. Warlike
  4. Gender inequality – patriarchal – men get manufacturing, political, religious leaders
    1. Benefits of nomadic living

   

  1. More regulations – word of mouth
  2. Respect of elders/children
  3. Herding economies
  4. Technological improvements – stirrup, weaponry
    1. Impact on Environment

   

  1. Deforestation
  2. Erosion, flooding

In-Depth: The Idea of Civilization in World History Perspective

  1. Differences between civilized and barbaric/savages long held

   

  1. Chinese – cultural, not biological or racial – could adapt
  2. American Indians – feared Chichimecs – sons of the dog
    1. Related to fear of invasion/outsiders, common
    2. Civilis – of the citizens – Latin

   

  1. Rome – urban dwellers vs. forest/desert dwellers
  2. Greece – bar, bar – barbarians
    1. Historians initially – cultural differences, then 19th century racial differences

   

  1. Some races more inventive, moral, courageous, artistic

       1. Savage to civilized – white,yellow, red, brown, black 2. Social Darwinism – historiography 3. Justified European expansion – White Man’s Burden 4. Ethnocentrism

  1. Other approach – civilization just one form of social organization

   

  1. All societies produce cultures, though might lack food surplus/specialization
  2. All peoples capable – but lack resources, historical circumstances, desire

Tigris-Euphrates Civilization

  • Precedents

  

  1. Writing
  2. Law codes
  3. City planning/architecture
  4. Trade institutions & money

  ### Mesopotamia – land between two rivers

  • One of 3 civilizations from scratch – Central America, China, Mesopotamia
    • Farming required irrigation

      ### Sumerians 3500 BCE * Cuneiform – scribes * Sumerian art – frescoes for temples * Science – astronomy – calendar/forecasts – aided agriculture * Charts Of constellations * Ziggurats – first monumental architecture * Role of geography

         1. Swift and unpredictable floods – religious 2. Polytheism – punishment of humans through floods – Noah 3. Gloomy – punishment in afterlife – hell 4. Easy to invade – constant war * City-states – king w/ divine authority * Regulate religion * Court System for Justice * land Worked By slaves - warfare created labor surplus * Inventions – wheeled carts, fertilizer, silver money

      ### Babylonians

  • Hammurabi – first codified law

  

  1. Procedure for courts
  2. Property rights
  3. Harsh punishments
  • Indo-European invasions from North
    • Adopted Culture
Egyptian Civilization
  • Benefited from trade/technology of Mesopotamia
  • Geographic factors

  

  1. Difficult to invade
  2. Regular flooding cycle
  • Economy – government directed vs. Mesopotamia – freedom
  • Pharoahs – godlike – tombs – pyramids
  • Interactions with Kush to the South
  • Egyptian art – lively, cheerful, colorful – positive afterlife – surrounded by beauty
  • Architecture influenced later Mediterranean
Indian and Chinese River Valley Civilizations
  1. Indus River – Harappa/Mohenjo Daro

   

  1. Unique alphabet/art

       1. Harappan alphabet not deciphered

  1. Invasion plus invasion by Indo-Europeans – difficult to understand culture
    1. Huanghe (Yellow River)

   

  1. Isolated, little overland trading
  2. History part fact/fiction
  3. State organized irrigation
  4. Elaborate intellectual life

       1. Writing – knotted ropes, scratches of lines, ideographic symbols 2. Delicate art, musical interest 3. Limited materials – basic housing

Heritage of the River Valley Civilizations

  1. Accomplishments

   

  1. Monuments
  2. Wheel
  3. Taming of horse
  4. Square roots
  5. Monarchies/bureaucracies
  6. Calendars/time
  7. Major alphabets
    1. How much are these civilizations “origin” of today

   

  1. Except for China, all have a break from past
  2. Roman empire – god-like king
  3. Slavery
  4. Scientific achievements – Greeks studied Egyptians
    1. East vs. West

   

  1. Mesopotamians – gap between humankind and nature
  2. China – basic harmony all live together
  3. Temple building, art, architecture – Mesopotamia to Middle East/Greece
  4. Mesopotamia – regional cultures created that could survive invasion

       1. Phoenicians – 22 letter alphabet

          1. Colonized – simplified number system 2. Jews – morally/ethically based monotheistic religion

          1. Semitic people – small, relatively weak – only autonomous when region was in chaos 2. Believed god- Jehovah – guided the destinies of people

             1. Orderly, just – not whimsical 3. Created moral code 4. Religion basis for Christianity/Islam 5. God’s compact with Jews

             1. Little conversion 2. Minority position in the Middle East

      ## The First Civilizations

       1. Clear division between river valley civilizations and classical civilizations

          1. Invasion/natural calamities – India 2. Invasion/political decline – Egypt 3. Mesopotamia – break but bridges – smaller cultures

             1. Values and institutions spread 2. Theme emerges – “Steadily proliferating contacts against a background of often fierce local identity” 3. Integrating force

          1. Local autonomy lessens – priests/kings increase power 4. Four centers of civilization started 5. Close neighbors – Egypt/Mesopotamia – different politics, art, beliefs on death 6. Diversity and civilization worked together