World History - Ancient

Paleolithic Era

Paleolithic: Old rock; stone tools

  • Distinctive from other eras because no written record (prehistoric)

Homo sapiens: Precursor to modern humans, when we showed up all our distant cousins died out (we killed them)

Basic Tools →

  • Stone tools: Sticks and stones to break things, pretty self-explanatory
  • Fire: Heat and pain
    • Cooked food and boiled water
    • Scared away predators (getting hit by a flaming stick hurts)
    • Kept warm and safe at nights

Cave Art →

  • Used polychromal (multicolored) mineral pigments
  • Naturalistic and lifelike
  • Caves of Lascaux (discovered 1940s)
    • 10,000-30,000 year old paintings
    • Disappearing from algae, bacteria, and fungi
    • Showed common game (reindeer, bison, mammoths, etc)
    • Cosquer/Chauvet (southern France)
    • More game! (rhinos, bears, lions, etc)
  • Reasons
    • CEREMONIAL SHRINE/RITUAL ROOM
    • Shamans: priest-like guy with supernatural connections to spirits
    • Used animals as spirit guides/messengers
    • Sympathetic magic
    • Power is gained over an animal, person, object through rituals
      • Oral: chants, songs
      • Visually: Drawing it (and then “killing” the drawing with arrows)
      • Dances
    • Clan totems (tribal emblems, marks territory, etc)
    • Lunar calendars

Nomadic Lifestyle →

  • Low population density/growth, usually groups of 25-50 people
  • Egalitarian societies without significant wealth or power inequality
  • Relationships
    • Highly personal
    • Polygamy was a thing but wasn’t popular
    • Usually in terms of kinship
  • Gender roles
    • Egalitarian: Women had a lot more equality
    • Good man: Kill a lot of animals (30% diet)
    • Good woman: Gather a lot of food (70% diet)
    • Bloody alpha male fights were still a thing
    • Wife beatings were still high
  • Murder = 15% all deaths, much higher
  • Quality of life
    • Nomads worked fewer hours than modern jobs
    • Also lived fewer years than modern people (life expectancy = 35)
  • Spirituality
    • Had rich and distinctive spiritual life (rituals, ceremonies)

Neolithic Revolution

Neolithic Revolution (or First Agricultural Revolution) - invention of farming, domestication of plants and animals

Transitions and Causes →

  • From nomadic groups of hunter gatherers → large settlements of agriculture
  •  Life expectancy and quality of life went up
  • Causes:
    • HIGHLY SPECULATIVE
    • Growing population pressure
    • Complete accident/human nature
    • Alcohol (i love alcohol - AL)
    • They loved alcohol so much they decided to stay there and mass produce
    • First time they tried it they got too drunk to walk in a straight line so they fell on their asses and stayed there

Agricultural Lifestyle →

  • leads to specialization of labor (common jobs: hunting, basket-weaving)

  • Pastoral societies in Africa and Eurasia: tended to herds and flocks, still moved with the animals in a cyclic pattern due to overgrazing

  • Pros:

    • controllable food supply = prob not dying yay
    • food surplus (makes large populations possible)
    • can be practiced pretty much anywhere 

  • Cons:

    • radically changes natural environment
    • leads to slavery/indentured servitude/etc. because farming is hard and effort is also hard

What a Civilization is →

  • Large urban centers, human society, way of communication (not necessarily written language), record-keeping, some sort of systems (political/economic), job specialization, food surplus 

Paleolithic vs Neolithic era

Paleolithic SummaryNeolithic Summary
Hunting/GatheringNomadic (Pastoral societies) The Ice Age (The Bering Strait/Ice Bridge) allowed the migration of Olmec/Chavin ancestorsEgalitarian SocietiesVenus of Willendorf (checkers!!!)Women are warriors too for braving pregnancy4.25 inches (handheld)Was likely a symbol of fertility, can show they had free timeCave art - a religious ritual or myth of initiation took place in the caves.)Homo sapiens Agricultural (food surplus, controllable food source)Governments (usually kingdoms)Settled civilizationsGender roles/social classes stratifiedFurther specialization of laborBronze AgeBantu MigrationFertile Crescent (civs surrounding natural resources)Megalithic Architecture

Post-Neolithic Rev. Migrations

Aryans (Indo-Europeans/Indo-Iranians) →

  • Domesticated horses (led to chariots/cavalry)
  • Moved from East & Central to West & South Asia
  • Migrated for expansion
  • Built traditions and empires in newly migrated areas
    • Indo-Iranians filtered into Iran and then North India, ancestors to the Mesopotamians and the Mohenjo-Daro, respectively

Bantu →

  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Migrated to South & East Africa on foot (lacked horses)
  • Expansion and military conquest
  • Displaced (or absorbed) current residents as they moved from place to place
  • Encountered farming groups, and developed new innovations, adopted cattle, sheep, & millet in East Africa, which was the furthest extent of their migration.

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Southeast Asians →

  • Used boats to migrate across islands in the Pacific
  • Spread their culture throughout multiple islands across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, including Philippines and Indonesian archipelago
  • Ancestors of Austronesian speakers
  • Did something similar to island-hopping
  • Absorbed most of the Indo-Pacific-speakers as they went until they got to the Papuans, who became their biggest trading partner (too large to absorb)

Ancient Civilizations

China (Yellow River Valley) →

  • King/noble bureaucracy -> skilled artisans/merchants -> serfs/slaves/peasants/laborers
  • Loose monarchy
  • Settled along the Yellow River 
  • Lady Fu Hao - led military things, exception to patriarchal rule
  • Physical Boundaries (mountains, Gobi desert, and Yellow river)
    • most protected by natural boundaries
  • Jade - used to trade and thought it had good spiritual properties
  • Oracle Bone Script - used for divination + way of a written language
  • Mandate of Heaven - God chose the rulers to rule on earth, form of legitimizing rule 
  • Veneration of ancestors - extreme respect for them, can pray to them for advice, protection, etc.
  • Shang Dynasty - 1st one, advances in astronomy, math, military, art
    • Zhou Dynasty overthrew Shang
  • Not invaded a lot, big natural boundaries
  • Unpredictable rivers -> lots of deaths by floods
  • Traded mostly with Central/South Asia, exported jade and bronze
  • Chariots for war and administration

Mesopotamia (Tigris/Euphrates River Valley) →

  • Dominated by Indo-Europeans
  • Used plows, big on agriculture because they lived in the Fertile Crescent (use of slaves, who were usually prisoners of war (POWs)
  •  Invention of wheel: Easier to move things, simple machine
    • Facilitated migrations and movement, carriages allowed people to actually take things with them during any migrations or expeditions
  • Sumer - collection of city-states in the Mesopotamia region
    • city-state - city that acts as a political center for its surrounding countryside
    • ruled by regional empires like Akkad, Babylon. and Assyria
  • Babylon
    • Successor of the Sumer-led civilization
    • Hammurabi’s Code (written law code by Babylonian King and gave political unity)
  • Traded a lot with the Phoenicians, who lived in the Mediterranean, and the Indus River Valley
  • Cuneiform: Writing system, means “wedge-shaped” 
  • Ziggurats: step-pyramid temples, major Mesopotamian architecture
  • Epic of Gilgamesh: Earliest epic
  • Irrigation
  • Got invaded a lot, no natural boundaries (e.x. Hittites, who ended because of the Bronze Age)
    • Picked up a lot of tech from the invaders
    • Iron, domesticated horses, chariots
  • Religion
    • Israelites: monotheistic group that worshipped Yahweh, basically Judaism
    • Zoroastrianism: Monotheistic Mesopotamian religion founded by Zoroaster

Egypt (Nile River Valley) →

  • Pharaohs - representations of the gods (not secular) (hereditary)
    • Deputies/embodiments of deities
    • Male (Hatshepsut was exception, female pharaoh)
  • Small nobility, mostly had merchants/artisans and peasants/slaves for labor
  • Nubia: political rival and big trading partner
    • Traded with and for ivory
  • Desert (still easy to get into kinda cuz nile)
    • Knew when and where flooding would occur annually
    • Descendant of Bantus
  • Pyramids
    • Tombs for pharaohs
    • Mummification ritual
  • Hieroglyphic (pictorial) writing system, Rosetta Stone helps decode it
  • Scribes were responsible for record keeping

  ## India (Indus River Valley) →

  • Used the Indus river to settle
  • Protected by Hindu Kush Mountains 
  • Caste System: Relatively fixed hierarchical, hereditary class structure introduced by the Aryans (Indo-Europeans who invaded South Asia)
    • 4 varnas (classes): Brahmans (priests) -> kshatriya (warriors/rulers) -> vaisya (commoners/farmers) -> sudras (servants/slaves, nonreligious)
    • Jati were subsets of the varnas that indicated profession, added complexity
  • Lawbook of Manu: Religious moral code, class relationships, and gender roles (women are respected but still beneath men)
  • Sati: Uncommon practice of widow burning…
  • Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were the two major cities located along the north and south Indus River, respectively
    • Cities were led by raja, local chieftains who exerted more power than a single, centralized king
    • Gridded city systems (township and range) with evidence of plumbing (flush toilets wooo)
  • Several bronze figurines have been found, indicates cultural values and traditions
  • Religion
    • Vedas: Collection of proto-Hindu texts from the Aryans
    • Vedic Age (1500-600 BC): Period of domination of Aryans over the indigenous Dravidians
  • Mostly exported cotton, trade with Mesopotamia
  • Written language that we can’t decode :(

India (Indus River Valley) →

  • Used the Indus river to settle
  • Protected by Hindu Kush Mountains 
  • Caste System: Relatively fixed hierarchical, hereditary class structure introduced by the Aryans (Indo-Europeans who invaded South Asia)
    • 4 varnas (classes): Brahmans (priests) -> kshatriya (warriors/rulers) -> vaisya (commoners/farmers) -> sudras (servants/slaves, nonreligious)
    • Jati were subsets of the varnas that indicated profession, added complexity
  • Lawbook of Manu: Religious moral code, class relationships, and gender roles (women are respected but still beneath men)
  • Sati: Uncommon practice of widow burning…
  • Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were the two major cities located along the north and south Indus River, respectively
    • Cities were led by raja, local chieftains who exerted more power than a single, centralized king
    • Gridded city systems (township and range) with evidence of plumbing (flush toilets wooo)
  • Several bronze figurines have been found, indicates cultural values and traditions
  • Religion
    • Vedas: Collection of proto-Hindu texts from the Aryans
    • Vedic Age (1500-600 BC): Period of domination of Aryans over the indigenous Dravidians
  • Mostly exported cotton, trade with Mesopotamia
  • Written language that we can’t decode :(

Olmecs/Chavin →

  • Lots of laborers

  • Chavin (Andean South America)

    • Llamas for agricultural and migration reasons
    • Patriarchy (women as priestesses)
    • Some semi autonomous regions under a monarchy
    • Ceremonial temples/ritual rooms
    • Mainly traded textiles
    • Irrigation and canal systems
    • No written language: used Quipu: knots to keep records

  • Olmec (Mesoamerica)

    • Main capital: Tres Zapotes
    • Centralized monarchy, patriarchal, women served as priestesses
    • 17 stone heads (20 tons each) built to honor respective leaders, mark of culture/tech
    • Crops: Maize, beans, squash (Agriculture big part of economy)
    • Had sewer systems, knew astronomy, written language
    • “Mother culture” of New World, had pyramids, statues, ceremonial ritual rooms

  • Traded rubber (made from native tree saps), jade, and obsidian

Commonalities

SocialPatriarchy, but women are usually respected, could be priestessesLots of peasants/slaves for labor
PoliticalUsually had something similar to a big government that more or less exerted some control over a collection of cities (Exception: Mohinjo-Daro, rajas had more power than a single king)Ruler was seen as a deity or deputy of one
EconomicMost commonly traded textiles, metals, and semiprecious stones (jade)Olmec and Chavin agriculture revolved around maize and beans (New World crops)Eurasian civilizations mainly cultivated barley and wheat
CulturalAll had some sort of religion, several held ceremonies and ritualsUsually heavily influenced political and moral codes
TechEveryone has a written language but the Chavin (L), many also had forms of metallurgy

English

Types of Sentences →

  • simple sentence (1 independent clause)
  • compound sentence (2 or more independent clauses joined by conjunction/semicolon)
    • FANBOYS (for, and, not, but, or, yet, so)
  • complex sentence (1 independent clause + at least 1 dependent clause + subordinating conjunction)
  • compound-complex sentence (at least 2 independent clauses + 1 dependent clause)

Characteristics of Epics →

  • Examples: Journey to the West, Epic of Gilgamesh, Iliad
  • Traditionally written in poetry for easy memorization (used to be given orally by a designated member)
  • Revolves around a main character getting a call to action and then embarking on a huge physical journey
    • Goes through several trials and tribulations in the journey, comes out of it as a reformed/changed man
  • Usually has some sort of divine intervention at one point or another (aka mentor)
  • Usually written to explain something unexplainable (like natural disasters)
  • Main Character Vibes:
    • Unusually strong moral compass 
    • Usually gifted/talented (smart and strong)
    • Major flaws lead to setbacks in the plot
    • Makes friends with beings who help them on their journey (Charismatic)
    • Determined/brave
    • Goofy origin story