Terms : Hide Images
| 159446813 | Hunting and Gathering Societies | Societies that utilized hunting and gathering of food as a means of obtaining subsistence; occurred often prior to the adaptation of sedentary agriculture; normally typical of band social organization. | |
| 159446814 | B.C.E. | Before the Common Era. A designation of dates that preceded the year 1 according to the Christian Calendar. This designation corresponds to B.C. or Before Christ. | |
| 159446815 | C.E. | Common Era. A designation of dates that come after the year 1 according to the Christian Calendar. This designation corresponds to A.D. or Anno Domini. | |
| 159446816 | Paleolithic Age | The Old Stone Age ending around 12,000 BCE; typified by using crude stone tools and hunting and gathering for subsistence. | |
| 159446817 | Neolithic Age | New Stone age between 8000 BCE and 5000 BCE. This was the period in which the adaptation of sedentary agriculture occurred as well as the one in which the domestication of animals took place. | |
| 159446818 | Slash and Burn Agriculture | A system of cultivation typical of shifting cultivators; forest floors cleared by fire then planted. | |
| 159446819 | Catal Huyuk | Early urban cultured based on sedentary agriculture; located in modern day southern Turkey; had a larger population than Jericho, had greater degree of social stratification. | |
| 159446820 | Jericho | Early walled urban culture site based on sedentary agriculture; located in modern Israeli-occupied West Bank near the Jordan River. | |
| 159446821 | Nomads | Cattle and sheep herding societies normally found on the fringes of civilized societies; commonly referred to as 'barbarian' by civilized societies. | |
| 159446822 | Civilization | A society distinguished by reliance on sedentary agriculture, ability to produce food surpluses, written language, organized laws and an organized economy. | |
| 159446823 | Anthropologist | Scientist who studies the physical characteristics and cultures of humans and their ancestors. | |
| 159446824 | Archeologist | People who locate and study the things left behind by people. | |
| 159446825 | Homo habilis | "Handy Man" - Arguably the first species of the Homo genus to appear. First human ancestors to truly utilize stone tools. | |
| 159446826 | Home erectus | "Upright Man" - An extinct species of the genus Homo, believed to have been the first hominid to leave Africa. | |
| 159446827 | Homo sapiens neanderthalensis | Species of genus Homo that disappeared at the end of the Paleolithic period. Competed directly with Homo sapiens. | |
| 159446828 | Homo sapiens sapiens | The humanoid species that emerged as the most successful at the end of the Paleolithic period. | |
| 159446829 | Lascaux | A cave in southwestern France that contains Paleolithic paintings. | |
| 159446831 | Division of Labor | Division of work into a number of separate tasks to be performed by different workers. | |
| 159446832 | Laussel Venus | ... | |
| 159446833 | Venus of Willendorf | Fertility symbol, ancient sculpture of nude women in exaggerated form, discovered in Willendorf, Austria. | |
| 159446834 | Neolithic Revolution | The succession of technoligical innovations and changes in human organization that led to the development of seditary agriculture between 8,500 B.C.E and 3,500 B.C.E. | |
| 159446835 | Sumerians | People who migrated into Mesopotamia circa 4,000 B.C.E.; created first civilization within region; organized area into city-states. | |
| 159446836 | Cuneiform | A form of writing developed by the Sumerians using a wedge-shaped stylus and clay tablets. | |
| 159446837 | Hammurabi's Code | The worlds first recorded written set of laws; based up the principle of "an eye for an eye." | |
| 159446838 | Tigris - Euphrates Rivers | Rivers that occupied the Fertile Crescent and served as the homeland for the world's first organized civilization. | |
| 159446839 | Mesopotamia | Literally "between the rivers"; the civilizations that arose in the alluvial plain of the Tigris and Euphrates river valley. | |
| 159446840 | Ziggurats | Massive towers usually associated with Mesopotamian temple complexes. | |
| 159446841 | Eddubas | "tablet house" located as part of a ziggurat complex. | |
| 159446842 | Epic of Gilgamesh | Recorded Sumerian story in which king Gilgamesh travels with his friend Enkidu. Ultimately the goddess Siduri tells Gilgamesh to "live in the moment," and to learn to enjoy every minute of life. This becomes the Sumeria view of life. The first literary epic in Western Civilization; written down circa 2,000 B.C.E. | |
| 159446843 | Nebuchadnezzar | A Babylonian king who conquered Jerusalem, and built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. | |
| 159446844 | Hebrews | Semitic peoples from the western Middle East; major contribution was the introduction of monotheism. | |
| 159446845 | Hittites | An Indo-European people who entered Mesopotamia circa 1,750 B.C.E.; destroyed the Babylonian Empire; swept away circa 1,200 B.C.A. | |
| 159446846 | Babylonian Empire | Also known as the Amorites. Unified all of Mesopotamia circa 1,800 B.C.E.; collapsed due to foreign invasion circa 1,600 B.C.E. | |
| 159446847 | Bronze Age | From about 4,000 B.C.E. when bronze tools were first introduced in the Middle East, to about 1,500 B.C.E., when iron began to replace it. | |
| 159446848 | Polytheism | The belief in multiple gods. | |
| 159446849 | Monotheism | The exclusive worship of a single god; introduced by Jews into Western civilization; introduced to Hebrews (Jews) by Zoroastrians from Persia. | |
| 159446850 | Specialization of Labor | ... | |
| 159446851 | Phoenicians | Seafaring civilization located on the shores of eastern Mediterranean; established colonies along the Mediterranean. | |
| 159446852 | Minoans | A civilization that developed on the island of Crete around 1600 B.C.E.; capital was at the city of Knossos. | |
| 159446853 | Nile River | The world's longest river; flows south to north with its terminus in the eastern delta along the southern shore of the Mediterranean. | |
| 159446854 | Gift of the Nile | Refers to how the Nile River helped the Egyptians. It gave them protection, transportation, and food. | |
| 159446855 | Pharaoh | Title of kings of ancient Egypt. | |
| 159446856 | Pyramids | Monumental architecture typical of Old Kingdom Egypt; used as burial sites for pharaohs. | |
| 159446857 | Mummification | The act of preserving the bodies of the dead; practiced in Egypt to preserve the body for enjoyment of the afterlife. | |
| 159446858 | The Book of the Dead | The book that contained all necessary information that the Egyptians needed to prepare for the after life. | |
| 159446859 | Hieroglyphics | The form of writing developed in ancient Egypt; more pictorial than Mesopotamian writing. | |
| 159446860 | Kush | An African state that developed along the upper reaches of the Nile circa 1,000 B.C.E.; conquered Egypt and ruled it for several centuries. | |
| 159446861 | Sargon I | Ruler of the city-state of Akkad; established the first empire in Mesopotamia around 2400 BCE. | |
| 159446862 | Akkad | A city state in northern Mesopotaimia, the ruler of which conquered all the city-states of Mesopotamia and formed the world's first empire. | |
| 159446863 | Patriarchal | Societies in which women defer to men; societies run by men and based on the assumption that men naturally directed political, economic, and cultural life. | |
| 159446864 | Matriarchal | Relating to a social system in which the mother is head of the family. | |
| 159446865 | Lugal | Literally "big man", what we would call a king, emerged in Sumer in the 3rd millennium B.C.E. | |
| 159446866 | Sumerian City-States | Expamples - Ur, Uruk, Lagash | |
| 159446867 | Assyrians | ... | |
| 159446868 | Theocracy | A political unit governed by a deity (or by officials thought to be divinely guided). | |
| 159446869 | Nineveh | ... | |
| 159446870 | Neo-Babylonian Empire | ... | |
| 159446871 | Papyrus | Paper made from the papyrus plant by cutting it in strips and pressing it flat. | |
| 159446872 | Demotic | ... | |
| 159446873 | Rosetta Stone | ... | |
| 159446874 | Valley of the Kings | ... | |
| 159446875 | Torah | ... | |
| 159446876 | Abraham | ... | |
| 159446877 | Ten Commandments | ... | |
| 159446878 | Yahweh | The Hebrew name for God. In Hebrew, a language without vowels, the name is Yhwh. Yhwh is also the root word for "existence" in the Hebrew language. It was later translated to Latin as Jhvh which gave rise to the word Jehovah. | |
| 159446879 | Linear A | ... | |
| 159446880 | Frescoes | ... | |
| 159446881 | Phoenician Alphabet | ... | |
| 159446882 | Indus River | The earliest Indian civilization, dating back to 2500 B.C.E., began in the valley of this river in the northwestern part of the subcontinent of south Asia. | |
| 159446883 | Harappa | ... | |
| 159446884 | Mohenjo Daro | ... | |
| 159446885 | Aryans | ... | |
| 159446886 | Huanghe River | ... | |
| 159446887 | Loess | ... | |
| 159446888 | Ideographic | Character or figure in a writing system in which the idea of a thing is represented rather than its name. | |
| 159446889 | Shang Dynasty | ... | |
| 159446890 | Himalayas | ... | |
| 159446891 | Monsoons | ... | |
| 159446892 | Sanskrit | ... | |
| 159446893 | Ganges River | ... | |
| 159446894 | Vedas | ... | |
| 159446895 | Indra | ... | |
| 159446896 | Dasas | ... | |
| 159446897 | Miscegenation | Reproduction by parents of different races (especially by white and non-white persons). | |
| 159446898 | Varnas | ... | |
| 159446899 | Polygamy | The system of having more than one spouse at a time. | |
| 159446900 | Polyandry | A polygamous mating system involving one female and many males. | |
| 159446901 | Yu | ... | |
| 159446902 | Xia | ... | |
| 159446903 | Ordos Bulge | Area located on the Yellow River, region of fertile soil; site of Yangshao (hunting and fishing predominated) and Longshan (cultivation of grain) cultures. | |
| 166086516 | Chichimecs | American hunting and gathering groups: largely responsible for the disruption of early civilizations in Mesoamerica. | |
| 166088080 | Chiefdom | Widely diffused pattern of social organization in the Americas; featured chieftains who ruled from central towns over a large territory including smaller towns or villages that paid tribute; predominant town often featured temples and priest class. | |
| 166088082 | Matrilocal | A culture in which young men upon marriage go live with the bride's families. | |
| 166102190 | Aztecs | Also known as the Mexica; one of the nomadic tribes that used political anarchy after the fall of the Toltecs to penetrate into the sedentary agricultural zone of Mesoamerican plateau; established empire after 1325 around shores of lake Texcoco. | |
| 166102191 | Akhenaton | Egyptian pharaoh of the new Kingdom; attempted to establish a one-god religion, replacing the traditional Egyptian pantheon of gods. | |
| 166102192 | Chavin Culture | Appeared in the highlands of the Andes Mountains between 1,800 B.C.E. and 1,200 B.C.E.; typified by ceremonial centers with large stone buildings; greatest ceremonial center was Chav'n de Huantar; characterized by artistic motifs. Also called the Chav'n. | |
| 166102193 | Anasazi | "The Ancient Ones"; culture located in southwestern United States; flourished from 200 C.E. to 1,200 C.E.; featured large multistory adobe and stone buildings built in protected canyons or cliffs. | |
| 166102194 | Narmer | First pharaoh of Egyptian Old Kingdom; ruled around 3,100 B.C.E. | |
| 166102195 | Horizon | Archeological term for a period when a broad central authority seems to have integrated a widely dispersed regions. | |
| 166102196 | Savages | Societies engaged in either hunting and gathering for subsistence or in migratory cultivation; not as stratified or specialized as civilized and nomadic societies. | |
| 166102197 | Agrarian Revolution | Occurred between 8,000 B.C.E. and 5,000 B.C.E.; transition from hunting and gathering to sedentary agriculture. | |
| 166102198 | Band | A level of social organization normally consisting of 20-30 people; nomadic hunters and gatherers; labor divided on a gender basis. | |
| 166102199 | Ball Games | Ritual elements of many American cultures; played on formal courts; religious significance required that losing teams pay penalty of forfeiture of goods of their lives. | |
| 166102200 | Shifting Cultivation | An intermediate form of ecological adaptation in which temporary forms of cultivation are carried out with little impact on the natural ecology; typical of rain forest cultivators. | |
| 166102201 | Chimu State | Regional Andean chiefdom that flourished from 800 C.E. to 1465 C.E.; fell to the Incas. | |
| 166102202 | City-State | A form of political organization typical of Mesopotamian civilizations; consisted of agricultural hinterlands ruled by an urban-based king. | |
| 166102203 | Archaic Cultures | Hunting-and-gathering groups dispersed over the American continents by 9,000 B.C.E. | |
| 166117666 | Chichen Itza | Originally a Mayan city; conquered by Toltecs circa 1,000 C.E. and ruled by Toltec dynasties; architecture featured pyramid of feather Serpent (Quetzalcoatl). | |
| 166117667 | Jomon Culture | Created by early migrants to Japan after 3,000 B.C.E.; hunting-and-gathering people, produced distinctive pottery form. | |
| 166117668 | Ayllus | Households in Andean societies that recognized some form of kinship; traced descent from some common, sometimes mythical, ancestor. | |
| 166117669 | Axum | Kingdom located in Ethiopian highlands; replaced Mero in first century C.E.; received strong influence from Arabian peninsula; eventually converted to Christianity. | |
| 166117670 | Animism | A religious outlook that sees gods in many aspects of nature and propitiates them to help control and explain nature; typical of Mesopotamian religions. | |
| 166117671 | Potter's Wheel | A technological advance in pottery-making; invented circa 6,000 B.C.E.; encouraged faster and higher-quality ceramic pottery production. | |
| 166117672 | Natufian Complex | Pre-agricultural complex; located in present-day Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon; practiced the collection of naturally present barely and wheat to supplement game; typified by large settlement sites. | |
| 166117673 | Pastorialism | A nomadic agricultural lifestyle based on herding domesticated animals; tended to produce independent people capable of challenging sedentary agricultural societies. | |
| 166117674 | Matrilineal | Family descent and inheritance traced through the female line. | |
| 166117675 | Culture | Combinations of the ideas, objects, and patterns of behavior that result from human social interaction. |
