Mr. Brown's AP World Class
Terms : Hide Images
| 738847899 | Indus river valley | river flows from sources in the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea; location of Harappan civilization. | |
| 738847900 | monsoons | seasonal winds crossing the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia; during the summer they bring rain. | |
| 738847901 | Harappan civilization | first civilization of the Indian subcontinent; emerged in Indus river valley ca. 2500 B.C.E. | |
| 738847902 | Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro | major urban complexes of Harappan civilization; laid out on planned grid pattern. | |
| 738847903 | Aryans | Indo-European nomadic, warlike, pastoralists who replaced Harappan civilization. | |
| 738847904 | Vedas | Aryan hymns originally transmitted orally; written down in sacred books from the 6th century B.C.E. | |
| 738847905 | India | chief deity of the Aryans; depicted as a hard-drinking warrior. | |
| 738847906 | daises | Aryan name for indigenous people of the Indus river valley region; regarded as societally inferior to Aryans. | |
| 738847907 | caste system | rigid system of social classification introduced by Aryans. | |
| 738847908 | varnas | clusters of caste groups; four social castes: brahmans (priests), warriors, merchants, peasants; beneath them were the untouchables. | |
| 738847909 | patrilineal | social system in which descent and inheritance is passed through the male line; typical of Aryan society. | |
| 738847910 | Huanghe river | river flowing from the Tibetan plateau to the China Sea; its valley was site of early Chinese sedentary agricultural communities. | |
| 738847911 | Ordos bulge | located on Huanghe river; region of fertile soil; site of Yangshao and Longshan cultures. | |
| 738847912 | loess | fine-grained soil deposited in Ordos bulge; created fertile lands for sedentary agricultural communities. | |
| 738847913 | Longshan culture | a formative Chinese culture located at Ordos bulge ca. 2000 to 1500 B.C.E; based primarily on cultivation of millet. | |
| 738847914 | Yu | a possibly mythical ruler revered for construction of a system of flood control along the Huanghe river valley; founder of Xia kingdom. | |
| 738847915 | Xia | China's first, possibly mythical, kingdom; ruled by Yu; no archaeological sites yet discovered. | |
| 738847916 | Shang | 1st Chinese dynasty; capital in Ordos bulge. | |
| 738847917 | vassal retainers | members of former ruling families granted control over peasant and artisan populations of areas throughout Shang kingdom; indirectly exploited wealth of their territories. | |
| 738847918 | extended families | consisted of several generations, including sons and grandsons of family patriarch and their families; typical of Shang China elites. | |
| 738847919 | nuclear households | husband, wife, and their children, and perhaps a few other relatives; typical of Chinese peasantry. | |
| 738847920 | oracles | shamans or priests in Chinese society who foretold the future through interpreting animal bones cracked by heat; inscriptions on bones led to Chinese writing. | |
| 738847921 | ideographic writing | pictograph characters grouped together to create new concepts; typical of Chinese writing. | |
| 738847922 | Zhou | originally a vassal family of the Shang; possibly Turkic in origin; overthrew Shang and established 2nd Chinese dynasty. | |
| 738847923 | Xian and Loyang | capitals of the Zhou dynasty. | |
| 738847924 | feudalism | social organization created by exchanging grants of land (fiefs) in return for formal oaths of allegiance and promises of loyal service; typical of Zhou dynasty. | |
| 738847925 | Mandate of Heaven | the divine source of political legitimacy in China; established under Zhou to justify overthrow of Shang. | |
| 738847926 | shi | probably originally priests; transformed into corps of professional bureaucrats because of knowledge of writing during Zhou dynasty |
