Chapter 1
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| 20904636 | Paleolithic Age | about 14,000 years ago; human being learned only simple tool use; 750 BCE-fire tamed; humans became more erect in stature and brain capacity increased along w/ size; called "homo erectus"; spread into Africa, Asia & Europe; developed "speech gene" & rituals to lessen fear of death; greatest achievement: spread of human species over much of the earth's surface; used animal skins as clothing; | 0 | |
| 20904637 | Mesolithic Age | from c. 12,000-8,000 BCE; ability to fashion stone tools & such improved greatly; made better weapons & cutting edges; had increased numbers of log rafts & dug out which improved fishing; increased manufacture of pots & baskets for food storage; domesticated animals; population growth accelerated producing more conflicts & wars; | 1 | |
| 20904638 | Neolithic Age | invention of agriculture; creation of cities & other foreshadowings of civilization; centered on development of agriculture; agriculture produced major changes; changed economic, political & religious activities; population increased from about 7 million to about 100 million in around 3,000 years; knowledge of agriculture spread to India, North Africa & Europe; rice cultivation soon developed in China; 1st potter's wheel developed; | 2 | |
| 20904639 | General Stone Age | knowledge of stone age is limited; people from various parts of the world; accomplishments of these people remain essential to life today; our ability to use tools depended on our stone age ancestors; | 3 | |
| 20904640 | Agriculture | began in the Fertile Crescent during the Neolithic Age; | 4 | |
| 20904641 | Bronze Age | discovery of metal tools dates back to c. 4,000 BCE w/ copper; bronze later entered the picture; by 3,000 BCE metal working had become so commonplace, that in the Middle East stone tools had dissipated; metal working was extremely useful to agricultural or herding societies; metal weapons were superior to wooden weapons; metal hoes & other tools allowed farmers to work the ground more efficiently more officially; agriculture enabled individuals to become tool makers (specialization); didn't create rapid rates of invention; wood-working became more elaborate; still living in the metal ages today, though primarily use iron; i have chocolate on my pants; was introduced around 1,500 BCE by herding peoples; | 5 | |
| 20904642 | Homo sapiens sapiens | killed off or displaced many competitors; was a certain amount of intermarriage; all humans are descendants of H.S.S; originated about 240,000 years ago; no major changes in human physique or brain size since H.S.S; hunting & gathering society; can hunt berries; gradually improved tool use; genders were significantly equal; | 6 | |
| 20904643 | Hunting & Gathering | predecessor to agriculture; required more land per person; family groups were smaller; not a lot of work done, averaging 2.5 hours per day; resisted agriculture as long as possible-found it too complicated, difficult or unexciting; H & G people lacked immunity to diseases carried by agriculturalists; | 7 | |
| 20904644 | Slash & Burn Agriculture | existed in many parts of the world including South America until about 150 years ago; people would burn off trees in an area, farm intensely for a few years until the soil was depleted, and then moved on, then returned 20ish years later; | 8 | |
| 20904645 | Tribal Bands | a group w/ strong kinship ties | 9 | |
| 20904646 | Catal Hüyük | in southern Turkey; founded in 7,000 BCE & coverd 32 acres; houses were made of mud bricks on timber wood; crowded together w/ few windows; people spent lots of time on the roof tops & suffered from many broken bones; religious images both of powerful male hunters & mother goddesses devoted to agricultural fertility; large villages ruled over smaller communities leaving families to specialize in politics; by 3,000 BCE became part of a civilization | 10 | |
| 20904647 | Civilization | 2 different definitions; 1) society w/ enough economic surplus, to form divisions of labor, w/ a social hierarchy involving significant inequalities; difference between civilizations & other societies involves the emergence of formal political organizations as opposed to dependence on tribal or family ties; comes from latin word for city; cities are crucial because amass wealth and power and allow rapid exchange of ideas; | 11 | |
| 20904648 | Cuneiform | Sumerians developed it; based on wedge like characters; societies w/ writing can organize more elaborate political structures because of their ability to keep records & send messages; taxed more efficiently & made contacts & treaties; it is argued that becoming literate changes the way people think: more rationally & less by a host of spiritual beliefs; minority were literate; | 12 | |
| 20904649 | Nomads | wanderers called Barbarians by Greeks; looked down on by society as lacking civilization; | 13 | |
| 20904650 | Mesopotamia | home of the 1st civilization; founded in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; one of only a few cases of civilization developed absolutely from scratch; | 14 | |
| 20904651 | Sumerians | invented cuneiform alphabet; used different pictures to represent various objects; but later shifted to the use of geometric shapes to signify sounds; as many as 2,000 symbols; later reduced to about 300; writing & reading remained complex skills; art developed steadily as statues & painted frescoes were used to adorn the temples of gods; science aided a complex agricultural society; people sought to learn more about the movement of the sun & stars; founding-astronomy; employed a system of numbers based on units of 10, 60, & 360; it is still used to calculate circles & hours; charted major constellations that have been current for 5,000 years; | 15 | |
| 20904652 | Ziggurats | massive towers to patron gods to please and honor the deities; 1st monumental architecture of this civilization; priests operated the temples & conducted rituals; Sumerians were polytheistic; prayers & offerings prevented floods as well as bad health; ideas about the gods creation of earth through water & the punishment of humans by floods later affected the Old Testament; had gloomy ideas of the afterlife which they believed was full of punishment: original concept of hell | 16 | |
| 20904653 | City -States | ruled by a king who claimed divine authority; Sumerians state had carefully defined boundaries; the key to the early example of how civilization and a more formal political structure came together; the government regulated religion & enforced its duties; it provided a court system in the interest of Justice; kings were originally military leaders in war; began the tradition of slavery; but many slaves could earn their freedom by paying money; added to prosperity by using wheeled carts, fertilizers & exchanging silver as money; however the region was hard to defend & proved a constant temptation to invaders; later fell to the Akkadians and then the Babylonians; | 17 | |
| 20904654 | Babylonians | they extended their own empire and therefore helped bring civilization to the Middle East; Hammurabi introduced his code of law; it established rules of procedure for courts of law and regulated property rights and the duties of family members, setting harsh punishments for crimes | 18 | |
| 20904655 | Pharaoh | the name of the king leadership role in Egypt; had a godlike status | 19 | |
| 20904656 | Pyramids | tombs for pharaohs; started building them in 2700 BCE onward | 20 | |
| 20904657 | Kush | kingdom that interacted w/ Egypt and invaded it at some point; | 21 | |
| 20904658 | Indus River | a prosperous urban civilization and it formed around 2500 BCE; supported several large cities including Harappa and Mohenjo Daro; the houses even had running water; developed their own distinctive alphabet alphabet and artistic form; | 22 | |
| 20904659 | Huanghe (Yellow River) | developed in isolation; although had some trading contact w/ Indian and the Middle East; part-fact, part-fiction records of their kings; an organized state existed that carefully regulated irrigation in the fertile but flood-prone river valley; c. 2000 BCE produced advanced technology & developed an elaborate intellectual life; learned to ride horses & were skilled in pottery; used bronze & 1000 BCE-iron, then coal; used ideographic symbols; lived in houses of mud; science, astronomy, arose early; art emphasized delicate designs, & interest in music; most river valley civilizations declined after 1200 BCE | 23 | |
| 20904660 | Ideographs | pictographic characters grouped together to create new concepts; typical of Chinese writing | 24 | |
| 20904661 | Shang | started in 1500 BCE; ruled over Huanghe valley; constructed impressive tombs & palaces; | 25 | |
| 20904662 | Achievements of River Valley Civilizations | pyramids, wheel, taming of horse, creations of alphabets & writing implements; key math concepts (ie square roots), well organized monarchies & bureaucracies, functional calendars & other divisions of time | 26 | |
| 20904663 | Phoenicians | devised a simple alphabet w/ only 22 letters in 1300 BCE; became the predecessor of the Greek & latin alphabets; improved Egyptian numbering system; set up colony cities in North Africa and on the coasts of Europe | 27 | |
| 20904664 | Lydians | introduced first coined money system | 28 | |
| 20904665 | Jews | first monotheistic religion; | 29 | |
| 20904666 | Monotheism | worship and belief of only 1 god | 30 |
