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AP World History Chapter 1 Flashcards

Chapter 1: From the Origins of Agriculture to the First Valley Civilizations, 8000-1500 B.C.E.

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12111558863CivilizationAny group of people sharing a set of cultural traits.0
12111558864CultureBehaviors and belief systems that members of a social group share and pass along to family members.1
12111558865HistoryThe study of past events and changes in the development, transmission, and transformation of cultural practices.2
12111558866Stone AgeThe historical period characterized by the production of tools from stone and other nonmetallic substances. It was followed in some places by the Bronze Age.3
12111558867PaleolithicThe period of the Stone Age associated with the evolution of humans,it predates the Neolithic period.4
12111558868NeolithicThe period of the Stone Age associated with the ancient Agricultural Revolution,it follows the Paleolithic period.5
12111558869ForagersPeople who support themselves by hunting wild animals and gathering wild edible plants and insects.6
12111558870Agricultural RevolutionsThe change from food gathering to food production that occurred between ca. 8000 and 2000 B.C.E.,also known as the Neolithic Revolution.7
12111558871HoloceneThe geological era since the end of the Great Ice Age about 11,000 years ago.8
12111558872MegalithsStructures and complexes of very large stones constructed for ceremonial and religious purposes in Neolithic times.9
12111558873BabylonThe largest and most important city in Mesopotamia,it achieved particular eminence as the capital of the Amorite king Hammurabi in the eighteenth century B.C.E. and the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century B.C.E.10
12111558874SumeriansThe people who dominated southern Mesopotamia through the end of the third millennium B.C.E.,they were responsible for the creation of many fundamental elements of Mesopotamian culture-such as irrigation technology, cuneiform, and religious conceptions-taken over by their Semitic successors.11
12111558875SemiticFamily of related languages long spoken across parts of western Asia and northern Africa,in antiquity these languages included Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician,the most widespread modern member of the Semitic family is Arabic.12
12111558876City-StateA small independent state consisting of an urban center and the surrounding agricultural territory. A characteristic political form in early .13
12111558877HammurabiAmorite ruler of Babylon (r. 1792-1750 B.C.E.). He conquered many city-states in southern and northern Mesopotamia and is best known for a code of laws, inscribed on a black stone pillar, illustrating the principles to be used in legal cases.14
12111558878ScribeIn the governments of many ancient societies, a professional position reserved for men who had undergone the lengthy training required to be able to read and write using cuneiforms, hieroglyphics, or other early, cumbersome writing systems.15
12111558879ZigguratA massive pyramidal stepped tower made of mudbricks,it is associated with religious complexes in ancient Mesopotamian cities, but its function is unknown.16
12111558880AmuletSmall charm meant to protect the bearer from evil,found frequently in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia and Egypt, amulets reflect the religious practices of the common people.17
12111558881CuniformA system of writing in which wedge-shaped symbols represented words or syllables,it originated in Mesopotamia and was used initially for Sumerian and Akkadian but later was adapted to represent other languages of western Asia,because so many symbols had to be learned, literacy was confined to a relatively small group of administrators and scribes.18
12111558882PharaohThe central figure in the ancient Egyptian state,believed to be an earthly manifestation of the gods, he used his absolute power to maintain the safety and prosperity of Egypt.19
12111558883Ma'atEgyptian term for the concept of divinely created and maintained order in the universe,reflecting the ancient Egyptians' belief in an essentially beneficent world, the divine ruler was the earthly guarantor of this order.20
12111558884PyramidA large, triangular stone monument, used in Egypt and Nubia as a burial place for the king,the largest pyramids, erected during the Old Kingdom near Memphis with stone tools and compulsory labor, reflect the Egyptian belief that the proper and spectacular burial of the divine ruler would guarantee the continued prosperity of the land.21
12111558885MemphisThe capital of Old Kingdom Egypt, near the head of the Nile Delta,early rulers were interred in the nearby pyramids.22
12111558886ThebesCapital city of Egypt and home of the ruling dynasties during the Middle and New Kingdoms,Amon, patron deity of Thebes, became one of the chief gods of Egypt, monarchs were buried across the river in the Valley of the Kings.23
12111558887HieroglyphicsAn ancient Egyptian writing system in which pictures were used to represent ideas and sounds.24
12111558888PapyrusA reed that grows along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt,from it was produced a coarse, paper-like writing medium used by the Egyptians and many other peoples in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East.25
12111558889MummyIn ancient Egypt the bodies of people who could afford mummification underwent a complex process of removing organs, filling body cavities, dehydrating the corpse with natron, and then wrapping the body with linen bandages and enclosing it in a wooden sarcophagus.26
12111558890HarappaSite of one of the great cities of the Indus Valley civilization of the third millennium B.C.E.,it was located on the northwest frontier of the zone of cultivation (in modern Pakistan), and may have been a center for the acquisition of raw materials, such as metals and precious stones, from Afghanistan and Iran.27
12111558891Mohenjo-DaroLargest of the cities of the Indus Valley civilization,it was centrally located in the extensive floodplain of the Indus River in contemporary Pakistan,little is known about the political institutions of Indus Valley communities, but the large-scale of construction at Mohenjo-Daro, the orderly grid of streets, and the standardization of building materials are evidence of central planning.28
12111564853bronzeAn alloy of copper with a small amount of tin (or sometimes arsenic), it is harder and more durable than copper alone. The term Bronze Age is applied to the era-the dates of which vary in different parts of the world-when bronze was the primary metal for tools and weapons. The demand for bronze helped create long-distance networks of trade.29

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