From Hunting and Gathering to Civilizations, 2.5 million-1000 B.C.E.: Origins
7452027606 | Hunting and Gathering | Means of obtaining subsistence by humans before the mastery of sedentary agriculture; normally typical of tribal social organization | ![]() | 0 |
7452027607 | Neolithic | The New Stone Age between 8000 and 5000 B.C.E.; period in which adaptation of sedentary agriculture occurred; domestication of plants and animals accomplished | ![]() | 1 |
7452027608 | Nomads | Cattle- and sheep-herding societies normally found on the fringes of civilized societies; commonly referred to as "barbarian" by civilized societies | ![]() | 2 |
7452027609 | Culture | Combination of ideas, objects, and patterns of behavior that result from human social interaction | ![]() | 3 |
7452027610 | Neolithic/Agricultural/Agrarian revolution | Occurred between 8000 and 5000 B.C.E.; transition from hunting and gathering to sedentary agriculture | ![]() | 4 |
7452027611 | Pastoralism | A nomadic agricultural lifestyle based on herding domesticated animals; tended to produce independent people capable of challenging sedentary agricultural societies | ![]() | 5 |
7452027612 | Mesopotamia | Literally "between the rivers"; the civilization that arose in the alluvial plain of the Tigris-Euphrates river valleys | ![]() | 6 |
7452027613 | Sumerians | People who migrated into Mesopotamia circa 4000 B.C.E.; created the first civilization within the region; organized area into city-states | ![]() | 7 |
7452027614 | Cuneiform | A form of writing developed by the Sumerians using a wedge-shaped stylus and clay tablets | ![]() | 8 |
7452027615 | City-state | A form of political organization typical of Mesopotamian civilization; consisted of agricultural hinterlands ruled by an urban-based king | ![]() | 9 |
7452027616 | Ziggurats | Massive towers usually associated with Mesopotamian temple connections | ![]() | 10 |
7452027617 | Babylonian Empire | Unified all of Mesopotamia circa 1800 B.C.E.; collapsed due to foreign invasion circa 1600 B.C.E. | ![]() | 11 |
7452027618 | Hammurabi | The most important Babylonian ruler; responsible for codification of the law of Sumer and Mesopotamia | ![]() | 12 |
7452027621 | Hieroglyphs | Form of writing developed in ancient Egypt; more pictorial than Mesopotamian cuneiform | ![]() | 13 |
7452027622 | Monotheism | The exclusive worship of one god; introduced by Jews into Middle Eastern civilization | ![]() | 14 |
7452027623 | Phoenicians | Seafaring civilization located on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean; established colonies throughout the Mediterranean; extensive trade, communication networks, early alphabetical script | ![]() | 15 |
7452027626 | Huanghe (Yellow) River Basin | Site of the development of sedentary agriculture in China | ![]() | 16 |
7452027627 | Shang | 1st Chinese dynasty | ![]() | 17 |
7452027629 | Paleolithic | The period that ended about 3,000 years after the end of the last Ice Age, it lasted until about 10,000 years ago. (Old Stone Age) The period of the Stone Age associated with the evolution of humans. It predates the Neolithic period. | ![]() | 18 |
7452027630 | Path of migration for humans during Paleolithic era | From Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas | 19 | |
7452027631 | Eglitarian | Believing in the equality of all peoples | 20 | |
7452027632 | Pastoralists were often the developers and disseminators of of ____ and ___ that transformed warfare in agrarian civilizations | new weapons modes of transportation | 21 | |
7452027635 | Polytheism | Belief in more than one god | 22 | |
7452027638 | stone age | the earliest known period of human culture, marked by the creation and use of stone tools and other nonmetallic substances | 23 | |
7452027639 | foragers | Food collectors who gather, fish, or hunt | 24 | |
7452027640 | city-state | A sovereign state comprising a city and its immediate surrounding area | 25 | |
7452027645 | bronze | A metal that is a mixture of copper and tin | 26 | |
7452027646 | paleolithic | stone age period when human used stone tools and survived by hunting and foraging | 27 | |
7452027647 | Homo sapiens | human species derived from apes with more brain capacity for intelligence | 28 | |
7452027650 | pastoralism | the process of domestication, raising, and herding of animals | 29 | |
7452027652 | patriarchy | the idea that males have a right to rule and reign over states and families | 30 | |
7452027653 | civilization | large scale communities that had certain characteristics in common such as: recordkeeping, complex institutions (government, economy, organized religion), cities, specialization of labor, long-distance trade, technology | 31 | |
7452027654 | Euphrates and Tigris | two principle Mesopotamian rivers | 32 | |
7452027655 | Sumer | earliest Mesopotamian city state | 33 | |
7452027656 | Babylon | second oldest Mesopotamian city state, succeeds Sumer, most important king was Hammurabi | 34 | |
7452027657 | Hammurabi's Code | first law code in the world, of Babylonia, dealt with legal contracts and responsibility for wrong doing | 35 | |
7452027658 | bronze metallurgy | alloy of copper, tin, and zinc, this metal began to be produced from about 2800 BCE improved military equipment, agricultural knives, and plows | 36 | |
7452027659 | iron metallurgy | a changeable metal, less hard than bronze, but more flexible, developed around 1500 BCE by the Hittites | 37 | |
7452027661 | cuneiform | a very early form of writing, from Sumer in Mesopotamia, done by pressing a cone-shaped stylus into soft clay | 38 | |
7452027662 | Epic of Gilgamesh | epic Mesopotamian poem that highlights the stresses of civilization | 39 | |
7452027663 | Egypt | a founding civilization along the Nile in Northeastern Africa | 40 | |
7452027664 | Hieroglyphics | Egyptian writing (pictographs & symbols representing sounds+ideas) | 41 | |
7452027665 | Harrappa & Mohenjo Daro | Two early, very large, and complex Indus Valley city states. Little is known about these but their size and complexities imply central planning. | 42 | |
7452027666 | Indus River | River in Northern India on which the first Indian civilizations were built; flooded twice a year in a predictable manner | 43 | |
7452027667 | Vedas | A belief system based on the caste system brought into India by peoples probably from the Caucasus between about 5000 and 4000 BCE | 44 | |
7452027668 | Varna | Caste system of India: Brahmin, Khsatriya, Vaishya, Shudra--people could not move out of the caste they were born into | 45 | |
7452027669 | China | earliest civilization in Asia | 46 | |
7452027670 | Huang He and Yangzi He | two rivers in China that supported early civilization | 47 | |
7452027671 | Shang Dynasty | The dominant people in the earliest Chinese dynasty for which we have written records (ca. 1750-1027 B.C.E.). Ancestor worship, divination by means of oracle bones, and the use of bronze vessels for ritual purposes were major elements of this culture. | 48 | |
7452027674 | Judaism | Monotheistic (belief in one god), founded by Abraham, code of law found in the Torah (first 5 books of the Bible), led to the development of two other Abrahamic religions: Christianity and Islam. | 49 | |
7452027675 | Confucianism | The system of ethics, education, and statesmanship taught by Confucius and his disciples, stressing love for humanity, ancestor worship, reverence for parents, and harmony in thought and conduct. | 50 | |
7452027676 | Mandate of Heaven | A political theory of ancient China in which the emperor is given the power to rule by a divine sources. This tie could be severed by ineffectual rule | 51 | |
7452027677 | Oracle bones | bones on which the ruling class in China wrote questions and had them divined by the priestly class | 52 | |
7452027678 | Mesoamerica | cultural area in the Americas extending from central America to present-day Peru | 53 | |
7452027679 | Olmec | the first major civilization in Mexico | 54 | |
7452027680 | Maya | Mesoamerican civilization in and near the Yucatan Peninsula--had the first and only pre-Columbian writing system in the Americans | 55 | |
7452027681 | Chavin | Mesoamerican civilization in present-day Peru that had highly developed art and architectural practices | 56 | |
7452027682 | Carthage | City located in present-day Tunisia, founded by Phoenicians ca. 800 B.C.E. It became a major commercial center and naval power in the western Mediterranean until defeated by Rome in the third century B.C.E. (p. 107) | 57 | |
7452027683 | irrigation systems | replacement or supplementation of rainfall with water from another source in order to grow crops | 58 | |
7452027684 | Indus River Valley Civilization | an ancient civilization thriving along the Indus River in what is now Pakistan and western India. This civilization is also sometimes referred to as the Harappan or Harappa-Mohenjodaro Civilization of the Indus Valley, in reference to the excavated cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro | 59 | |
7452027685 | Persian Wars | a series of conflicts between the Greek world and the Persian Empire that started about 500 BC and lasted until 448 BC. | 60 |