Terms from Ways of the World Chapter 1
5759100010 | Venus Figurines | Paleolithic carvings of female form, often with exaggerated breasts, buttocks, hips and stomachs, which may have had religious significance. | ![]() | 0 |
5759100011 | Trance Dance | In San culture, a nightlong ritual held to activate a human being's inner spiritual potency (n/um) to counteract evil influences of gods and ancestors. Common to the Khoisan people. | 1 | |
5759100012 | Shaman | In early societies, a person believed to have the ability to act as a bridge between living humans and supernatural forces, often by means of trances induced by pyschoactive drugs. | 2 | |
5759100013 | Paleolithic "settling down" | The process by which some Paleolithic peoples moved toward permanent settlement in the wake of the last Ice Age. Settlement was marked by increasing storage of food and accumulation of goods as well as growing inequalities in society. | 3 | |
5759100014 | "The original affluent society" | Term coined by scholar Marshall Sahlins in 1972 to describe Paleolithic societies which he regarded as affluent not because of having too much, but because they wanted and needed so little. | 4 | |
5759100015 | Megafaunal Extinction | Dying out of a large number of animal species, including the mammoth and several species of horses and camels, that occured around 11,000-10,000 years ago, at the end of the Ice Age. | 5 | |
5759100016 | Dreamtime | A native Australian Aborigines' belief; Dreamtime is a place beyond time and space in which the past, present, and future exist wholly as one. Tribes-people could enter this alternate universe through dreams or various states of altered consciousness, as well as death, Dreamtime being considered the final destination before reincarnation. | 6 | |
5759100017 | Clovis Culture | The earliest widespread and distinctive culture of N. America; distinctive because they hunted large animals; Mammoth, Bison. named from a particular kind of projectile point (See image) | ![]() | 7 |
5759100018 | Austronesian Migrations | The last phase of the great human migration that established a human presence in every habitable region on Earth. These people settled in the Pacific Islands and Madagascar in a series of seaborne migrations that began around 3500 years ago. | 8 | |
5759100019 | Banpo | A Chinese archeological site where the remains of a significant Neolithic village have been found | ![]() | 9 |
5759100020 | Bantu Migration | The spread of Bantu-speaking peoples from their homeland in what is now southern Nigeria or Cameroon to most of Africa in a process that started ca. 3000 BCE and continued for several millennia. | 10 | |
5759100021 | Catalhuyuk | A settlement in present day southern Turkey, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC, and flourished around 7000BC. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date. | ![]() | 11 |
5759100022 | Chiefdom | A societal grouping governed by a chief who typically relies on generosity, ritual status, or charisma rather than force to win obedience from the people. | 12 | |
5759100023 | Diffusion | The gradual spread of agricultural techniques without extensive population movement. | 13 | |
5759100024 | Fertile Crescent | Region sometimes known as Southwest Asia that includes the modern states of Iraq, Syria, Israel/Palestine, and southern Turkey; the earliest home of agriculture. | ![]() | 14 |
5759100025 | Pastoral Society | A human society that relies on domesticated animals rather than plants as the main source of food; lead their animals to seasonal grazing grounds rather than settling permanently in a single location. | 15 | |
5759100026 | "Secondary Products Revolution" | A term used to describe the series of technological changes that began ca. 4000 BCE, as people began to develop new uses for their domesticated animals, exploiting a new source of power. | 16 | |
5759100027 | Teosinte | The wild ancestor of maize. | ![]() | 17 |
5759100029 | Göbekli Tepe | A ceremonial site (in modern day Turkey) of a hunting and gathering society. This type of structure is normally only associated with agricultural societies | ![]() | 18 |