Chapter 1 Key Terms Flashcards

These are the key terms from Chapter 1 of The Earth and Its Peoples for AP World History

135116537	Civilization	An ambiguous term often used to denote more complex societies but sometimes used by anthropologists to describe any group of people sharing a set of cultural traits.	0
135116538	Culture	Socially transmitted patterns of action and expression.	1
135116539	History	The study of past events and changes in the development transmission and transformation of cultural practices.	2
135116540	Stone Age	The historical period characterized by the production of tools from stone and other nonmetallic substances. It was followed in some places by the Bronze Age and more generally by the Iron Age.	3
135116541	Paleolithic	The period of the Stone Age associated with the evolution of humans.	4
135116542	Neolithic	The period of the Stone Age associated with the ancient Agricultural Revolution(s).	5
135116543	Foragers	People who support themselves by hunting wild animals and gathering wild edible plants and insects.	6
135116544	Agricultural Revolutions	The change from food gathering to food production that occurred between ca. 8000 and 2000 B.C.E.	7
135116545	Holocene	The ecological era since the end of the Great Ice Age about 11,000 years ago.	8
135116546	Megaliths	Structures and complexes of very large stones constructed for ceremonial and religious purposes in Neolithic times.	9
135116547	Babylon	The 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.	10
135116548	Sumerians	The 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.	11
135116549	Semitic	Family of related languages long spoken across parts of Western Asia and northern Africa. In antiquity these languages included Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician.	12
135116550	Hammurabi	Amorite ruler of Babylon (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.	13
135116551	Scribe	In the governments of many ancient societies, a proven position reserved for men who had undergone the lengthy training required to be able to read and writing cuneiform, hieroglyphics, or other early cumbersome writing systems.	14
135116552	Ziggurat	A massive pyramidal stepped tower made of mud bricks. It associated with religious complexes in ancient Mesopotamian cities, but its function is unknown.	15
135116553	Amulets	Small charms meant to protect the bearer from evil. Found frequently in Mesopotamia and Egypt, amulets reflect the religious practices of the common people.	16
135116554	Cuneiform	A system of writing in which wedge-shaped symbols represented words or syllables.	17
135116555	Pharaoh	The 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.	18
135116556	Ma'at	Egyptian 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.	19
135116557	Memphis	The capital of Old Kingdom Egypt, near the head of the Nile Delta. Early rulers were interred in the nearby pyramids.	20
135116558	Thebes	Capital city of Egypt and home of the ruling dynasties during the Middle and New Kingdoms.	21
135116559	Hieroglyphics	A system of writing in which pictorial symbols represented sounds, syllables, or concepts. It was used for official and monumental inscriptions in ancient Egypt.	22
135116560	Papyrus	A 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.	23
135116561	Mummy	A body preserved by chemical processes or special natural circumstances often in the belief that deceased will need it again in the afterlife.	24