Anthro Final Flashcards
Chiefdoms
multi-village territorial units with a centralized decision-making chief oriented group
Tikal, Lowland Guatemala
- part of Mayan empire
- area of lowland, densely-forest Mayan temples and civilization
- featured stelae (stone carvings) with engravements
San José Mogote in Oaxaca, Mexico
- part of Aztec empire at one point
- first pottery using village in the Valley of Oaxaca
- permanent wattle-and-daub style houses with grain storage rooms, then sodality houses, then complex temple
- first occupied 3.4kya
- complex temple burnt down
Teotihuacan
- first generation state in Central Mexico (Aztec)
- 100k+ residents, many pyramids, big city!
- peaked in 1400s-1500s as largest city in Americas
- lots of violence: 2,000 sacrificed at one temple, Street of Dead with lots of pyramids burned down
Moche, Peru
- important for Inca Empire (1200s-1500s)
- state organization starting 350 BCE in Peru
- controlled much of Pacific coast
- big city with urban housing districts, plazas, storehouses, workshops, large monuments
- largest “pyramid” – “Huaca del Sol” – and fancy grave inside
Mesoamerican and South American States
- appear to have developed in the context of interacting (competitive) polities: “chiefdoms”
- supported by agricultural economies
State def.
a governmental entity that persists by politically controlling a territory
Chaco Canyon
- key site of Southwestern US constructed 1050-1100 CE
- “Great Houses” several hundred rooms each
- abruptly abandoned
Ohio Valley Adena & Hopewell
- key site of Early to Middle Woodland period (1000 BCE to 200 CE)
- egalitarian-ish social organization
- dispersed communities of forager-farmers
Cahokia, Illinois
- key site from 1100 CE
- 10k population, one of earlier urban sites worldwide
- huge urbanized mound serving as cultural center (800,000 ft2 tall)
- the beginnings of Mississippian culture
Mississippian period & “culture”
- 1000s - 1500s
- sedentary, large villages and towns, some hunting-gathering
- maize was big deal
- chiefdom system came into play
- Cahokia, Illinois big deal
Anthropocene
proposed new geological epoch marked by global influence
Debate about Anthropocene
it is hard to pinpoint exactly when it started: Agriculture (8kya)? Industrial Revolution (1800s)? Nuclear Age (1940s/1950s)?
Fossil Fuel Society
- began with 3rd century Egyptians burning wood to make steam
- hundreds of thousands of kilocalories of energy produced daily in some Western nations
- Fossil Fuels are a new human method of energy capture
Empire
large states with heterogeneous ethnic & cultural compositions formed through conquest/coercion to extract wealth (food, resources, human labor)
Complex societies
- Big populations, high density
- Permanent & sedentary towns & cities
- Civic organizations (politics, economy, religion)
- Complex social stratification: social classes, specialist occupations, control and extraction of produce
Cultural Evolution
when new forms of social or sociopolitical organizations appear (idea of Lewis Henry Morgan)
Lewis Henry Morgan
- cultural evolution (when new forms of social or sociopolitical organizations appear)
- savagery (food from wild resources) –> barbarism (sedentary agriculture) –> civilization (urban/state – civic society)
Vere Gordon Childe
- materialist & marxist thinker
- idea that prehistoric changes were on par with recent changes (one couldn’t have happened without effects by earlier social, technological and productive changes)
Social Evolution
idea that prehistoric changes were on par with recent changes (one couldn’t have happened without effects by earlier social, technological and productive changes) (as elaborated by Vere Gordon Chile)
Elman Service
Defined types of societies with more emphasis on political organization
band –> tribe –> chiefdom –> state
1st - Neolithic revolution
switch from hunter-gatherering to farming
2nd - Neolithic revolution
switch from farming to states and cities (Urban Revolution)
Mesopotamia key aspects
- Began 7,000 BCE as small farming communities
- Fertile fields and wide, barren plains
- Seasonal rains and mountain streams
- Timber, stone, and metals
- Major rivers for urban-sponsored irrigation
- Minimal natural mineral resources
Ubaid Period
- Mesopotamian era 5,900 - 4,200 BCE
- Cereal cultivation and small scale farming
- Temples as institutions of community focus,
used for pilgrimages, religious rites, royal patronage, AND economic functions
Uruk Period
- Mesopotamian era 4,200 - 3,000 BCE
- People lived in urban and literate communities
- major urbanizing centers (world’s first cities) based on surplus agriculture and temple management
- Surplus in cereals, flour, fish, wool & textiles
Ziggurat
a rectangular stepped tower, often surmounted by a temple, common later in the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia
Uruk city
- First city in the world
- Founded during Uruk Mesopotamian era in 3,500 BCE
- Had large scale temples with homes for religious officials, craft production areas, stone & metal working houses
Early Dynastic Period
- Mesopotamian era 2900 to 2350 BCE
- Warfare highly important, leading to the rise and fall of several successive polities
- Heavy focus on the military
- Development of military and macro-states
Ur
- Major late military, political, & economic rival of Uruk
- Bible states Ur as the birthplace of Abraham
- Renowned for its cemetery with 2500 simple burials
Writing system
- 5,000 clay tablets excavated in Uruk
- Pictographic symbols, plus numbers and time related signs
- Cuneiform writing system for about 3,000 years
- Tablets talk about administration, showing scenes of control, order and hierarchy
- Sumerian Kings List
Liangzhu site
- Neolithic Era 5,500-3,900 BCE
- Earliest major walled settlement
- Thick ahh walls, moats and canals
- Along Yellow River in China
Taosi site
- 4,100 - 4,000 BCE
- Longshan culture developed along the Yellow river
- THEY DESTROYED TS Sacked and razed, wall destroyed, burials desecrated, mutilated skeletons
Erlitou
- Part of urban, Dynastic era of 4,000-1,500 BCE
- Part of Xin dynasty
- Resources traded from Indian Ocean
- Miillet and rice farmed
- Pigs, cattle, sheep raised
- Existed along Yellow River in China
Zhengzhou and Anyang cities
- Part of Shang Dynasty (first one with writing in China_
- Dogs and humans sacrificed
- State buildings constructed
- Rulers buried elaborately
Cultivars
Wild plants fostered/managed by human efforts to make them more productive
Management
Manipulation and some degree of control of a wild species. Activities can be defined as any technique that may propagate or protect a species, reduces competition for a species, insures the appearance of a species at a particular time or place, modifies the range and/or distribution of a species, etc.
Cultivation
intentional preparation of the soil for planting wild or domesticated plants
Domestication
A state of interdependence between humans and selected plant or animal species. Intense selection activity can induce permanent genetic change in the plant or animal population under selection
Cultigen
A plant that is dependent on humans; a domesticate
Agriculture
Cultural activities associated with planting, herding, and processing domesticated species; farming. A wholesale change toward a new cultural system
“Big five” domesticated mammals
cow, sheep, pigs, goats, and horse
Main New World Domesticated animals
llama and guinea pig
6 traits that made animals susceptible to domestication
- Easily supplied diet by humans
- Fast growth rate and short birth spacing
- Calm disposition
- Willingness to breed in captivity
- Willingness to follow the leader dominance hierarchies
- Calm in enclosures or when faced with predators
Evolution (biological) defintion
a change in the relative frequencies of alleles (specific forms of genes) in a breeding population through time (or from generation to generation)
Major societal groupings throughout history
Foraging, faming and fossil-fuel
First domesticators
Natufian villages of 40-150 people 12,500 years ago in the Eastern Mediterranean
Broad Spectrum Revolution
- likely occurred due to changing environments
- diverse cultural adaptation
- wider range of food and plant species we ate
- human population growth
- setting: one of open woodlands & grasslands
Hunter-gatherer energy production
5,000 kilocalories per day
Holocene
Geological epoch in which we live now, which began 11,700 years ago
Hunter-Gatherers
- Small populations, less dense grouping
- Very mobile (seasonal range)
- Little investment in shelters or storage features
- Gathering a diverse range of plants
- Targeting of smaller mammals, birds, fish, shellfish, repetitive
- Kinship main organizing force
- Social status based on age, gender, achievements etc.
Holocene specific:
- Broad Spectrum of resources used
- Specialization of labor
- Cultural adaptation