Chapter 1 Flashcards
Approximately how old are: the mother earth, the first human like creatures, homo sapiens, and modern humans?Approximately how old are: the mother earth, the first human like creatures, homo sapiens, and modern humans?
Earth is 6 billion years old; the first human like creatures are 3-5 million years old; homo sapians are 200,000 years old; modern humans are 100,000 years old
What did help us shift from hunting and gathering to producing our own food, and with what results?What did help us shift from hunting and gathering to producing our own food, and with what results?
Learned to cultivate plants, herd animals, and make airtight pottery for storage. Allowed them to grow in number and to lead a settled life.
What is the author’s definition of culture?What is the author’s definition of culture?
The sum total of the ways of living built up by a group and passed on from one generation to another.
What items does he include in culture?
Behavior such as courtship or child-rearing practices; material things such as tools, clothing, and shelter; and ideas, institutions, and beliefs.
What items would your like to add or delete to his list?
Nothing
Do you agree with him when he says that culture is learned and not inherited, and thus making culture is a part of our environmental or material changes rather than biological evolution?
learned culture permits rapid adaptation to changing conditions making the spread of humanity to almost all the lands of the globe
Are culture and civilization the same or different entities? Are culture and civilization the same or different entities?
Civilization is the sophistication of a people’s intellectual, cultural, and artistic traditions. So a civiliazation includes culture within itself.
How do anthropologists designate early human cultures? How do anthropologists designate early human cultures?
by their tools
What are the two stone ages, and their approximate periods? What are the two stone ages, and their approximate periods?
Paleolithic Age 1,000,000-10,000 B.C.E. (Old Stone Age) and Neolithic Age 10,000-3500 B.C.E. (New Stone Age)
How people live during the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages? How people live during the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages?
People were hunters, fishers, and gatherers, but not producers of food. They learned to make and use increasingly sophisticated tools of stone and perishable materials like wood; they learned to make and control fire; and they acquired langage and the ability to use it to pass on what they had learned
Do you agree or disagree with the author’s views of how religious beliefs and practices might have started among early human beings? Do you agree or disagree with the author’s views of how religious beliefs and practices might have started among early human beings?
Religious and magical beliefs and practices may have emerged in an effort to propitiate or coerce the superhuman forces thought to animate and direct the natural world.
What the gender-based division of labor? What the gender-based division of labor?
Men hunted, fished, and fought other families, clans, and tribes.
Women in the Paleolithic Age were mainly involved in what? Women in the Paleolithic Age were mainly involved in what?
Women gathered nuts, berries, and wild grains, wove baskets and made clothing.
How did women contribute to the rise of agriculture? How did women contribute to the rise of agriculture?
Women gathering food discovered how to plant and care for seeds
What caused the first greatest shift from the Paleolithic to Neolithic Age? What caused the first greatest shift from the Paleolithic to Neolithic Age?
The development of agriculture which changed them from a nomadic hunter-gather culture to a more settled agricultural one
Where and when did the first Neolithic settlements appear, and what crops did they produce?
8,000 B.C.E the Middle East produced wheat and barley, China in 4,000 B.C.E. produced millet and rice; India in 3,600 B.C.E.
Region/period - crops
8,000 B.C.E the Middle East produced wheat and barley; 4,000 B.C.E. China produced millet and rice; Mesoamerica several millennia later produced corn
In what ways was the Neolithic Age different from the Paleolithic Age?
The Paleolithic Age was less developed and everyone was hunters/gathers; The Neolithic Age people began to focus on agriculture and more settled regions developed
What and where was the second greatest shift that occurred between 4000 B.C. and 3000 B.C.?
The growth of larger urban centers or cities with hierarchy of larger and smaller settlements in the same region. First along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and later in the Nile River valley in Egypt, and somewhat later in India and the Yellow River basin in China
That period is the ______ age.
The Bronze Age (3100-1200 B.C.E.)
Tin+Copper=______?
Bronze
When_____B.C. and where___________ as writing first invention?
the Sumerians in the land of Sumer (southern half of Babylonia) invented writing during the fourth millenium
Why one cannot think of civilization without cities?
Cities were the central hub of civilization
What were some of the activities or functions of cities in the Old World civilizations?
producing surplus by farmers and stockbreeders; efficient farming of plains alongside rivers; management of water resources
What did necessitate the rise of unified and centralized kingdoms?
Leagues formed between city-states with political and religious significance. Quarrels over water and agricultural land led to incessant warfare. The stronger towns and leagues conqured the weaker ones and expanded to kingdoms ruling several city-states
What kind of monarchs could control them, and how did they rule?
rulers of large cities; ruled with a standardized adminstration, vast wealth, and power, and a grand style
Read Map 1-1. What is a common factor among these first four Old Civilizations? Isn’t it interesting that all of them are located between almost the same latitudes? Why is that?
Being close to rivers; it was climate they were used to
Read Map 1-1. Note their rivers and regions. What else is this lovely map telling you? What role do you think geography plays in the making of human civilizations?
Almost all early major sites of civilization occurred close to a major river
Mesopotamian Civilization: Where in the world is Mesopotamia, and what does its name mean? What is its new name (_______)? Is it a geographical, political or ethnic name? Locate the Tigris and Euphrates rivers on the map.
It was east of the Mediterranean Sea and west of the Caspian Sea between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The name means “the land between two rivers.” It is now modern day Iraq; sometimes referred to as the cradle of civilization. It is a geographical name.
Read Map 1-2. What can you tell about the geography of Mesopotamia? Where were/are its geographical borders?
Its borders were the Tigris River and the Euphrates River
Who (_________) founded its first cities, and when (_________).
Sumerians found the first cities of Mesopotamia during the fourth millenium
What made them to fight among themselves?
Water and agricultural land
Who were the Akadians?
a people that established their own kingdom at a capital city called Akkade under their first king, Sargon. They conquered all the Sumerian city-states and invated southwestern Iran and northern Syria. It was history’s first empire, having a heartland, provinces, and an absolute ruler
What is a Semitic language?
languages in the same family as Arabic and Hebrew
Who was Sargon (r. ca. 2300 B.C.)?
the first king of the Akkadians in the capital city of Akkade; had been a servant of the king of Kish; became the ruler of history’s first empire; his name is legendary as the first great conqueror of history
Which particular Mesopotamian group of people (_______) who invented writing first, and when (______B.C.)?
Sumerians; 3100 B.C.E.
Why is it called cuneiform?
from the Latin cuneus meaning “wedge” because of the wedge-shaped marks they made by writing on clay tablets with a cut-reed stylus
What was the Sumerian calendar?
a calendar of 12 lunar months of thirty days each. To keep it in accordance with the solar year and the seasons, the Mesopotamians occasionally introduced a thirteenth month
Write below periods of the ruling peoples of Mesopotamia in chronological order: People/Ruling Period:
Sumerian - 2800-2370 B.C.E; Akkadian 2370 - 2125 B.C.E.; Ur 2125 - 2027 B.C.E.; Amorites 2000 - 1800 B.C.E; Hammurabi 1792-1750 B.C.E.; Kassite 1550 B.C.E.
Who was Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 B.C.)?
powerful ruler of the Babylonian dynasty and its most famous king; best known for his collection of laws that bears his name; destroyed the great city of Mari on the Euphrates and created a kingdom embracing most of Mesopotamia
What was Hammurabi best known for?
his collection of laws that bears his name
What was the Code of Hammurabi?
prescribed different rights, responsibilities, and punishments, depending on gender, class, and enslaved or free. They represent an enormous advance in legal thought because they codified and standardized laws and punishments, which made the legal process less dependent on the whims or favoritism of rulers or judges
What does this Code tell us about Mesopotamian society?
they had a legal code and standardized way to deliver rules and punishments
Write names of different peoples who invaded Mesopotamia. Which direction did they come from?
from the East the Elamites & from the north and west the Amorites
What makes you think that Mesopotamian Government was or was not a democracy?
they met to discuss trade issues, etc and would select a representative to be the head of the city so it is the earliest form of democracy
Note the close relationship and interdependence between rulers (politician, state), the priests (religion, church), and bureaucracy and tax collectors (science and administration).
Religion was apart of everything in the culture and the lines between human and divine society were not always clearly drawn
What was Mesopotamians’ perception of their gods?
visualized in human form with human needs and weaknesses; most identified with natural phenomenon; considered universal; but also residing in specific places, usually with one important god or goddess for each city; but the great gods were visualized like human rulers remote from common people and thus they imagined another more personal intercessor god to look after them as a person - a guardian spirit
What does strike you interesting in Mesopotamian Religion?
it is a depressing religion to have such a gloomy outlook of the afterlife
Who was Gilgamesh, and what is his Epic about? Who was Gilgamesh, and what is his Epic about? Who was Gilgamesh, and what is his Epic about? Who was Gilgamesh, and what is his Epic about? Who was Gilgamesh, and what is his Epic about? Who was Gilgamesh, and what is his Epic about?
a hero king who tried to escape death by going on a fantastic journey to find the sole survivor of the great flood
How was the Mesopotamian Society classified?
agrarian and urban society
What were the first, second and third largest categories for which the Code of Hammurabi had so many laws?
1) family 2) land tenure 3) commerce
What does it reveal about Mesopotamia?
Family structure was important
What was a son’s punishment for kicking his father?
hands will be chopped off
