Chapter 1 Vocabulary

Question 1

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.

Answer 1

Civilization

Question 2

Socially transmitted patterns of action and expression. Material culture refers to physical objects, such as dwellings, clothing’s, tools, and crafts. Culture also includes arts, beliefs, knowledge, and technology.

Answer 2

Culture

Question 3

The study of past events and changes in the development, transmission, and transformation, of cultural practices.

Answer 3

History

Question 4

The historical period characterized by the production of tools from stone and other nonmetallic substances.

Answer 4

Stone Age

Question 5

The period of the Stone Age associated with the evolution of humans.

Answer 5

Paleothic

Question 6

The period of the Stone Age associated with the ancient Agricultural Revolution

Answer 6

Neolithic

Question 7

people who support themselves by hunting wild animals and gathering wild edible plants and insects.

Answer 7

foragers

Question 8

The change from food gathering to food production that occurred between ca. 8000 and 2000 B.C.E.

Answer 8

Agricultural Revolution

Question 9

The geological era since the end of the Great Ice Age about 11,000 years ago.

Answer 9

Holocene

Question 10

Structures and complexes of very large stones constructed for ceremonial and religious purposes in Neolithic times.

Answer 10

megalith

Question 11

The largest and most important city in Mesopotamia. It achieved particular eminence as the capital of the Amorite king Hammurabi in the 18th century B.C.E., lonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century B.C.E.

Answer 11

Babylon

Question 12

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 Mesopotamia culture-such as irrigation technology, cuneiform, and religious conception-take over by their semitic successors.

Answer 12

Sumerians

Question 13

a small independent state consisting of an urban center and the surrounding agricultural territory. A characteristic political from in early Mesopotamia, Archaic and Classical Greece, Phoencia, and early Italy.

Answer 13

city-state

Question 14

Amorite ruler of Babylon, he conquered many city-states in southern and northern Mesopotamia and is best known for a code of laws, inscribed on a block stone pillar, illustrating the principles to be used in legal cases.

Answer 14

Hammurabi

Question 15

In the governments of many ancient societies, a professional position reserved for men who had undergone the lengthy training required to be able to read and write using cuneiforms, hieroglyphics, or other early, cumberstone writing systems.

Answer 15

scribe

Question 16

a massive pyramidal stepped tower made of mud bricks. It is associated with religious complexes in ancient Mesopotamia cities, but its function is unknown.

Answer 16

ziggurat

Question 17

a small charm meant to protect the bearer from evil. Found frequently in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia and Egypt, amulets reflect the religious practices of the common people.

Answer 17

amulet

Question 18

a system of writing in which wedge-shaped symbols represented words or syllables. It originated in Mesopotamia and was used initially for Sumerian and Akkadian but later was adapted to represent other languages of western Asia. Because so many symbols had to be learned, literacy was confirmed to a relatively small group of administrators and scribes.

Answer 18

cuneiform

Question 19

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.

Answer 19

pharaoh

Question 20

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

Answer 20

ma’at

Question 21

a large, triangular stone monument, used in Egypt and Nubia as a burial place for the king. The largest pyramids, erected during the Old Kingdom near Memphis with stone tools and compulsory labor, reflect the Egyptian belief that the proper and spectacular burial of the divine ruler would guarantee the continued prosperity of the land

Answer 21

pyramid

Question 22

The capital of Old Kingdom Egypt, near the head of the Nile Delta. Early rulers were intended in the nearby pyramids.

Answer 22

Memphis

Question 23

Capital city of Egypt and home of the ruling dynasties during the Middle and New Kingdoms. Amon, patron deity of Thebes became one of the chief gods of Egypt. Monarchs were buried across the river in the Valley of the kings.

Answer 23

Thebes

Question 24

a system of writing in which pictorial symbols represented sounds, syllables, or concepts. It was used for official and monumental inscriptions in ancient Egypt. Because of the long period of study required to master this system, literacy in hieroglyphics was confined to a relatively small group of scribes and administrators. Cursive symbol forms were developed for rapid composition on other media, such as papyrus.

Answer 24

hieroglyphics

Question 25

a reed that grows along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt. From it was produced a coarse, paperlike writing medium used by the Egyptians and many other peoples in the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Answer 25

Papyrus

Question 26

a body preserved by the chemical processes or special natural circumstances, often in the belief that the deceased will need it again in the afterlife. In ancient Egypt the bodies of people who could afford mummification underwent a complex process of removing organs, filling body cavities, dehydrating the corpse with natron, and then wrapping the body with linen bandages and enclosing it in a wooden sarcophagus.

Answer 26

mummy

Question 27

site of one of the great cites of the Indus Valley civilization on the third millennium B.C.E. It was located on the northwest frontier of the zone of cultivation (in modern Pakistan), and may have been a center for the acquisition of raw materials, such as metals and precious stones, from Afghanistan and Iran.

Answer 27

Harappa

Question 28

Largest of all the cities fo the Indus Valley civilization. It was centrally located in the extensive floodplain of the Indus River in contemporary Pakistan. Little is known about the political institutions of Indus Valley communities, but the largescale of construction at Mohenjo-Daro, the orderly grid of streets, and the standardization of building materials are evidence of central planning.

Answer 28

Mohenjo-Daro

Question 29

family of related languages long sporen across parts of western Asia and northern Africa

Answer 29

Semetic