final Flashcards
- Monument in Mississippi
- 3500 BP to late archaic
- covers 0.5 miles (semi circle)
- hunter gatherers
- giant plaza, Mound A (bird shaped)
- 30 million loads of dirt was moved using burden baskets
Poverty point
- confluecne of missouri, mississippi, and illinois river
- 1150 CE
- richest farmland in region
- land surplus led to power disparities
- covers more than 5 miles
- 18-20 mounds and grand central plaza - enclosed in fence
- 120 mounds found in outer precincts
Cahoka
- a kings burial
- one of the smallest mounds
- upper graves contain graves of non-locals (slaves/captives)
- 272 people in total, males were decapitated and females were strangled with poor nutrition
- elite burials toward bottom with goods
Mound 72
- 30 acre site containing 23 burial mounds
- enclosed by massive earthen wall
- mounds connected by Great Hopewell Road
- building brought people together
- memorializing astronomical events, cross generalizations observances
Newark Necropolis
- early middle woodland period
- archaic lifeways, more reliance on domesticates
- small area in ohio river valley
- hopewell-continuum
- great lakes into southeast
- trade goods
- declines 1600 BP because of pop growth, protect crops, people prefer autonomy
Adena
- chiefs are the decision makers
- ceremonial priests and craft artisans
- field workers
- middle tier was warrier class
- fluid not static
Mississippian Social Ranks
- food surplus was ceremonial redistributed
- chiefs controlled the show and used seasonal feasting events to forge alliances
- large plazas within Mississippian villages for ritual feasting
Mississippian Food Redistribution
- highland weedy grass in Mesoamerica- tessei at top
- small corn transformed to maize
- transition from hunter gatherer to agriculture based lifestyles
Teosinte
- equivalent to Mississippians in eastern woodlands
- 500 BCE- 1450 CE
- between Gilla and Salt rivers in Arizona
- Red on Buff poetry
- grand irrigation systems to support farming
- Rancheria- post classic
- platform mounds- post classic
- corn farmers
Hohokam
- found by Gila and Salt
- Prime agricultural land with high water table
- 1 CE (largest pithouse village)
- 600-900 CE: change to dense township (mounds, change networks)
Snaketown-pheonix basin
game or ritualistic
Hohokam Ballcourts
- one of the most elaborate Canai irrigation systems in prehistoric world
- 700 BC
- 550 km of canals in Phoenix
- shakedown drew water from 3 miles away
- social differentiation with control of water
- canals needed constant work
Hohokam Irrigation network
- built things in Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon
- 1200 BCE-1300 CE, peak between 700 -1300
- practiced farming techniques: terrace, maize, beans
- great architects
ancestral Puebloan
- 30 km long arrangments of great houses, plazas, kivas
- less than 8 inches of rainfall per year, little permanent water, lots of flash floods
- castle-like architecture emerges
Chaco canyon
- individual settlements linked by networks of roads
- built-in straight lines
- ramps and stairways ascending clifts
- led to sites separated by more than 120 miles
Chaco road system
- 800 individual rooms- great house- 3 story buildings
- could have held 1000+ people
Pueblo Bonito
- 1 per 30 rooms within these larger D-shaped great house complexes
- ceremonial gatherings, community civic spaces
- usually one great kiva per great house
- great kivas used for special occasions
- constructed mostly identically between all great houses
Kivas - ceremonial and community rooms
- partially below ground with timber and adobe superstructure
- 600 BCE to 700 CE
Pithouse
- multistory, above-ground, stone and adobe bricks, rooms around plaza
- apartment style
this came after the pithouse and showed a change in social structure, moving toward community living
Roomblock
- chacoan outlier, not inhabited but ceremoniously used
- lunar standstill- every 18 years, moon lands on basket
- construction periods line up with these standstills
Chimney rock
- northern periphery of southwest
- part-time corn farmer part-time hunter gatherer
- pithouses
- rock art
- Utah
Fremont
- violent scenes of head decapitation
- tears in eyes of victims
- chiefly looking people holding heads
- phallic symbols, huge weapons, bug feet
Headhunter panels
- scene of bighorn sheep trapping event
- pecked into location where this could have actually occurred
- funneling effect and hunters positioned to shoot arrows from hunting blinds
the great hunt
- trapezoidal antro figures
- highly decorated
- often holding objects - shields and weapons
- pecked into desert varnish - dark sandstone
- set up to be seen by others like a billboard
vernal style rock art
- 12 paired male figures recorded in central Utah in 1950
- 4-6 inches tall
- 1000 BP
- unbaked clay, painted in red ochre
Pilling figurines
- storage structures to store agricultural produce, maize, beans, squash
- shared practices related to food storage
Fremont granaries
- dozens of non-granary storage features found within a large dry shelter off the Yampa River
- clothing, bags, jewelry, stone tools, artwork
- fishhook, shanes, woven ladles, moccasins corn on a stick
Manties cave
- found on top of hills, great view
- defend attack?safe room? watch people?
Pinnacle sites
- more than 20k people
- political with king, queen, empower
- centralized beuracracy, tribute systems, market and capital wealth, taxation, laws
- urban cities, landscape infrastructure
- priest class, pantheistic/monotheistic
- public and private, palaces, temples
state level organization
- no less than 5k people
- supports all classes of society, clear divisions between these classes
- rural at the periphery, urban found in central
- religious works are visible across city
- space is clearly divided - public/private, elite/ common. religion/ secular
urbanism
Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet at the Persian gulf
house of 2 rivers
- samarran village
- mesopotamia
- several hundred people- NOT A CITY
- subsistence - farming (wheat barley, linseed)
- goats, sheep, cattle
- fishing and mussels from tigers river
- dried mud-brick houses with defensive ditch
- property rights, makers mark
Tel-as Sawaan
- begins as a focal village
- 4750 BCE
- turns into massive temple complex
- first city
- irrigation network
- tripartite design
Eridu
-temple and redistribution center
- big structure dedicated to sky god Anu
- built from limestone and earthen piles
- place of worship and storehouse and redistribution center
- king priests acted as providers for gods and people
Ziggurat
- 3600 BCE
- early writing
- wedge-shaped marks made by a stylus on clay tablets
- evolved across different cultures
Cuneiform
- settlements depopulate and move into this growing city
- white temple on top
- ideological center, work, trade center are pull factors
- maybe a drought was a push factor
- 250-500 acres with 10k-25k people
- defensive wall, cult houses, assembly halls, artisan marketplace
Uruk Warka
- box discovered in tomb of ur-Pabisag
- symbol of state, military unit, or monarchy
- military conquest, victory celebration in court, equid warrier train
standard of Ur
- takes over Sumer, Susa, and north Mesotopia
- from the city of Kish usurped the local king
- unifying campaign 2334 BCE
- Akkadian empire/ Sargonic dynasty
Sargon of Akkad
- late neolithic occupations dated to 8000 BP
- close connection with western slope
- imported grains and animals
- wide ranging trade network, west and south
- conch shell (Arabian sea), lapiz lazui (afganistan), and copper beads
- early form of domesticated cotton
- 7500 BP, animals take over food source, population growth
Mehrgarh, Bolan River
- late neolithic societies in Baluchistan move into IRV floodplains together
- shift from sporadic cultural styles in west to uniform appearance in the east
- horned water buffalo and mother goddess iconography
- more than 1000 flood protected settlements established
cultural homogenization
- 370 acre metropolis during the mature Harappan period
- max population of 40,000
- Harappan grid system, water control, communal granaries
the twin cities - harappan
- largest urban center - 620 acres
- 80,000 - 120,000 people
- great bath - 80 square meters
- ritual function
Monehjo Daro
- networks of reservoirs to store water for public and private use
- vertical sunken shafts with mud-brick
- individual households had running water and baths
Water control - Harappan
- locally procured mineral IRV
- molten green and red jasper
- found within elite tombs in royal cemetery of Ur - starting with Akkadian empire
- direct and indirect trade systems
heliotrope (bloodstone)
- southern part of Egypt
The Nile river flows north to south - higher elevation
- city of Trebes
- Hedjet
upper Egypt
- close to the Nile delta where the Nile meets Mediterranean sea
- later periods
- lower elevation
- cities of Memphis and Alexandra
- Deshret
lower Egypt
- starts as a small neolithic village
- 6000 BP
- turned into concentration of ceramic craft specialists (pottery barons) that were elevated - 5500 BP
- Mastabas that were single-story mudbrick structures overlying a central burial shift - 5200 BP
- Skellatins bride with exotic goods
- afterlife preparation
- iconography shows regional connections
Hierakonpolis
- starts during late Gerzean/ later Nagada sequences
- 5200 BP
- begins as a way to keep track of inventory- bone and ivory tags
- mix of symbols - 2-3 cm
early hieroglyphs
- buried in Tomb U-J within a royal cemetery, a multi-room chamber for different afterlife activities- 12,000 gallons of wine
- Abydos and Hierakonpolis were competing in late 5000s BP but there are scorpion symbols in Hierakonpolis
- Was first to unify these city states
- Hedjet
The scorpion king
- Credited with unifying Egypt
- 100 years after the Scorpion king leads a campaign to overtake Egypt
- first real Pharaoh of Dynasty I
- moved the capital from Thebes to Memphis
- King Scorpion started trade relationships with lower Egypt and after death they turned into tax collection and small scale conquests
- the Narmer palette is Narmer wearing Hedjet on one side and Deshret on the other
- found in Hierakonpolis
Narmer
white crown of upper Egypt
Hedjet
Red crown of lower Egypt
Deshret
- 3rd dynasty 4650 BP
- 1st major burial tomb north of the former Abydos kingdom
- Northwest of Memphis
- 6 steps up from previous mastaba tombs
- clay and stone pyramid 3.25 acres
- was robbed completely
Djosers Tomb at Saqqara
- 4th dynasty
- 100 pyramids across apex of Nile Delta
- built by citizens with pretty good status
- eating better than everyone else
- worker camos close to Pharaons
Labor force at Giza pyramids
- 7000-5200 BP
- North China, Yangshao culture, middle of Yellow River
- Millet (foxtail) and rice (limited)
- slash and burn agriculture and permanent fields
- when soil deteriorated, they packed up and moved, and eventually recycled
- rectangular pithouses and red/black pottery- not wheel throwns
Ban- Po village
- 5000 BP
- black pottery
- first evidence of social stratification conflict
- permanent villages with defensive walls and ditches
- high-status tombs with ceramics
- mass graves of people killed violently
- rival killings with association with building construction projects
Longshan Culture
- first to appear in Longshan sites across yellow river valley
- shoulder blades of animals even turtles
- continued through the Shang dynasty
- began as simple burned bones found in ritually prepped spaces
- were see proto-Chinese writing inscribed during shang dynasty
Oracle Bones
- 2400 BP
- large political force from blueorints of Erlitou
- may have been earlier dynasty named Xia
- controlled yellow river valley
- last capital city at Yin
- many other cities with military
- warring period with many warlords and city state leaders
- more than 40,000 oracle bones at Yin
Shang Dynasty
- ruins of Yin suggest 11-12 related leaders
- cruciform mausoleum shape, kings buried at center with goods
- sacrificial horse chariots
- an army of decapitated commoners - 12,000
An-Yang royal cemeteries
- female consort to king Wuding who lived a rich life
- buried with 16000 items in total
16 personal sacrifices and one dog, bronze sword, tools, vessels, pottery with her name on it, 775 pieces of jade, 564 inscribed bones - badge of office
Fuhao Burial Chamber
- 1500-500 BCE
- very complex chiefdom
- made large agricultural villages- corn, squash, beans, avocado
- present-day states of tobasco and Veracruz
- best known for heads that were massive basalt sculptures of actual chiefs, San Lorenzo and La Venta
- 2 meters tall and 50 tons
- monumental architecture with plazas, pyramids, and platform mounds
- 1000 per site
Olmec
- peak 150 BCE
- South of Olmec
- 1st city state with capital
- artificially leveled ceremonial center
- residents and farming on terraces
- mixed at 17000 people by 150 BCE
- tortilla making using comals
Monte Alban (zapotec)
- 5km long avenue of the dead connects the central monuments
- is the largest, 3rd largest in the world
- Temple on top of the pyramid was destroyed but beneath it, a shrine full of ceramic pits, discs, and other artifacts, caves important to Mesoamerican religion- signify the birth and death of the sun
- child sacrifice burials found at the edges of the pyramid foundation likely related to building dedication ceremonies
Pyramid of the sun
- dominant political force in central Mexico toward the end of the classic period
- name is Aztec origin, they visited and used the site later in time
- all city no hinterland, exceeded 200,000 people
- a clear focus on military and prestige gained through violent conquests
- located on top of an obsidian source- critical to weapon manufacture and trade
- a god-king, lineages of nobles, and well defined warrior class are clearly visible in the monumental architecture/artwork
Teotihuacan
- three-tiered city system
- palaces, pyramids, elite tombs, and ballcourts in the center
- neighborhoods for nobility and craft specialists on the sides
- farming family compounds at the edge
- Stele and reliefs embedded into the architecture documenting the direct ascent of specific rulers in chronological order (great tradition)
- translating their hieroglyphics has been a massive undertaking
Tikal and Great Tradition Architecture
- a satellite city of a larger settlement at Yaxchilan
- the best-preserved murals known
- gives a sense of Mayan aesthetic in full color
- documents the ascension of Chooj to the throne after a victorious battle and celebration
- panels cover three rooms in total
also shows the process of bloodletting in honor of the event
Bonampak
- CE 1100s
- Chichimeca “dog people”
- From the northern aid frontier of Mexico
- arrived in a basin controlled by 50 small city-states (central Mexico)
- viewed as barbarian heathens but also fierce warriors - feared by other polities and they gave people reason to fear them
- took asylum on lands owned by the Culhuancan
- eagle perched atop a cactus to mark the end of their wanderings
Aztec Origins
- agriculture took many forms : fields and terraces across the Aztec controlled city-states
- small artificial islands, rectangular in shape, built with fertile soil built-in freshwater lake
- sustainable : soil built up in drainage ditches would be recycled
- corn and beans primarily, but also cotton for textiles
The Aztecs didn’t invent this technology, but they made it industrial in scale
Chinampas
- violent culture- captured many slaves as a part of opposition control (real or perceived)
- ceremonies performed in honor of Xipe Totec (Flayer God) - sun, rebirth, agriculture
- heart removal, decapitation, skin flaying, skulls of victims threaded together and erected on poles (tzompantli)
- Mostly males between 20-35 years old
- without human sacrifice, the sun would not rise and agriculture would fall
- the Spanish condemned but it was critical for the Aztec
Aztec sacrifice
- Hernan cortez called the city the Venice of the New World in 1519
- rests in the center of modern-day Mexico city, on the former island of Lake Texcoco
- a city connected by three human-made causeways leading from the edges of the lake schore
- The city held 200,000 people at the time of Spanish contact
- Templo Mayor - the central monument, made in honor of the gods of war and rain 60 m tall, dismantled after Spanish conquest
Tenochtitlan
- slash and burn agriculture
- clearing land by cutting down and burning trees and vegetation
- the ash provides nutrients to the soil and allows crops to grow
- once the soil loses fertility, the farmers pack up to move somewhere else and repeat the process
swidden agriculture
- Large stones used to create structures
- Stonehenge
- religious or ceremonial
European Megaliths
- Wiltshire, England
- astronomical observatory or a ceremonial site
- began around 3000 BCE
Stonehenge