Final Notes for Study Cards - Sheet1 Flashcards
- Describe the development of Mesopotamian civilization. Provide a chronology and description of sites.
Presence of Rivers
Formative Period (8000-7000 BP) Farms
Ubaid Period (7300-5600 BP) Templesirrigation
Eridu - oldest temple
Uruk Period (5600 - 5100 BP) - city states, walls, trade
Early Dynastic/Sumerian Civilization (5100 - 4300 BP) - 13 City States - wheeled carts
- How did the development of Neolithic towns along the Nile set the stage for the development of a unified Egypt? (what are the first clues of complex society?)
The civilization of ancient Egypt was indebted to the Nile River and its dependable seasonal flooding. The river’s predictability and fertile soil allowed the Egyptians to build an empire on the basis of great agricultural wealth
- What is the significance of Hierakonpolis in the development of Egyptian civilization?
evidence of the unification of Egypt N/S
- Describe the development of Indus Valley civilization. Provide a chronology and description of sites. In what ways do the Indus Valley civilization differ from Egyptian and Mesopotamian?
• 12,000 BP -stone age hunter/gatherers
• 8,000 BP -settled farming villages,
domesticated plants and animals
Mehrgarh -best known early farming site
• Domesticates: wheat, barley, peas, lentils,
buffalo, cattle, pig, sheep, goats
• 5,000 BP -Harappan civilizations begin to
flourish
- Compare and contrast conflict theories and integration theories for the evolution of ancient state societies.
In Chapter 10 I think
- Describe the development of Chinese civilization. Provide a chronology and description of sites.
Lung-shan Culture
• 5000 BP
• Rice dominant cultigen
• Sites larger and more permanent
• Started on the lower Yangtze river - became
widespread through trade and interaction
- How do the cemeteries at Ch’eng-tzu-yai and T’a-ssu show the emergence of a socially stratified society in ancient China?
Ch’eng-tzu-yai Cemeteries: show status differentiation
• Elaborate graves and small, narrow pits
- What was the terra cotta army of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty? What does it tell us about the nature of economic, social, and political inequality in ancient Chinese civilization?
Qin Dynasty of Imperial China (2200 BP)
Strong economy to have warriors and weapons
Beief in the afterlife
- List and describe the basic elements of Classic Maya civilization.
• Emerged from Preclassic
to Classic Period (AD 250
- AD 950)
Codices / Codex
Stelae
Tikal
Copan
- What reasons have been proposed for the collapse of the Maya civilization?
environmental catastrophe or regional abandonment and reorganization
- Describe the civilization of Teotihuacán. How did its enormous empire evolve?
Basin of Mexico, ca. 200 – 500 CE
Population estimated as high as 200,000
Urban planning
Avenue of the Dead
Pyramid of the Sun
Pyramid of the Moon
- Identify the pre-Inca civilizations of South America. Who were they?
Andean Civilization
• Intensive farming systems
• Massive pyramids and temples
• Large cities
• Powerful armies
• Hierarchies of wealth, power, and prestige
• Pottery, gold-smithing, textiles
• No written language
- Who were the Inca? How did they maintain their vast civilization?
Inca
• AD 1476-1525
• Largest and most highly integrated
political system in New World
Highly integrated system of fishing, herding, and farming • Irrigation systems brought under central command
- Discuss the evolution of the mound builders. When did mound building in North American begin? How did the purpose of the mounds change through time?
• By 12,000 years ago, huge continental ice
sheets retreat
- What does the construction of mounds like those at Cahokia signify in terms of the social and political organization of the mound builders?
Cahokia
• Over 100 mounds within 5-6 square miles
• Great ceremonial center
•
“downtown” area covered 200 acres
• Monks Mound - central pyramid (102 ft tall,
covers area of 16 acres)
• 30,000-40,000 people
• Class-based society
- Who were the Ancestral Pueblos? What sites do we attribute to this culture?
• Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi)
• ancestral to cultures of the modern Pueblo Indians
(Hopi, Zuni)
• lived on the Colorado plateau in northern Arizona,
into southern Utah, southern Colorado, and
northern New Mexico (four corners region)
• By 1000 years ago, people lived in year round
villages; maize agriculture important
• Early: pithouses
• later: construction of apartment like pueblos -
stone masonry complex
Stonehenge
Megalithic monuments
The construction of Stonehenge
Trilithons
Sarsen
Lintels
sarsens
sandstone boulder Stonehenge
Catalhoyuk
Catal Höyük
• 9000 BP
• Large settlement
• (26 acres)
• 2000+ interconnected houses
• No streets
• Enter houses through rooftops
• Population over 8000 people
Gobekli Tepe
• Southeastern Turkey
• 11,600 BP
• Monumental carved stone
• Circles of limestone pillars
• Largest: 18 foot tall / 16 tons
• Images of animals: lions/scorpions/fox
Jericho
This wall is among the earliest archaeological evidence in the world for construction on a monumental scale. The builders of the wall likely were members of an ancient chiefdom society beginning some 9,000 years ago.
La Venta
olmec city, at its peak covered about 2km squared, a little more than 0.75 miles squared
San Lorenzo
earliest olmec city. positioned on a dry terrace, well above the areas prone to flooding, but still postioned close to fertile soil.
Chavin de Huantar
Chavin seems to have functioned as a unifying element in the establishment of complex society in South America. (Courtesy of Gordon Willey)