Unit #1 Questions Flashcards
What skills and abilities did homo sapiens develop that allowed them to spread so widely throughout the earth?
Bipedalism (walk on two feet) - the ability to use one’s hands for other tasks, see prey sooner, more efficient cooling system
Use of fire - cooking, heating, protection
Anatomic variations - greater vocalization
Large fore brains - greater capacity for symbolic language
Capacity to manipulate the environment
What kinds of evidence do we use for information about hunter-gatherers? What are some of the difficulties with these types of sources?
We use fossilized remains of people, the difficulties is we use carbon-dating to determine the age of these people and sometimes it isn’t reliable
Difficulties - H&G are mobile, they don’t have a lot of stuff
How do historians define “civilization”? What are some drawbacks to this type of definition?
Civilization is a city and the land around it where people live in an organized fashion
Drawbacks - Hunter-gathers haven’t been considered civilized because they didn’t have a firm place to live and we don’t know about their culture because it wasn’t written down
What advantages were there in farming rather than hunting and gathering? What about disadvantages?
Advantages - able to produce more food per acre, support higher populations, eventual immunity from diseases, people could specialize in different crafts other than food production
Disadvantages - highly dependent on their crops if there is a drought, not as mobile, social hierarchy (partial enslavement)
What effects did the adoption of agriculture have on society?
Specialization of different fields of work: Textile & Metalwork Materialism - warm homes, utensils Increased interaction with different societies Differences between men and women Decreasing ecological diversity Soil erosion (fertility) Increased diseases Wars Governments More complex societies
What factors influenced the development of cities in the period after 3500 BCE or so? In other words, why did people start living in cities instead of individual agricultural settlements or villages?
Trade (they became central areas between societies)
Irrigation (consistent water source)
River Valleys (Transportation, communication)
Farming because other areas weren’t moist enough so irrigation was needed
What kinds of changes did the growth of cities bring about? What kinds of problems do cities face, that agricultural villages do not? What kinds of solutions did ancient peoples have to come up with to solve these problems?
Changes - Shift in power (before it was the oldest family member now it is someone like a noble or king), hierarchies (sort of slavery), increased violence
Problems - social organization of people, protection, laws, crimes
Solutions - Laws, governments, defined property laws
What advantages do pastoral peoples have over agricultural peoples, that might make them more formidable as a society? What about disadvantages?
Advantages - they only needed to their knowledge on animals, could retreat from attacks easily (they were constantly moving with their herds)
Disadvantages - they had to interact with agricultural places for certain goods, no permanent home, no specialization, more susceptible to animals
What kinds of social distinctions existed in the ancient world?
Independent Farmers Slaves Serfs (dependent farmers) Nomadic tribes Settled pastoralists Servants Artisans Soldiers (foot) Merchants Scribes Priests Bureaucrats
How did the transition to agriculture cause changes in gender roles in early complex societies?
Society became a patriarchal society, this meant the men were in charge, initially women continue with the farming because they knew the plants better, as soon as it required more effort like using a plow men started doing the farming so women could take care of children, they spun threads for clothes
What are the similarities and differences between the religions of different ancient societies?
Similarities - more used for predicting the future than teaching ethical actions, more for the elite than the common person
Differences - may have focused more on the after-life in one religion than another
How did geography and the environment affect the growth of civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China?
The geography and environment greatly helped each of these civilizations by giving them good sources of plants and animals, as well good water resources that allowed them to farm and the population to grow quickly
What are the four major arguments that Diamond makes about the domestication of plants, the domestication of animals, the development of disease, and the orientation of the continents’ axes?
Eurasia was a really good place to domesticate plants because there was a wide variety and many easily were domesticated. Very similar for animals. 9 of 14 of large domesticated animals came from Eurasia. Because these areas domesticated animals sooner, they contracted diseases sooner and became immune sooner than other societies. The orientation of Eurasia of east-west allowed the plants and animals to spread more easily because the climates were more similar and so was the day-length
