1.1Big Geography and the Peopling of the Earth

Period I (8000BCE-600BCE)

1.1Big Geography and the Peopling of the Earth

I can explain that human migrated out of East Africa and then moved throughout the whole earth, following game and gathering plants.
I can explain how humans adapted to various environments as they moved.

I can identify three ways early humans used fire.

I can look at different environment types and make a hypothesis about what kinds of tools would be useful there.

I can explain why hunter-gatherer groups were self-sufficient and had limited social contacts.
I can talk about early human contacts among hunter-gatherers.

1.2The Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Societies

I can explain how the Neolithic Revolution led to new economic system and more social hierarchies.

I can explain how climate change led to the new lifeway of agriculture first in Mesopotamia and then in various geographic areas at various times.

I can explain why grasslands are best suited to pastoralism.

I can describe why certain crops and animals were domesticated in various regions.

I can discuss how agriculture led to cooperation and group effort.

I can explain why humans selectively chose certain plants to grow, leading to less plant diversity.
I can explain why and how pastoralists degraded grasslands.

II.

I can tell how human society changed because of new ways of life after the Neolithic Revolution.

I can explain why population increased as a result of pastoralism and agriculture.

I can explain how food surpluses led to specialization of labor and strict hierarchies.

I can tell how and why pottery, plows, woven textiles, metallurgy, and wheels improved agricultural production, trade, and transportation.

I can explain how pastoralism and agriculture allowed limited amounts of people to accumulate wealth and why that promoted hierarchy and patriarchy.

1.3 Development and Interactions of Early Agricultural, Pastoral, and Urban Societies

I can identify the location and environmental setting of the six core and foundational civilizations (Mespotamia, Egypt, Mohenjo-Daro & Harappa, Shang Dynasty, Olmec, and Chavin)

II.

I can recognize the various locations in the world that developed civilizations.

I can define the word “state.”
I can explain that the legitimacy of early rulers were usually connected to and supported by religious belief and practice as well as a military.

I can explain how luck and circumstance led some states like the Hittites to become more powerful than others and carry out conquests.

I can define the word, “empire.”
I can identify the first regions in which states expanded and became empires.

I can tell how and why Central Asian pastoralists created the compound bow and later the stirrup. (link to standard 2.3 II A)

III.

I can analyze the unifying role culture played through laws, language, literature, religion, myth, and monumental art.

I can evaluate how monumental architecture and urban planning like ziggurats helped unify the people’s beliefs about their rulers and their role in society.

I can describe how political and religious elites created unity through the promotion of arts and artisanship like sculpture.

I can recognize how systems of record keeping like cuneiform developed in all early civilizations and explain why they spread to others places.

I can evaluate how legal codes, like the Code of Hammurabi reinforced hierarchy and assess how they increased government’s centralization.

I can explain the development of Hebrew monotheism, the Vedic religion of India, and Zoroastrianism in Persia and evaluate their impact on later periods.

I can analyze how trade expanded from local to regional to transregional as civilizations grew and identify goods, ideas, and technologies that were exchanged.
I can identify trade expansion between Egypt and Nubia and between Mesopotamia and the IndusValley.

I can evaluate why hierarchy and patriarchy became more oppressive as states got larger.

I can describe how literature is a reflection of culture by analyzing the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of the Dead.

Period II (600BCE-600CE)

2.1 Development and Codification of Religious and Cultural Traditions

I can evaluate the process by which, during the Axial Age, codification and further development of religious traditions created bonds and gave people moral codes.

I can identify the core beliefs of Judaism.
I can evaluate the development of Judaism’s scriptures, codes of behavior, and diaspora.

I can identify the core beliefs of Hinduism.
I can evaluate how Vedic religion formed the basis of Hinduism’s ideas of caste, reincarnation, and the incarnations of Brahma.

II.

I can evaluate the process by which, during the Axial Age, new belief systems that asserted universal truths came into being and spread.

I can identify the core beliefs of Buddhism.
I can assess the ways in which Buddhism was a reaction to the Vedic religion of South Asia.
I can identify and analyze changes in Buddhism prompted by the support of Ashoka, the efforts of missionaries and merchants, and the establishment of institutions.

I can identify the core beliefs of Confucianism.
I can recognize that Confucianism was expanded on by disciples of Confucius and tried to bring about harmony in all of society through relationships and ritual.

I can identify the core beliefs of Daoism and explain how the belief of balance influenced the idea of indirect changes in the political system of China.
I can analyze the influence of Daoist poetry on the development of Chinese culture.

I can identify the core beliefs of Christianity.
I can identify the aspects of Christianity that drew on Judaism and evaluate changes in beliefs and practices as the eligion became larger and more integrated into Roman culture.
I can explain the spread of Christianity by missionaries and merchants in Afro-Eurasia and analyze why it eventually became the official religion of Rome by the 300s.

I can describe how Greek and Roman philosophy was centered on logic, learning through observation, and discussed the nature of political power.

III.

I can describe and explain how various new belief systems affected gender roles.
I can analyze the ways in which Buddhism and Christianity encouraged monastic life and Confucianism focused on filial piety.

IV.

I can recognize other belief system that continued at the same time as the major world religions were being established.

I can define shamanism and animism.
I can recognize that societies outside the major civilization were more reliant on nature and therefore were linked more closely with shamanism and animism.

I can describe how ancestor veneration continued in East Asia even as new major religions were established.

I can recognize that literature, drama, architecture, and sculpture vary based on culture.

I can explain how Indian epics like the Ramayana are distinctive to South Asia and influenced the region in later time periods.

I can identify the unique architectural styles of many regions in this period and can describe that of Greece.

I can identify how Hellenism spread through the conquests of Alexander the Great produced syncretism with Buddhist beliefs and sculpture in South and Central Asia.

2.2 The Development of States and Empires

I can describe how key states and empires grew by imposing unity as they conquered previously competing states.
I can identify the location and names of the Persian Empire, the Qin and Han Empires, the Maurya and Gupta Empires, Phonecia and its colonies, the Greek city-states and their colonies, the Hellenistic Empire, the Roman Empire, Teotihuacan, the Maya city-states, and the Moche culture.

II.

I can analyze the development of new techniques of imperial administration and identify how they built on earlier political forms.

I can identify and define administrative institutions like centralized governments, elaborate legal systems, and bureaucracies in China and Rome.
I can explain how these institutions were used to organize the subjects of these empires.

I can identify and explain how the governments of Rome and China used diplomacy, developed supply lines, built fortifications and infrastructures, and incorporated conquered peoples into their militaries.

I can explain how promoting trade and economic infrastructures like roads and standard currencies made Rome and China more successful.

III.

I can evaluate how unique social and economic dimension developed in imperial societies in Afro-Eurasia and the Americas.

I can analyze the ways in which cities like Constantinople served as centers of trade, public performance of religious rituals, and political administration for states and empires.

I can analyze the ways in which the social structures of the empires showed various levels within the hierarchy including cultivators, laborers, slaves, artisans, merchants, elites, or caste groups.

I can critique the use of methods like slavery used by imperial societies to maintain the production of food and provide rewards for the loyalty of elites.

I can analyze how patriarchy continued to shape ideas about gender and family relationships in all imperial societies of this period.

IV.

I can evaluate how empires like the Han, Perisan, Mauryan, and Gupta created political, cultural, and administrative difficulties that they could not manage, which eventually led to their decline, collapse, and transformation into successor empires or states.

I can explain how overuse of resources like trees by imperial governments led to environmental damage like deforestation.
I can how social tensions and economic difficulties were caused by concentrating too much wealth into the hands of elites.

I can evaluate how external problems were caused by lack of security along the frontiers of empires which opened them to invasions from outsiders, as in Rome with their northern and eastern neighbors.

2.3 Emergence of Transregional Networks of Communication and Exchange

I can assess how land and water routes became the basis for transregional trade, communication, and exchange networks in the Eastern Hemisphere (Afro-Eurasia).

I can describe how factors like climate, location, trade goods, and ethnicity shaped distinctive features of the Silk Roads, Trans-Saharan Routes, Indian Ocean Maritime System, and the Mediterranean sea lanes.

II.

I can evaluate how new technologies helped long-distance communication and exchange.

I can describe how new technologies like the stirrup and the use of domesticated pack animals like camels to transport goods across longer routes.

I can recognize how innovations in maritime technologies like the lateen sail as well as knowledge of the monsoon winds, stimulated exchanges along maritime routes from East Africa to East Asia.

III.

I can evaluate how far-flung networks of communication and exchange led to the exchange of not just people but also technology, religious and cultural beliefs, food crops, domesticated animals, and diseases.

I can describe how the spread of crops, including rice and cotton from South Asia to the Middle East, encouraged changes in farming and irrigation techniques like the qanat system.

I can explain how the spread of disease pathogens like the Black Plague diminished urban populations and contributed to the decline of some empires, like Byzantine Rome.

I can describe how religious and cultural traditions like Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism transformed as they spread through trade routes.

Period III (600CE – 1450CE)