Foundations: c. 8000 B.C.E.–600 C.E.
Topic 1 / Locating world history in the environment and time
1.Environment
  1. Geography and climate: Interaction of geography and climate with the development of human society
  2. Five Themes of Geography – consider these
  3. Relative location – location compared to others
  4. Physical characteristics – climate, vegetation and human characteristics
  5. Human/environment interaction – how do humans interact/alter environ
  6. Leads to change
  7. Movement – peoples, goods, ideas among/between groups
  8. Regions – cultural/physical characteristics in common with surrounding areas
  9. E. Africa first people
  10. 750,000 years ago started to move
  11. moving in search of food
  12. Role of Climate
  13. End of Ice Age 12000 BCE –
  14. large areas of N. America, Europe, Asia became habitable
  15. big game hunters already migrated
  16. Geographical changes
  17. 3000 BCE Green Sahara began to dry up, seeds to forests
  18. Effect on humans – nomadic hunters didn’t move so much
  19. Settle near abundant plant life – beginning of civilization
  20. Sedentary life w/ dependable food supply
  21. milder conditions, warmer temperatures, higher ocean levels
2.Demography
  1. Major population changes resulting from human and environmental factors
  2. 2 million people during Ice Age
  3. allowed for growth
  4. big game gone
  5. more usable land available
  6. 50-100 million by 1000 CE
  7. Regional changes altered skin color, race type, quantity of body hair
3.Time
  1. Periodization in early human history
  2. Early Hominids – humans 3.5 million years ago
  3. Australopithecus – Lucy – found in Africa
  4. Bipedalism
  5. sizable brain
  6. Larynx – voice box
  7. 3 million – homo habilis – handy human – crude stone tools
  8. 1 million - homo erectus – upright human
  9. First to migrate
  10. Clothed selves – skins/furs
  11. 100,000 to 250,000 – homo sapiens – wise human
  12. social groups
  13. permanent, semi-permanent buildings
  14. 100,000 to 200,000 – homo sapiens, sapiens
  15. Out of Africa – started in Africa and migrated
  16. Multiregional thesis – all developed independently
  17. Stone Age – First period of prehistory - Tool use separates hominids from ancestors
  18. Paleolithic – Old Stone Age – 10,000 to 2.5 million years ago
  19. Crude tools – clubs, axes, bones for shelter, protection, food, cloth
  20. Natural shelters – cave/canyons
  21. Began tentlike structures/huts
  22. Wooden/stone structures by Mesolithic
  23. 1 million years ago – fire
  24. Warfare – rocks, clubs – food preparation tools used for combat
  25. Weapons found in bones
  26. Clothes from hides/furs and later plant fibers
  27. Dying cloth for color
  28. Families, clans, tribes
  29. Select sexual partners – not seasonal
  30. Long term sexual bonds – emotions + child rearing
  31. Family units created clans
  32. Neolithic – New Stone Age – 5,000-10,000 years ago
  33. Nature and causes of changes associated with the time span
  34. Change due to Great Ice Age – Pleistocene Ice Age
  35. Continuities and breaks within the time span
  36. Mesolithic – Middle Stone Age – 10,000-12,000 years ago – transition
  37. Difficult to generalize
  38. Lack of information
  39. Regions developed at different times
4.Diverse Interpretations
  1. What are the issues involved in using "civilization" as an organizing principle in world history?
  2. Westerncentric meaning
  3. food producing w/ surplus
  4. increase in population
  5. specialization of labor
  6. social hierarchy
  7. growth of trade
  8. centralization of religious/political authority
  9. monumental buildings
  10. written records
  11. technical innovation – the arts
  12. World historians – more broad view – importance of human creativity
  13. Interaction of human beings in creative manner
  14. Cultural and material build
  15. What is a civilization
  16. Food surplus
  17. Advanced cities
  18. Advanced technology
  19. Skilled workers
  20. Complex institutions – government, religion
  21. System of writing/record keeping
  22. What is the most common source of change: connection or diffusion versus independent invention?
  23. Connection/diffusion – due to interaction vs. invented something new or used it in a new way
  24. Diffusion – ironwork – Assyrians to Kushites
  25. Invention – Nok people of Nigeria – smelting iron
  26. Farming of certain crops – diffusion – Middle East > India > Europe > Nile
  27. Others independent – sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, China, Americas
  28. After emergence, diffusion takes over – exchange of techniques, seeds, crops

Topic 2 / Developing agriculture and technology/Agricultural, pastoral, and foraging societies, and their demographic characteristics (Include Africa, the Americas, and Southeast Asia.)
  1. Foraging societies
  2. small groups of people traveled
  3. climate/food availability
  4. Bad - climate, disease, famine, natural disasters
  5. No permanent shelters
  6. Limit to how much land can feed
  7. Mammals, fished, gathered
  8. Organization
  9. Some had chiefs, leaders, religious figures
  10. Coordination needed for hunting large game – later used for warfare
  11. Worshipped deities – buried dead 100,000 years ago – burial sites
  12. Sacrifices, ceremonies
  13. Expression through art – art 32,000 years old, flutes 30,000 years old
  14. Gender division of labor
  15. Physical differences – men hunted, made war, heavy labor
  16. Women gathered, prepared food, maintained home, children
  17. Roles not seen as superior, just different - debatable
  18. Pastoral societies – domestication of animals
  19. Mountain regions, insufficient rainfall
  20. Small scale agriculture to add to milking
  21. Extended family important
  22. Women w/ few rights, men controlled food production
  23. Power based on size of herd
  24. Couldn’t settle needed to look for food for herd
  25. Seasonal migration
  26. Difficult to become “civilized”
  27. Began to experiment w/ plants/seeds
  28. Mix animal husbandry w/ plant domestication
  29. By accident – latrines sprout veggies, yummy
  30. Women key role
  31. Key points – one didn’t disappear
  32. In one area, could have shifting cultivation + migratory farmers + forage + hunt/fish + nomadic pastoralism
  33. Polytheism –
  34. afterlife – matter – neither created or destroyed
  35. energy > energy
  36. from animism – spirits in anything
  37. anthropologists – need control over fate – petition gods
  38. Emergence of agriculture and technological change
  39. Neolithic Revolution/Agricultural Revolution – 8000-3000 BCE
  40. Nomadic > agricultural > town > city
  41. W/ good soil, water source + cultivate plants – could build homes
  42. Domesticated animals/simple tools
  43. Was it a revolution?
  44. Long period of time
  45. At different times
  46. but…no one can argue immense changes
  47. Psychological Issues
  48. Shared land vs. ownership, people come on your land - intruders
  49. Food Surplus
  50. Time to make tools, dig an irrigation ditch, philosopher, religious leader
  51. One farms for 100, you can individualize labor
  52. Armies, towns, writing, art, experiment, technologies – specialization
  53. Government and religion emerge to keep life orderly
  54. Organize irrigation efforts which increases scope
  55. Calendars, pottery containers, baskets, storehouses
  56. Domestication – dog first – companionship, security hunting
  57. Later goat – both during Paleolithic – milk/meat
  58. Advantages of some societies on domestic options
  59. Regional food
  60. Central Africa - plantains, bananas, yams
  61. Americas – maize, beans, squash
  62. India – millet, barley
  63. Migratory vs. Slash and burn
  64. Ashes kept soil fertile
  65. Replaced with shifting – planting, fallow
  66. Changes – irrigation, mixing crop types
  67. Fermentation of alcoholic beverages – end of Neolithic
  68. Nature of village settlements
  69. Must be near water – commerce, barter
  70. Stay in same place
  71. Sense of unity, create cultural traditions
  72. People tied to land – property as ownership
  73. Role of women pre-farming – food gatherers – first to plant/harvest crops
  74. Men were hunters
  75. Gender-related differences – women lost status
  76. Political, economic lives controlled by men
  77. Community leaders, warriors, priests, traders, crafts
  78. Patrilineal/patrilocal – tracing decent based on male line/husband’s home more important
  79. Needed to work together –formation of communities
  80. Defense against invaders
  81. A family alone can’t create complex irrigation systems
  82. Self-sufficient, but some trade occurred
  83. Religious rituals become more complex – greater variety of gods and goddesses
  84. Forces of nature + spirits of departed ancestors
  85. Built permanent sites of worship – shrines, temples, megaliths
  86. Creation of cities
  87. Offer protection for defense
  88. Centers for trading
  89. Different skills/talents live together
  90. Major cities
  91. Jericho – Jordan River
  92. Catal Huyuk – Turkey
  93. Danpo – China
  94. No longer can rely on oral communication – need writing
  95. Keep records
  96. Pass on information
  97. Transfer information
  98. Sumerians first 3500-3000 BCE, Incas civilized without
  99. Impact of agriculture on the environment
  100. Land – land reconfigured to fit needs of humans
  101. Diverts water
  102. Clears land for farming
  103. Roads built
  104. Stones unearthed for buildings/monuments
  105. Animal kingdom
  106. Animals as food, clothing, beast of burden – oxen
  107. Increase food production
  108. Overfarmed – depleted land of fertility
  109. Move on to new land – sometimes called slash and burn
  110. Introduction of key stages of metal use
  111. Hard granite stones – farming tools – hoes, plows – farm tools priority
  112. Plow key prerequisite of society?
  113. Allowed for food surplus
  114. Pottery for cooking
  115. Weaving for baskets/nets
  116. Complex/comfortable clothing
  117. Wheels for carts sails for boats
  118. Combine copper with tin to make bronze
  119. Weapons, tools – Bronze Age
  120. Iron follows
  121. Neolithic Age – New Stone Age – ends with metalworking
  122. 6600 BCE – Copper used in Europe, Asia
  123. Metalurghy – extracting from raw ore and metalwork – crafting – quite difficult
  124. Jewelry predates 6400 BCE, but tools not efficient until later
  125. 3500-3000 BCE – Bronze from copper/tin discovered in Middle East, Balkans, Southeast Asia – later part Neolithic Age – Bronze Age
  126. Americas and Asia never had a bronze age – tin scarce
  127. Scarcity of tin pushed need for international trade
  128. 1500-1200 BCE – Iron Age – Hittites
  129. Spread to Europe in 1000 BCE, Africa in 500 BCE
  130. Possible to cultivate hard packed soil/more land
  131. Wave of invasions from outside Mesopotamia

Topic 3 / Basic features of early civilizations in different environments: culture, state, and social structure
  1. Mesopotamia
  1. Culture
  2. Independent innovation that passed to Egypt/Indus
  3. 4000 BCE bronze, copper
  4. Wheel, irrigation canals
  5. 3500 Sumerians – cuneiform – first writing – stylus – objects > sounds
  6. Number system – 60 – movement of heavenly bodies
  • navigation
  • time
  1. Architecture – ziggurats – 1) glory of civilization, 2) many gods
  • Clay primary building material
  1. First epic – Epic of Gilgamesh – 1) great flood story
  • King’s quest to achieve immortality
  1. great traders
  1. State
  1. Unpredictable flooding – need for government – irrigation
  2. City-states – controlled city + surrounding area
  3. Geography – lack of natural barriers – invasion – defensive walls
  4. Conflicts over water/property rights
  5. Akkadians/Babylonians – spread Sumerian culture
  • Code of Hammurabi – first written law code
  • Different rules for gender/social classes
  • Very harsh, favored upper class
  • Systematic, consistent set of regulations, not arbitrary will of a ruler
  1. After 900 BCE –Assyrians and Persians ruled
  2. king-like figure – lugal “big man”
  1. Social structure
  1. Ruled by elite, rulers, priests
  2. Farmed by slaves – could purchase freedom
  3. Patriarchal – men could sell wives/children to pay debts
  • 1600 BCE women wearing veils
  • But…women could gain power courts, priestesses, scribes, small business
  1. Egypt
  1. Culture
  1. 3000 BCE – Nile River
  2. pharaoh – pyramids – tombs for self/families
  • Decorated w/ colorful paintings
  1. polytheists – afterlife > mummification
  • Egyptian Book of the Dead – what happened to soul, how to reach happy
  • afterlife > mummification and tombs
  1. bronze tools weapons after Mesopotamia
  2. Kush – independent innovation iron – spread to Egypt
  3. some trade w/ Kush and Mesopotamia
  4. hieroglyphics – from trade contacts Mesopotamia
  • papyrus – paper making
  1. geography – protected – could create unique civilization
  2. less urban than Mesopotamians
  3. 365 day calendar, medicine, math, astronomy
  1. State
  1. Nile overflowed annually – predictable
  2. irrigation led to organization/government
  3. agricultural villages engaged in trade
  4. pharaoh – king – power
  • living incarnation of sun god
  1. geography – protected from invading people
  2. beginning 3100 when Menes unites Upper and Lower Egypt
  3. 2040-1640 BCE Middle Kingdom – culturally dynamic
  4. New Kingdom – 1500 – regained from foreign invaders Hyksos – focused on military
  5. by 900 in control of foreign invaders – internal disorder, invasions
  1. Social structure
  1. Social classes, but commoners could enter government service – rise in social status
  2. Patriarchal, but women had some privileges
  • Women sometimes acted as regents for young rulers, priestesses, scribes
  • managed household finances/education of children
  • right to divorce husbands/alimony
  • could own property
  • Queen Hatshepsut
  1. Indus – 2500 BCE Indus River - Pakistan
  1. Culture
  2. Streets laid out in precise grid – houses had running water/sewage
  3. Harappan writing not deciphered – much unclear
  4. active trade w/ Indus valley and Sumer – ores from one place found in others
  5. blend of Aryans and Indus valley people affected future course of history
  6. quite large – size of France/urbanized
  7. State
  8. unpredictable flooding
  9. Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
  • Because of similarities of cities, tightly unified, centrally controlled
  • Overtaken by Indo-Europeans – Aryans
  • Already dying out – 1) river change or 2) earthquake, 3) erosion of soil 4) salt in wells
  • whole societies – all over – Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro only tip, last
  1. Social Structure
  2. little known – Dravidians relatively egalitarian
  3. not as patriarchal
  4. Aryans – based it on color – Varnu
  5. Aryans eventually control politically, but Dravidians would win out culturally
  1. Shang – most isolated – Huange He valley – Yellow River – “China’s Sorrow”
  1. Culture
1.Isolated by deserts, mountains, and seas – unpredictable flooding
  • Still some trade w/ Southwest Asia and South Asia
2.Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 left written records)
  • Knowledge of bronze metallurgy – from Southwest Asia
  • Strengthened Shang war machine
  • 1000 BCE Ironworking
  • Fortune telling and ancestor worship started here
3.Palaces/tombs built for emperors
4.Writing – oracle bones
  • Oracle scratch person’s question on bone/shell – heat it
  • Resulting cracks read to learn message from gods
5.myth of Xia dynasty
  1. State
1.Dynasties
2.Central rule to oversee irrigation/flood-control projects
3.Walled cities – center of cultural, military, economic – set precedent in villages
4.Zhou replaced Shang – “mandate of heaven” – if leader governed wisely and fairly, he could claim right to divine rule
  • Warrior aristocracy
  • fought northern/western neighbors – barbarians – expanded empire
5.Tradition of central authority
6.Began as small agricultural cities along Yellow River
  1. Social Structure
1.Stratified – ruling elites, artisans, peasants, slaves
2.Patriarchal – father needs to know children are his
  • Subservient
  • multiple marriages
  • preference for sons - infanticide
3.ancestor worship
4.Matrilineal society before Shang
  1. Mesoamerica and Andean South America
  1. Culture
1.lacked knowledge of wheel
2.Olmecs/Maya – pyramids/temples
3.Polytheistic
4.Cultural diffusion – maize, terraced pyramids
  • Calendars
  • Ball game on a court
  • Quetzalcoatl – god who would return to rule world in peace
5.Mayan reached height in 300 CE
  • system of writing – pictographs
  • value of zero
  • astronomy – predicted eclipses
  • length of year within a few seconds
  1. State
1.small city-states – ruled by kings – fought against each other
  • Prisoners of war – slaves/sacrifices to gods
2.lack of pack animals/geography prevented communication
3.Inhabitants cooperated for irrigation systems
4.Rugged terrain of Andes prevented central gov’t from organizing
  1. Social structure
1.Elite class of rulers/priests vs. commoners and slaves
  1. Geography – not in valleys of major rivers
1.smaller rivers/streams near oceans
2.no large animals/beasts of burden – llama biggest animal – human labor
(Students should be able to compare two of the early civilizations above.)
Topic 4 / Classical civilizations - China, India, and the Mediterranean
Classical Civilizations – those with lasting influence over vast numbers
Political Developments
Major themes
  • Recurrent invasions from people from North
  • Flooding a problem – how to control rivers
  1. China
  1. Zhou – 1027-771 BCE replaced Shang – mandate of heaven – rationalization
  1. Expanded territory – added southern rice valley
  2. further centralized gov’t
  3. Feudal system
  • Too large to control
  • Developed bureaucracies – bureaus - departments
  • Worked for couple centuries
  • But nobles build up wealth/power
  • Split off into individual kingdoms
  • Nobles given power over small regions
  • King gave noble protection for loyalty
  • Emperors lived lives of luxury
  1. Standardized language
  2. Classical age
  3. Hundreds Schools of Thought
  • Philosophers – practical and metaphysical
  • Wanted to see political reform
  1. Longest lasting dynasty
  2. Mandate of Heaven
  • Power as long as gods allowed
  • Corruption/military defeat weakened a ruler > gods no longer in favor
  1. Lasted until 500 BCE when internal conflict – Era of Warring States
  1. Qin – after Era of the Warring States – 221-202 BCE
  2. Shi Huangdi – “First Emperor” > dictatorial
  3. name applied to country
  4. Unified country by conquering warring feudal states
  5. Abolished feudalism
  6. Instituted centralized gov’t that would be model
  7. one of briefest dynasties
  8. Major precedents
  9. Strong emperor
  10. Large Bureaucracy
  11. Expanded territory to Vietnam
  12. Defensive wall – Great Wall
  13. Shows empire well organized, centralized, brutal
  14. Weights, measures, coinage standardized
  15. Silk cloth encouraged
  16. Established uniform laws
  17. Legalism – state sponsored alternative to Confucianism/Taoism
  18. People are basically evil – must be kept in line w/ strict laws
  19. Rule cruel/autocratic
  20. Refused to tolerate any dissent
  21. Dissent in book > burned
  22. Dissent in scholar > killed
  23. Heavy taxes for peasants
  24. Overburdened peasants revolted and overthrew in 207 BCE
  25. Han – 200 BCE – 220 CE
  26. Governmental bureaucracy grew stronger
  27. Effective administration, postal service, tax-collecting
  28. Territory expanded to Central Asia, Korea, Indochina
  29. Under Emperor Wu (140-87 BCE) expanded furthest
  30. Wu Ti = Warrior Emperor
  31. Chinese civil service exam
  32. Excellent communicators/highly educated
  33. Test lasted for days
  34. Open to everyone, but only wealthy could afford to prepare
  35. Bureaucracy highly skilled
  36. Time of peace settled across China
  37. Threat of Huns not as significant as in Europe
  38. Government