WORLD HISTORY I CHAPTER OUTLINES
Chapter 1: TOWARD CIVILIZATION
A. UNDERSTANDING OUR PAST
1. PREHISTORY refers to the period of time before people invented a system of writing.
a. About 5,000 years ago people in different parts of the world began to keep written
records.
-This event marks the beginning of recorded history.
2. ARCHEOLOGISTS are scientists who find and analyze the physical remains left by early
people.
a. ARTIFACTS are objects made by human beings
Examples would be tools, weapons, clothing, jewelry, etc.
3. ANTHROPOLOGY is the study of humans and the societies they create.
4. TECHNOLOGY refers to the skills and tools people use to meet their basic needs.
5. GEOGRAPHY is the study of people, their environments and the resources available to
them.
6. There are 5 THEMES of Geography.
a. LOCATION – where a place is one the surface of the Earth.
LATITUDE measures the distance North or South of the Equator.
LONGITUDE measures the distance East or West of the Prime Meridian.
It is like saying that West Catholic High School is at 45th Street and Chestnut Street.
b. PLACE – is described in terms of their physical features and human characteristics.
In other words at the Shore, up the mountains, near the lake, by the forest, etc…
c. HUMAN – ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION – how the environment has shaped man
and how man has shaped his environment.
In Northern countries where there is a lot of snow and cold, people tend to be blond and
light skinned.
In countries closer to the Equator, people tend to have curly hair and darker skin.
Man has shaped the environment by cutting down forests and making farms; blocking
rivers and making lakes; by building cities, etc…
d. MOVEMENT - The movement of people, goods and ideas.
In earlier times, man followed herds of wild animals.
Now people migrate from one part of the world to another.
e. REGION. The world in divided into many different kids of regions.
In the United States for example, there is the West Coast, the South, The Northeast, etc…
B. THE DAWN OF HISTORY.
1. Historians, people who study history, call the earliest period of human history the OLD
STONE AGE or the PALEOLITHIC AGE.
2. It is believed that earliest people lived in East Africa.
a. Their descendants migrated (moved) north and east into Europe and Asia. Later
reaching America, Australia and the islands of the Pacific.
Is this absolute fact? NO. IT IS THE BEST THEORY WE HAVE SO FAR.
3. Paleolithic people lived in small hunting groups of about 20 to 30 people.
a. They were NOMADS, moving from place to place following animals and ripening
fruit.
b. They depended COMPLETELY on their environment for survival.
c. They adapted to their surroundings and at SOME point developed a spoken language.
4. Prehistoric people faced severe challenges from the environment.
During several Ice Ages, GLACIERS, or thick sheets of ice spread across parts of Asia,
Europe, and North America.
How would people have learned to adapt to this change?
What kinds of things, new technologies would they have had to learn?
5. About 30,000 years ago people began to leave evidence of their belief in a spirit world and
an after life.
What kinds of evidence are they talking about?
How can they prove what people thought 30,000 years ago?
6. About 11,000 years ago nomadic hunters learned to farm.
a. This change, from nomadic hunter to settled farmer ushered in the NEW STONE AGE
or the NEOLITHIC AGE.
No one knows exactly How or When people began to plant seeds.
b. THE NEOLITHIC AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION ENABLED PEOPLE TO
BECOME FOOD PRODUCERS FOR THE FIRST TIME.
c. This led to a growth in population (WHY?), which led to more interaction among
human communities (WHY?).
d. They had to develop a new range of skills and tools.
7. By 5,000 years ago a new stage of development, farming communities, led to the
emergence of civilization.
C. BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION
There are 8 features to civilization:
1. Cities 5. Social classes
2. Well organized central governments 6. Arts and Architecture
3. Complex religions 7. Public works
4. Job specialization 8. Writing
1. The central feature of civilization was the rise of cities.
a. As population grew some villages swelled into cities.
2. As cities grew, they needed to maintain a steady food supply, to produce large
amounts of food and oversee irrigation projects, new forms of government arose.
a. At first priests, probably had the greatest power, but in time warrior kings emerged
as the chief power.
b. They almost always claimed the right to rule came from the gods, thereby claiming
religious power also.
c. Over time, BUREAUCRACIES, a system of managing government through
departments run by appointed officials, evolved.
3. Most ancient people were POLYTHEISTIC, that is they believed in many gods.
What does MONOTHEISTIC mean?
4. City dwellers developed so many new crafts that one person could no longer master all
the skills needed to make tools, weapons, or other goods.
a. Some became skilled ARTISANS, or skilled craftworkers.
What are some skills needed for city life?
5. People were ranked according to their jobs and such ranking led to the growth of social
classes.
6. Temples and palaces reassured the people of the strength and power of their government
and religion.
7. Strong rulers ordered vast public works to be built such as irrigation systems, roads,
bridges, and defensive walls.
8. Early writing was made up of PICTOGRAMS, or simple drawings to show the words
represented.
a. In time symbols were added to stand for sounds or ideas not easily expressed in
pictures.
b. As writing grew more complex, only specially trained people called SCRIBES
learned to read and write.
Scribes were educated in temple schools and kept records for priests, rulers and
merchants.
9. As rulers gained more power they conquered territories beyond their cities. This led to the
rise of CITY – STATES.
a. A city-state is a political unit that include the city and the surrounding lands and
villages.
10. Sometimes rulers conquered many cities and villages creating the first EMPIRES.
a. An empire is a group of states or territories controlled by one ruler.
11. ALL SOCIETIES AND CIVILIZATIONS CHANGE.
a. Among the chief causes of change were shifts in the physical environment and
interactions among people.
Why?
b. CULTURAL DIFFUSION is the spread of ideas, customs and chronologies from one
people to another.
Important to note here, not from one person to another, from one people to another.
c. Three causes of cultural diffusion are migration, trade and warfare.
Explain how or why each of these would cause cultural diffusion.
Chapter 2: FIRST CIVILIZATION
A. Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile
1. “Egypt is wholly a gift of the Nile”
a. What does this means?
b. Yearly floods would overflow the banks of the Nile and deposit silt, a rich soil, across
the land that made farming possible
c. BLACK LANDS refers to the rich, irrigated, farm lands that generally stretched no
more than 10 miles from the Nile.
d. RED LANDS refers to the sun baked desert that stretches across North Africa.
e. The desert protected Egypt from invasion, but it also limited where people could settle.
2. Ancient Egypt had two distinct regions; UPPER Egypt in the South and LOWER
Egypt in the North.
a. A CATARACT is a waterfall or series of rapids.
b. A DELTA is a triangular area of marshland formed deposits of silt at the mouth of
some rivers.
c. A DYNASTY is a ruling family that passes power from one generation to another.
3. About 3,100 B. C., MENES, the king of Upper Egypt united the two regions.
a. He and his successors used the river as a highway sending armies and trade up and
down the Nile, thus helping to unify the two regions.
b. Egypt was the world’s first unified state.
4. Ancient Egypt is divided into three main periods:
a. The Old Kingdom (2700 B.C. – 2200 B.C.)
b. The Middle Kingdom (2050 B.C. – 1800 B.C.)
c. The New Kingdom (1550 B.C. – 1100 B.C.)
5. During the Old Kingdom, Egyptian rulers, called PHARAOHS, believed they were gods,
controlled Egypt.
a. They relied on Viziers, chief minister who supervised the work of the government.
b. The Old Kingdom is called the AGE OF THE PYRAMINDS, because it is only at this
time that pyramids were built.
c. Pyramids were tombs to preserve the Pharaohs for the afterlife.
d. Power struggles, crop failures and building of the pyramids contributed to the collapse
of the Old Kingdom.
6. The Middle Kingdom finally arose and was a turbulent time.
a. In 1700 B. C., the HYKSOS, invaded and ruled Egypt.
b. They had bronze weapons and horse drawn war chariots. The Egyptians could not
compete.
c. The Hyksos ruled Egypt for about 100 years. In that time they taught the Egyptians
how to make bronze. The Egyptians taught the Hyksos about their beliefs and customs.
d. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF CULTURAL DIFFUSION.
e. The Egyptians took this knowledge and drove the Hyksos out of Egypt. This marks the
beginning of the New Kingdom.
7. During the New Kingdom, powerful pharaohs created a large empire.
a. QUEEN HATSHEPSUT, wife of a pharaoh and daughter of a pharaoh, was the only
woman to rule Egypt as a pharaoh herself.
b. RAMSES II, pharaoh who allowed Moses to take the Israelites out of Egypt, won many
great military victories.
c. He signed the first known peace treaty, with the HITTITES.
d. After Ramses II’s death, Egypt’s power declined.
8. As Egypt declined, NUBIA once controlled by Egypt, regained its independence and in
about 750 B.C. marched north and conquered Egypt.
a. About 650 B.C., ASSYRIANS pushed the Nubians out of Egypt and back to their
homelands.
B. EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION
1. The chief god of ancient Egypt was the sun god, AMON – RE.
a. It was believed that the pharaohs were actually living gods linked to Amon-Re
b. Other gods included OSIRIS, lord of the dead and the Nile; his wife, ISIS, their son,
HORUS, and the evil god SET
2. Egyptians believed the afterlife would be like life here on Earth, so they buried their dead
with everything they would need for eternity.
a. They developed MUMMIFICATION, a process to preserve the body so it could be
used in the afterlife.
3. About 1380, b. c. a young pharaoh took the name AHKENATON, which means “he who
serves Aton”.
a. He tried to replace Amon-Re as chief god with belief in one god Aton. (Monotheism)
b. Priests resisted this change. WHY???
c. After Ahkenaton’s death, the priests reasserted the supremacy of Amon-Re.
4. Women generally enjoyed higher status and greater independence than women elsewhere
in the ancient world.
a. They could not become scribes or hold government jobs.
5. Egyptians developed a form of picture writing called HIEROGLYPHICS.
a. Over time scribes developed DEMOTICS, a simpler form of writing for everyday use.
C. CITY STATES OF ANCIENT SUMER
1. The FERTILE CRESCENT is an arc of land from the Persian Gulf to the eastern
Mediterranean coast.
2. The first known civilization in the Fertile Crescent was in Mesopotamia.
a. MESOPOTAMIA means land between the rivers in Greek
b. The two rivers were the TIGRIS and the EUPHRATES.
c. More than 5,000 years ago busy cities began to emerge in the southern part of
Mesopotamia. This is SUMER.
d. Sumerian civilization emerged as the first of many to succeed in the Fertile Crescent.
3. The Sumerians made remarkable progress with limited natural resources.
a. They lacked timber or stone so they built with earth and water.
b. They made bricks of clay, shaped in wooden molds and dried in the sun.
c. Their cities were often rectangular in shaped, surrounded by high, wide walls.
d. Their largest cities were called ZIGGURATS, pyramid like temples.
e. Their sloping sides had TERRACES, or wide steps.
f. On the top of the ziggurat stood a shrine to the chief god or goddess of the city.
g. The wheel had been invented by some unknown civilization, but the Sumerians
made the first wheeled vehicles.
5. Sumer included many independent city-states, unlike Egypt which was one united country.
a. City states often battled each other for control of land and water.
b. People turned to war leaders, who over time evolved into hereditary rulers.
6. Like most ancient people, Sumerians were polytheistic.
a. They believed their gods controlled every aspect of their lives.
b. To a Sumerian the highest duty was to keep the gods happy thereby ensuring the safety
of their city-state.
c. They believed in an afterlife which was a dark place where they ate dirt and from
which there was no escape.
THIS IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE EGYPTIAN AFTERLIFE. WHY???
7. The Sumerians invented the first form of writing known as CUNEIFORM.
8. Eventually armies of conquering peoples swept across Mesopotamia and
overwhelmed the Sumerian city-states
a. These new comers adapted cuneiform to their own languages and helped to
spread Sumerian learning across the Middle East.
D. INVADERS, TRADERS AND EMPIRE BUILDERS
1. Invasion and conquest were prominent features in the history of the ancient Middle East.
2. In about 2300 B. C. SARGON, the ruler of AKKAD invaded and conquered the city-states
of Sumer.
a. He built the first empire known to history.
b. It did not last. Soon after his death other invaders crushed his empire into ruin.
3. About 1790 B. C., HAMMURABI, King of Babylon, brought much of Mesopotamia
under his rule.
a. He is known for a set of laws known as the CODE OF HAMMURABI.
-HE WAS NOT THE AUTHOR OF THIS CODE. HE WAS THE FIRST ONE
TO HAVE THEM WRITTEN DOWN.
b. He had the 300 laws carved on stone pillars for all to see.
It listed both criminal laws and CIVIL laws, dealing with private rights and matters.