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81 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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historians study...
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civilizations
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__% civilizations
__% cultures |
15, 85
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why do we study civilizations?
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To answer the question: The things that we have today, that we value, how did we get them?
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Culture def.
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the sum total of any group's political, economic, social, intellectual activities no matter how fundamental or advanced these activities might be
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political activities ex.
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who are the leaders?
what are the written or unwritten rules/laws? What is the established relationship between leaders and followers? |
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economic activities ex.
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Is there a barter system?
What goods do they produce or labor over? What goods do they trade? What type of infrastructure do they have? |
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social activities ex.
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What are the social institutions or structures?
Is there a social hierarchy? What is the typical family? Is there a class system? |
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intellectual activities ex.
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NOT NECESSARY TO SURVIVAL
Is there religion? philosophy? What are the arts? folklore, sculpture, origin story, oral literature, plays... |
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Homo sapiens:
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1. Brain=rational thought
2. flexible vertebrae=move easily, more possible tasks 3. thumb=toolmakers |
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What is the key to civilization?
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ENVIRONMENTAL ADVANTAGE
NOT smarter homo sapiens |
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What is the process that incurs from an environmental advantage?
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environmental advantage -->
surplus--> risk-taking/experimentation--> acquire knowledge--> surplus--> risk taking , etc |
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civilization def
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a group of people who have evolved complex political, economic, social, and intellectual activities because they enjoy the benefits of an unusually advantageous environment.
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Types of Surplus
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1. Surplus of Raw Materials
2. Surplus of Labor 3. Surplus of Time |
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What is a surplus of raw materials
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ex. gold, oil, fertile land, allows for trade, risks, etc
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What is a surplus of Labor
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two steps:
1. specialization of labor- enough people to have different jobs --> people do their jobs better 2. intellectual activities- creative individuals have the opportunity to focus on their gifts because they do not need to farm, gather food, etc. because there is already enough people for that |
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What is a surplus of Time
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allowing the average member of the civilization to access the intellectual activities made by those creative individuals
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Environmental Saturation
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When a civilization pushes the environmental advantage to the extreme through more tools to gain a higher yield and more surplus they eventually reach **the point at which the environmental advantage is used to its fullest**
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Golden Age
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At environmental saturation, the civilization does not need any more farmers or people who work on food, clothing, shelter ---->>>>they have an explosion of creative and intellectual works, writing, art, etc
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Hallmarks of a civilization
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measures the degree of complexity in a group
1. surplus 2. sedentary 3. literate 4. great influence beyond their borders |
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hallmarks: surplus
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the environmental advantage provides more raw materials, labor, time than needed to survive
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subsistence level
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produce only enough food, clothing, shelter to break even over a course of a generation (15-20 years) period
-know what modest potential their environment carries, they understand their circumstance but the return on their investment is so small that they only break even |
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hallmarks: sedentary
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people who have control of an established piece of real estate
-nothing to do with mobility |
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migratory
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people who do not control land, have borders, or a fixed piece of real estate
-migrate across no man's land- land that had never been claimed -the further back you go into history the more migratory groups you will find |
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literacy
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a group is literate when they have a uniform system of written records
-not every member is literate -not have an alphabet |
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why do civilizations become literate?
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they are forced because they have such surplus that eventually they have too much knowledge to retrieve it--> make written records
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great influence beyond borders
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their knowledge spreads to other societies
civilizations --> cultures |
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Types of Environmental Advantage
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1. Rich land/ Good Earth -90% of the time
2. Crossroads of trade to have both is very rare |
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4 things in each civilization
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1. assign dates
2. locate on modern map 3. environmental advantage 4. civilizing activities |
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Ancient Egypt dates
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4800 BC-500 BC
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Ancient Egypt map
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3rd River bend from the North along the Nile floodplain
50miles x 40miles (20 miles east and west of river) |
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Environmental Advantage
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SILT!
3rd most fertile soil of all history every late march-early april heavy seasonal rains cause river to overflow 20 mi east and west |
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Why is this a floodplain?
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The floodplain is the deepest point in the river along the entire river -->
The speed increases when it drops elevation and decreases when it climbs back up, but the speed increases faster than the water can get out of that area |
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Civilizing Activities
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Increased floodplain (irrigation systems)
basic principles -engineering, math, geometry, physics Domesticated the Ox Invented the first plow Staple-Oats Hieroglyphics Crop Rotation Pyramids |
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Increasing floodplain-
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3900BC- began a series of elaborate irrigation systems
-canals, aqueducts, levies, dams, reservoirs -20% workforce --> caused floodplain to double 50x80 |
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Why did Egyptians increase the floodplain?
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suffered from overpopulation
-too many mouths to feed -would have regressed to subsistence level |
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Basic principles of math, engineering, physics, and geometry
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founded through the project to increase floodplain
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Natural vegetation
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vegetation that naturally occurs and is never planted by humans
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cultigens
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when a plant becomes genetically altered through generations and domesticated when humans purposefully planted them to control their locations
--become more nutritious --cannot survive without human interference |
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What are the two cultigens of Egypt
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Oats and Cotton
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Staple
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of all the cultigens, this is the one that has the least number of risks and increases probability to have a harvest --> grow the most of
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Global staple
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a crop that can grow in a very wide range of different ecological systems
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What are the six global staples
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oats
wheat rye barley rice maize |
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Wild life
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naturally occurring animals
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domesticated
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part of a species that have been brought under human control, genetically altered and better serve the purpose of humans as need, become human dependent
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Egypt's domesticated animal:
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OX-for muscle power in the field they bred their own oxen
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Invented the plow
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-traveled to Lebanon to get wood with oxen and surplus of labor
-used the plow to furrow the land -the wood preserved well because of the dry climate and soft soil |
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evolution of egyptian farming
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before plow: 80% population needed to farm
after plow: 50% population needed to farm after plow+oxen: 30% population needed to farm |
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crop rotation
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2700 BC mastered crop rotation
through blind experimentation they found which crops work to switch each planting season -took place beyond floodplain where there wasn't silt |
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hieroglyphics
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wrote with pictures
-only nouns, no verbs-->subject to interpretation -3-5% literate -people wrote to people in their same activities--> established sets and combos that had specific meanings -used papyrus + inks extract from rocks + blocks of wood as stamps |
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pyramids
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took centuries to build
tomb for pharaoh directly connected the pyramid to their environmental advantage fable of osiris, seth, and isis |
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Mesopotamia time
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5200 BC-300BC
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Mesopotamia map
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60miles between Tigris and Euphrates rivers
Plain of Shinar |
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Environmental Advantage
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SILT
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Plain of Shinar
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Floodplain between Tigris and Euphrates
along natural corridor of migration for IndoEuropean groups no naturally defendable borders |
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4 groups of Mesopotamia
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1. Sumerians
2. Akkadians 3. Babylonians 4. Hittites |
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When were the Sumerians in control of the plain of Shinar?
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4000 BC
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When were the Akkadians in control of the plain of Shinar?
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2350 BC
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When were the Babylonians in control of the plain of Shinar?
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2100 BC
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When were the Hittites in control of the plain of Shinar?
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1900 BC
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Collective Contributions in Mesopotamia
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3 global staples -Wheat, Rye, Barley
introduced iron + iron metallurgy domesticated the cow Cuniform writing system |
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Global Staples of Mesopotamia
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Wheat, Rye, Barley
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Iron Metallurgy
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moved the world into the Iron age
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Cuniform
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similar to hieroglyphics,
carved symbols in wooden blocks and pressed into clay tablets |
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Sumerians' main contributions are:
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government and architecture
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Sumerian Government:
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City-state government -1st ever
60 different city-states easy to expand mound cities |
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Sumerian Architecture:
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The home of an average person= ziggurat.
Mound cities- circle cities on a hill -invaders had to run up the hill, everyone inside the circular towers |
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Ziggurat
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5-7 story building
1 family per floor 5-7 cylinders stacked on top of the other outdoor staircase |
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Akkadians contributions:
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Government, and Empire
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Akkadian Government
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gave world its fundamental structure- specialization of government- 3 types of work
1. legislative 2. judicial 3. executive Did not do this to separate power, only to make each person to one thing to make them do the best job |
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Legislative
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people or group who make laws
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judicial
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the ability to pick the greater good when two laws come into conflict -interpret laws
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executive
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carries out laws and judicial decisions
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Worlds First Empire:
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Akkadians traveled eastward and conquered land on Indian and Chinese Border--> spread their knowledge to other cultures plus the knowledge they had already gained from other civilizations
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Empire
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when government conquers geographically distant and culturally different people
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Babylonians contributions
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codify law
math&science |
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Babylonian King
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Hammurabi
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Codify Law
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to make the law uniformly predictable
people have instinctive sense of what's allowed/not allowed in their culture |
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Math & Science contributions of Babylonians
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used 6 as their base #
--> 24 hours, 360 degrees, etc formed rudiments of astronomy -built tall narrow towers to look at the stars -->found out earth orbited the sun -->named 5 planets of the solar system and drew them in proportion to each other and the sun --> draw maps of stars they could see --> calculated the length of the year-365 days (6 hours off) |
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Hittites Contributions:
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military science
perfected iron metallurgy |
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Hittites military science
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-uniforms
-ranks -uniform weapons- so that you knew how to use any weapon that you picked up in battle -specialty training |
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Hittites iron metallurgy
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made the purest iron in the ancient world (durable/flexible)
first application was for military weapons spread to better farming tools |
