Download Social Structure - Miami Beach Senior High School

The First
Civilizations
John Ermer
AP World History
Miami Beach Senior High School
Prehistory
 Paleolithic Age (c 1,800,000 B.C.E.- c 8,000 B.C.E.)

Nomadic Hunter-Gatherers

Fire, bone tools, animal skin, stonework
 Neolithic Age (c 8,000 B.C.E.-c 3,000 B.C.E.)

Agricultural Revolutions
 Systematic Agriculture
 Domesticated Animals

Land Ownership by Clan
 Long lines of patrilineal or matrilineal kinship
 Reverence for ancestors—afterlife?
 Civilization

Six General Characteristics
 Cities, Religion, Social Structure, Government, Writing, & Art
River Valley Civilizations
Mesopotamia
• The Fertile Crescent
• Tigris and Euphrates rivers
•
•
“Mesopotamia” Land Between Two Rivers
Unpredictable Floods
• The Sumerians
• First urban dwellers; Ur, Eridu, Uruk
•
Cuneiform Writing
• The Akkadians
•
•
Semitic language
First Empire
Mesopotamian Society


City-States

Sun-dried brick city walls

Irrigation networks

Government

Sumerian lugal

Theocracy and Monarchy
Empire Building

Sargon of Akkad


Hammurabi of Babylon



builds first empire, dominates neighbors
Code of Laws
Social Structure

1. Free Landowning Class 2. Farmers and Artisans
3. Slaves

Patriarchal Society (males dominate politics; women retained control of dowry, owned property, engage in trade)
Religion

Polytheistic, nature based anthropomorphic gods and goddesses

ziggurat
The Nile River Valley (Egypt)
 The Nile River Valley & Delta
 “The Gift of the Nile”=Floods
 The Black Land
 The Red Land
 Natural Defenses & Resources
 The Three Kingdoms
 Old Kingdom
 Middle Kingdom
 New Kingdom
Egyptian Civilization
 Government
 Capital cities: Memphis (Old Kingdom), Thebes (Middle &
New Kingdoms with Memphis at times)
 Divine Kingship—maintaining ma’at
 Pharaohs as gods—sons of Re
 Pharaohs vs. the Bureaucracy
 Writing
 Papyrus and Hieroglyphics
 Urban Administrative Capital & Farming Villages
 Less urban than Mesopotamia, more dependent of agriculture
 Canal Building and Land Surveying
Egyptian Society
 Social Structure

Multi-racial society

Upper Class: Royals and high gov’t officials

Middle Class: Priests, lower level officials, scribes, artisans, large land
owners, and local leaders

Lower Class: Peasants

Women=subordinate
 Property ownership, divorce, significant influence over men in private
 Religion

Cycles of Renewal

Polytheistic, anthropomorphic gods and goddesses
 Mummification and the Afterlife
 Medical expertise
 Domination of economic wealth
The Indus River Valley
Indus Societies
 Several hundred urban centers along river valley
 Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
 Dravidians replaced, pushed south by Indo-Europeans
 Cities
 Walled with rectangular road grids
 Citadels
 Metal work more common than in Mesopotamia and Egypt
 Ecological change and systemic failure bring Indus civilization
down around 1900 BCE