Download The First Civilizations

The First
Civilizations
Think about the
Big Picture
• You need to
understand why the
development of more
stable civilizations
was so significant, and
the best way to do this
is to learn what came
before them.
Nomads: Follow the Food
• Sole purpose was to
satisfy their basic
needs: food and
shelter
• No advanced tools
• Followed food
• Found shelter
Foraging Societies: Hunt and
Gather
• Composed of small groups
of people who traveled
from point to point as the
climate and availability of
plants and animals
dictated.
• Climate changes, natural
disasters, disease, famine,
and natural disasters could
endanger or eliminate
societies.
Foraging Societies: Hunt and
Gather
• They did not build
permanent shelters and
only had a few
personal belongings.
• Think about how
much you can carry in
a backpack…
Pastoral Societies: Taming the
Animals
• Characterized by the
domestication of animals
• Found mainly in
mountainous regions
• Extended family was a
major institution
• Male dominated because
men controlled the bulk of
the food supply
Pastoral Societies: Taming the
Animals
• Women had very few
rights
• Stratification and social
structure were based on
the size of one’s herd
• They did not settle in
towns because they had to
continually search for new
grazing areas and water
for herds.
Pastoral Societies: Taming the
Animals
• As they domesticated
more and more
animals, they also
began to experiment
with securing a more
dependable food
supply through the
cultivation of plants.
This led to the…
Settling Down:
The Neolithic Revolution
Agricultural Societies: This is
My Land
• 8000 B.C.E. to 3000
B.C.E.
• People still lived in
relatively small
independent groups or
communities
Agricultural Societies: This is
My Land
• What changed?
– People figured out how to
cultivate plants (needed good
soil and water supply)
– Domestication of animals
(pastoral societies)
– Simple tools
– Started cultural traditions
– Started to think of property in
terms of ownership
The Spread of Agriculture
Think about the
Big Picture
• Nomadic versus Agricultural Societies
– When you are moving around a lot, the land
belongs to everyone but if you start to stay on land
for generations it becomes your home. If someone
else comes and drinks your water or your hill than
they are looked upon as intruders or invaders, not
neighbors. Once nomads started to interact with
sedimentary societies through trade and conflict,
things started to get complicated.
Important Consequence of
Agriculture: A Food Surplus
• Individualized labor becomes specialized (if
everyone has to farm a civilization won’t develop)
• More complex
– Organized economies
– Governmental structures
– Religious organizations
• Suddenly the society becomes a
civilization
Technology: Metal Workers
Deserve Medals
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Granite was sharpened to form farming tools
Pottery was used for cooking
Weaving for clothing, baskets, and nets
Wheels for carts and sails for boats
Tools and weapons made of bronze (figured out
how to combined copper with tin to create harder
metal)
The Transformation…
• An unprecedented population explosion
due to the increase in the food supply
• Permanent settlement in villages and,
later, in cities
• The specialization of labor, which led to
the development of craft industries and
other professions
• The opportunity to accumulate wealth
and the resulting emergence of social
class differences
• The development of fertility-based
religions and the increasing elaboration
of religious institutions
The Big, Early Civilizations: The
Rivers Deliver
• Major early
civilizations developed
became dominate
around 3000 to 2000
B.C.E.
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–
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Mesopotamia
Egypt
India
China
Americas
Mesopotamia: Lots of Water
• Means: Land between Rivers”; Tigris and
Euphrates
• Series of ancient Civilizations: Sumer, Babylon,
and Persia
• Flooding was unpredictable so they learned to
build canals and dikes
• By 3000 B.C.E. Ur, Erech, and Kish were
all major civilizations of Sumer
Sumer: First Major Mesopotamia
Civilization
• Development of the
writing known as
cuneiform
– Laws, treaties, important
social religious customs
– Spread all over trade routes
• Development 12 month
calendar and math system
based on units of 60
• Arches and columns
More Sumer
• Polytheistic: each citystate had it’s own god that
was worshiped by it’s own
people
• Temples: ziggurats, which
were kind of like pyramids
to appease their gods
• By 1700 B.C.E. the
civilization had been
completely overthrown
From Sumer to Babylon
• As Sumer declined, the
city of Akkad rose to
dominated the region
• First known code of laws
(wrote in cuneiform- from
Sumerians)
• By 1700 Akkad was
overthrown by Babylon
• King Hammurabi
expanded on the code that
dealt with daily life
Babylon to Nineveh
• Code of Hammurabi
created a significant
step towards are
modern legal system
• Babylon quickly fell
due to the invasions of
the Kassities and then
the Hittites
• Hittites dominated the
region because of iron
Babylon to Nineveh
• Within a hundred years
the Assyrians learned to
use iron and defeated the
Hittites to establish the
capital of Nineveh
• Built a highly disciplined
but cruel empire in the
Fertile Crescent
• Hated by those it
conquered and sent many
groups into exile….. a
result was cultural
diffusion
Nineveh to Babylon
• In a few hundred years the
Assyrians were defeated
by the Medes and
Chaldeans
• The Chaldean king,
Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt
Babylon
• Babylon was doomed to
fall and a new civilization,
the Persian Empire
developed
Think about the
Big Picture
Continuity through Change Essay
• As civilizations were conquered, their cultural
heritage, religions, laws, and customs, and
technologies were rarely lost
• Commonly, conquering civilizations adopted and
adapted customs and technologies of those defeated
(Code of Hammurabi and iron)
Persian Immersion
• REALLY Big EmpireHUGE!
• To improve transportation
and communication across
the empire they built
series of long roads… The
Great Royal Roads (1,600
miles from Persian Gulf to
Aegean Sea)
Lydians, Phoenicians, and
Hebrews
• Within the Persian Empire smaller societies existed
• Lydians: coined money to conduct trade rather than
the barter system
– Allowed people to save money
• Phoenicians: established powerful naval city-states
along the Mediterranean and developed the 22 letter
alphabet system
• Hebrews: Judaism (monotheistic)
Walk Like an Egyptian
• Egyptian Civilizations
developed along the Nile
River
• Nile flooding was
predictable and they were
able to develop a
sustainable food source
• Three major Kingdoms:
Old, Middle and New
Egyptian Achievements
• The entire river valley was united under King Menes
who built the capital Memphis
– Led efforts to build drainage and irrigation systems
• Rulers known as Pharaohs directed construction of
obelisks and pyramids (tombs for the afterlife)
• Hieroglyphic systems to communicate
• Created reliable calendar
• Trade had an enormous impact on the Egyptians
because it brought them into contact with other
civilizations (timber, stone, gold, and spices)
You Can Take it with You
• Polytheistic
• Focus on life after
death- the afterlife
• Take earthly
belonging with you to
the afterlife
• Needed your bodyinvention of
mummification
Egyptian Women, Hear Them
Roar
• Queen Hatshepsut ruler for 22 years during the
New Kingdom
• Women were expected to be subservient to men
• Young girls were not educated as nearly as well
as young boys
• Egyptian women had more rights than their
counterparts in Mesopotamia
– Buy and sell property
– Inherit property
– Choose to will their property as they pleased
Egyptian Social Structure:
Another Pyramid
Ancient Egypt in Decline
• By 1100 B.C.E. Egypt
fell into decline
– Both the Assyrian
Empire and Persian
Empire conquered
parts of the empire
– Later the Greeks, then
Romans completely
absorbed Egypt into
their Empire
Think about the
Big Picture
Compare and Contrast
Mesopotamia and Egypt