Download Must Know Terms 8000 B.C. – 6000 A.D Agricultural Revolution

Must Know Terms
8000 B.C. – 6000 A.D
Agricultural Revolution: The change from food gathering to food production that occurred
between 8000 B.C. – 2000 B.C. Also known as the Neolithic revolution.
Aristocracy: A noble or privileged class who are the most powerful members of society who
normally hold hereditary titles of power.
Barbarian: A member of an uncivilized, savage, primitive people. Also a term that the Romans
adopted to refer to any people who did not adopt the Roman way of life.
Bureaucracy: form of government which is conducted by officials, who are specially trained for
certain services. Those officers control the policy of the government and are responsible only to
their chief’s superiors and not to the public.
Cuneiform: A system of writing in which wedge shaped symbols represented words or syllables.
It originated in Mesopotamia and was used initially for Sumerian and Akkadian but was later
adopted to represent other languages of western Asia. Because so many symbols had to be
learned, literacy was confined to a relatively small group of administrators and scribes.
City State: A small independent state consisting of an urban center and the surrounding
agricultural territory. A characteristic politically form in early Mesopotamia, Archaic, and
Classical Greece, Phoenicia, and early Italy.
Civilization: An ambiguous term often used to denote more complex societies but also used by
anthropologists to describe any group of people who share a set a cultural traits.
Complex institutions:
Currency: Something of value in a society that is used for monetary means to replace trading
things such as food and other objects.
Deity: A supernatural being that may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred that is worshipped
in a certain society or faith and is often referred to as a God.
Democracy: A system of government in which all “citizens” (however defined) have equal
political and legal rights, privileges, and protections, as in the Greek city state of Athens in the
5th and 4th centuries.
Dharma: Laws and customs in Hinduism.
Diffusion:
Diversified Food Supply:
Domestication: The processes were a population of animals or plants though a process of
selection becomes accustomed to human provision and control.
Egalitarian: A person who believes in the equality and rights of all people.
Ethical/ Legal codes:
Frontier:
Hunters and Gatherers: People who support themselves by hunting wild animals and gathering
wild edible plants and insects.
Ice Age: Glacial period which occurred during the Pleistocene epoch
Intensive Cultivation: Intensive farming or intensive agriculture is an agricultural production
system characterized by the high inputs of capital, labor, or heavy usage of technologies such as
pesticides and chemical fertilizers relative to land area.
Irrigation Systems: The artificial application of water to the soil. It is used to assist in the
growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegitation of distributed soils
in dry areas or during periods of inadequate rainfall.
Karma: In Indian tradition, the residue of deeds performed in past and present lives that
adheres to a “spirit” and determines what form it will assume in its next life cycle. The doctrines
of karma and reincarnation were used by the elite in ancient India to encourage people to
accept their social positions and do their duty.
Mandate of Heaven: Chinese religious and political ideology developed by the Zhou, according
to which it was prerogative of heaven, the chief deity, to grant power to the ruler of China and
take away that power if the ruler failed to conduct himself properly and justly and in the best
interests of his subjects.
Monogamy: Being married to one person at a time.
Menes: An ancient Egyptian pharaoh who united the Upper and Lower regions of Egypt and
founded the 1st dynasty.
Pagan: A term used by people in certain religious faiths to describe people who do not follow a
faith or follow another faith. Also a term used to describe a believer in polytheism.
Pastoralism: The practice of herding livestock and moving your herd to wherever the water and
food is.
Patriarchy: Social order in which the father or man is of the highest order and is in total control
is society.
Polygamy: Practice of a man having more than one or many wives.
Record keeping: When a person who studies and writes about history writes things down for
future generations or when a scribe or government official writes down things in order to keep
track of things.
Secular: Not belonging to a religious order, faith, or church.
Sericulture: The raising and breeding of silkworms for the purpose of making textiles.
Settled populations:
Slavery: A system were people are the property of other people and normally captured and
held against their will and sold to owners or born into it. They are deprived of the right to
refuse to do work or demand pay.
Specialization of Labor:
Surplus: More than is needed, an extra amount. When there is more supply than demand.
Syncretism: To combine or merge various schools of thought or contrary beliefs like religion and
different cultures though comprising and taking some from each.
Textiles: Clothing or fabric
Theocracy: Government that is run by religious officials and priests that claim to be divinely
guided by a supreme god or deity.
600 B.C. – 600 A.D.
Ancestor veneration: The belief that the dead often family members or religious figures have a
continued existence and posses the ability to influence the living.
Animism: Belief that inhuman objects have a soul or spirit and everything in nature including
natural disasters and the weather.
Bodhisattva: A Buddhist who has obtained enlightenment but postpones his entry into nirvana
to help others achieve enlightenment as well.
Caste system: Consisted of 4 classes of also called Varna these classes included the Brahmin
who were the priest class the Kshatriya who were the warrior and administrator class the
Vaishya who were the merchant and farmer class and the Shudra who were the laborer class.
Classical:
Codification: The process of forming a systematic legal code by establishing laws and
jurisdictions normally by setting them out in a book or writing them down.
Daoism: Chinese school of thought, originating in the warring states period with Laozi. Daoism
offered an alternative to the Confucian emphasis on hierarchy and duty. Daoists believed that
the world is always changing and is devoid of absolute morality or meaning. They accept the
world as they find it, avoid futile struggles, and deviate as little as possible from the Dao, or
path of nature.
Diaspora: A Greek word meaning “dispersal” used to describe the communities of a given
ethnic group living outside their homeland. Jews for example spread from Israel to western Asia
and the Mediterranean lands in antiquity and today can be found throughout the world.
Filial piety: A person’s full devotion and obedience to ones parents and elders like in
Confucianism.
Hellenistic age: Historians term for the era usually dated 323-30 B.C. in which Greek culture
spread across western Asia and northeastern Africa after the conquests of Alexander the Great.
The period ended with the fall of the last major Hellenistic kingdom to Rome, but Greek cultural
influence persisted until the spread of Islam in the 17th century.
Edict of Milan: A letter signed by Emperor Constantine and Licinius(western emperor) that
proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman Empire it was issued it 313 A.D. shortly after the
conclusion of the Diocletianic Persecution.
Diocletianic Persecution: The last and most severe of the great persecution of Christians in the
Roman Empire. In 303 A.D. Emperor Diocletian and his colleges issued a series of edicts
rescinding the legal rights of Christians and demanding that they comply with traditional
religious practices, it is considered to have ended with the Edict of Milan.
Manifestations:
Merchants: A business man who trades in commodities that he did not produce himself in order
to make a profit.
Missionaries: Person sent from a religious organization to places around the world in an
attempt to convert the inhabitants to their religion and beliefs.
Monarchy: Form of government were one person has absolute authority over his subjects and
the government and makes all the decisions and rules for life normally passing over power to a
son or relative.
Monastery: A building that houses monks or nuns or religious figures and is reserved for prayer
for them and their religious followers.
Monsoon winds: Seasonal winds in the Indian Ocean caused by the differences in temperature
between the rapidly heating and cooling landmasses of Africa and Asia and the slowly changing
ocean waters. These strong and predictable winds have long been ridden by sailors across the
open sea, and the large amounts of rainfall that they deposit on parts on parts of Southeast
Asia, China, and India allow for cultivation of several crops a year.
Rajas: An Indian prince
Reincarnation: In Indian culture it is believed that when someone dies they are reborn into a
new body and that their actions in their previous life affect the quality of the life that they will
be born into.
Rents:
Republic: A state, especially a democratic state, which has a non-hereditary leader and
president distinguished from a state like Britain which has a hereditary leader.
Rituals: A ceremony or rite used in religion with any repeated or performed behavior according
to defined guidelines.
Sanskrit scriptures:
Scriptures: Sacred writings of the old and new testament of the bible or sacred texts that other
religions consider to be sacred or of central importance to their religious tradition.
Shamanism: The belief in supernatural forces that can heal illness or predict the future.
Sinicization:
Social Harmony:
Universal truths:
Must Know People:
Confucius: Chinese philosopher (551-479 B.C.). His doctrine of duty and public service had a
great influence on subsequent Chinese thought and served as a code of conduct for
government officials.
Laozi: Is considered to be the creator of Daoism the great rival of Confucianism and credited
with writing the foundational text of Daoism the “Classic of the Way of Virtue”
Socrates: Athenian philosopher (470-399 B.C.) who shifted the emphasis of philosophical
investigation from questions of natural science to ethics and humans behavior. He attracted
young disciples from elite families but made enemies by revealing the ignorance and
pretensions of others, culminating in his trial and execution by the Athenian state by being
forced to drink hemlock.
Plato: (428-347 B.C.) Student of Socrates who founded the School The Academy were young
men could go to pursue a higher course of education. He also became one of the first
philosophers to write down his thoughts and use the Socratic method of questioning to answer
questions.
Aristotle: (384-322 B.C.) The third of the great philosophers after Socrates and Plato who
trained at Plato’s academy and tutored Alexander the Great in Macedonia later returning to
Greece were he founded the school the Lyceum were he laid the foundation for modern
disciplines and sciences.
Alexander the Great: (356-323 B.C.) King of Macedonia in Northern Greece between 334 and
323 B.C. he conquered the Persian Empire, reached the Indus valley, founded many Greek style
cities, and spread Greek culture across the Middle East.
Ashoka: Third Ruler of the Mauryan Empire in India (273-232 B.C.) He converted to Buddhism
and broadcast his precepts on inscribed stones and pillars, the earliest surviving
Indian writing.
Buddha: (563-483 B.C.) An Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama, who renounced his
wealth and social position. After becoming “enlightened” (the meaning of Buddha) he
enunciated the principles of Buddhism. This doctrine evolved and spread throughout India and
to the southeast, eat, and central Asia. Today to major groups exist Mahayana Buddhism and
Theravada Buddhism.
Constantine: (306-337 A.D.) Roman Emperor (312-337). After reuniting the Roman Empire he
moved the capital to Constantinople and made Christianity a favored religion.
Jesus of Nazareth: (5 B.C. – 34 A.D.) A Jew from Galilee in northern Israel who sought to reform
Jewish beliefs and practices he was executed by the Romans as a revolutionary. Hailed the
messiah and son of God by his followers, he became the central figure in Christianity, a belief
system that developed in the centuries after his death.
Hammurabi: Amorite ruler of Babylon (1792-1750 B.C.). He conquered many city-states in
southern and northern Mesopotamia and is best known for a code of laws he created, inscribed
on a black stone pillar, illustrating the principles to be used in legal cases.
Moses: Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness on their way to
the Promised Land, author of the first five books of the bible.
Abraham: First of the Old Testament patriarchs, father of Isaac and Ishmael, father of the
Hebrew and Arabic people (Religion) according to the book of Genesis.
Must know concepts:
Indicators of civilization:
1. Cities as administrative centers.
2. A political system based on control of a defined territory rather than kinship
connections.
3. Many people engaged in specialized non food producing activities.
4. Status distinctions based largely on accumulated wealth by some groups.
5. Monumental building.
6. A system for keeping permanent records.
7. Long distance trade.
8. Major advances in the sciences and the arts.