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Early Civilizations
Name __Mrs. Alls____
Description of Art and
Crafts
How Humans Obtained
Food
Paleolithic Age
Painted cave walls (usually 
animals)

Neolithic Age
made pottery and carved
objects out of wood
built tombs and shelters
Hunters and gatherers
farmed in permanent
villages
raised and herd animals


How Humans Adapted



learned to make fire
created a language
made simple tools and
shelters
Work of Men and Women
 women – gathered food
and cared for the
children
 men - hunted
Advances in tool making
 flint – axes and spears
 skilled tools – fishhooks
and needles

 built mud-brick houses and
places of worship
 specialized in certain jobs
 used copper/bronze to
create more useful
tools
 women – cared for children
and performed
household tasks
 men – herded, farmed, and
protected the village
sickle
What are some results of people developing specialized skills? Improving quality,
trading, making things beautiful rather than making things useful__________

Why did people live in larger communities during the Neolithic Age than earlier times?
They started farming and could grow enough food to support more people______

Bronze is a mixture of copper and tin.

Times of extreme cold when great sheets of ice covered parts of the earth were the Ice
Ages.
Mesopotamia

First civilizations arose near (in)_river valleys.

Climate – hot and dry; spring rains_______________________________________

Class system:
o Upper class – kings, priests, and government officials
o Middle class – artisans, merchants, farmers, and fishers
o Lower class – enslaved people

Why did Sumerians build walls around their city-states? For protection

Cuneiform was the Sumerian writing system.

Temples called ziggurats were built to honor the chief god.

The few Sumerians who learned how to write often became scribes, holding positions in
society.

Hammurabi wrote a legal code that covered most areas of daily life.
The First Empires

The center of the Chaldean empire was at Babylon.

A group of traveling merchants was called caravan.
Assyrians
Chaldeans
.
Babylon under the Chaldeans
-rebuilt Babylon
-world’s largest and richest city
-Hanging Gardens
-center of science (astronomers)
Review and terms to know:

Skilled workers who made metal products, cloth, or pottery are called artisans.

List the 5 themes of geography – Location, Place, Region, Movement, and
Human/Environment Interaction__________________________________________

People who study and write about the human past are called historians.

Give examples for relative and absolute location. ______________________________
__________________________________________________________________

Region is a geographical area that has common features.

The relationship between people and their surroundings is Human/Environment
Interaction.

People in one area relating to people and their surroundings in another area is movement.