Transcript From the Origins of Agriculture to the First River

From the Origins of
Agriculture to the First
River-Valley Civilizations
8000-1500 B.C.E.
Chapter 1
Before Civilization
Food Gathering and Stone
Technology
 The
Stone Age
– From 2 million years ago to 4,000 years
ago
– People used stone, bone, skin and wood
tools
– Includes the Paleolithic period
 Old
Stone Age
– And the Neolithic period
 New
Stone Age
 Origins of agriculture
 Stone
age people were likely
foragers
 Began using fire 1 million to 1.5
million years ago
– No proof of actual cooking until 12,500
years ago when clay cooking pots were
used in East Asia
 Women
were the main food
gatherers
 Men were hunters
 Nomadic
– Followed migrating animals
– Lived in groups
 Had
enough people to do all of the work,
but not so many as to need more than the
available amount of food
– Learned the uses of plants around them
– Left behind cave art depicting hunting
and possible religion
The Agricultural Revolutions
 About
10,000 years ago
 Some people began domesticating
plants and animals, others remained
hunter/gatherers
 Around the time of the Neolithic
Revolution
– Archeologists found new stone tools
 How?
– Could have happened accidentally as
foraging groups dropped seeds and
returned to the same camp the next
season to find that plant growing there
– Eventually, they learned which strains of
wild plants yielded the highest amounts
of food
 Ex.
Emmer Wheat and Barley in the Middle
East
 Plants
domesticated in the Middle
East spread
 In many parts of the world,
agriculture occurred independently
– Wheat and Barley cultivation
 Sahara
– 8,000 BCE
 Greece – 6,000 BCE
 Central Europe (Danube River) 4,000 BCE
– 2,600 BCE – began using Ox drawn plows
– Equatorial Africa began cultivating yams
– Rice cultivation
 Southern
China, Southeast Asia, Northern
India between 10,000 and 5,000 BCE
– Maize cultivation
 Central
Mexico – 3000 BCE
– Potatoes and quinoa
 Peru
– 3000 BCE
– Tropical regions of Meso-America grew
tomatoes, squash, peppers and
potatoes
 Domesticated
Animals
– 1st – the dog
 Used
to help hunt
– Then –
 Animals
that provided meat
– Then –
 Animals
energy
used for their milk, wool, and
 Pastoralism
– Depended on large herds of grazing
livestock
– Nomadic
– Probably ate very little meat and traded
with settled communities
 Why
did it happen?
– 9000 BCE – evidence of global warming
– Foragers had difficult time finding food
– Evidence that people in regions where food
was still available remained foragers
 Ex.
Australia and North America
 Population
– 5000 BCE – 10 million people
– 1000 BCE – between 50 and 100 million
people
Life in Neolithic Communities
 Early
farmers
– More reliable food supply
– Less variety and nutrition than foraging
 Skeletons
of farmers were shorter
– Contagious disease spread quickly
 In
a time without waste management
systems
– Being able to store food led to farmers
soon outnumbering non-farmers
– Some people created specialized crafts
 Interaction
farmers?
between foragers and
– Link or Clash?
 Hard
to tell without written history
 Probably clash at first, as farmers took the
best land and limited the food supplies of
foragers
 Perhaps link later with the development of
trade relationships or as foragers gradually
became farmers
 Farmers
often lived in large kinship
groups known as lineages or clans
– One can trace their lineage through the
mother’s side = matrilineal
– Or through the father’s side = patrilineal
 Religion
– Foragers often worshipped sacred
places and animals
– Farmers often worshipped an Earth
Mother and a Sky God (usually male) as
well as fire, wind and rain.
– Some used megaliths, or big stones
often related to astronomy. (Think
Stonehenge)
 Some
towns
Neolithic villages grew into
– They became centers for trade and
specialized crafts
– Jericho
 On
the Jordan River
 First, small and round mud buildings; then,
rectangular plaster buildings within a large
city wall used for protection.
– Catal Huyuk
 In
modern Turkey
 People lived in plaster and mud brick
houses. The houses connected to form a
barrier to the outside.
 Traded obsidian tools, baskets, pottery,
cloth, shell beads, and worked leather.
 Still respected hunters, but their economy
was based on agriculture
 Many religious shrines
 Female religious statues outnumbered
males, signs of both male and female
priests
 6,400 BCE – signs of metalworking
– Metal was a sign of power and wealth
Mesopotamia
Settled Agriculture in an Unstable
Landscape
 Mesopotamia
rivers”
= “Land between the
– Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
– Fertile land because of silt and flooding
– In present day Iraq
– 5,000 BCE – begin agriculture
– 4,000 BCE – Ox drawn plows
– 3,000 BCE – begin irrigation
 The
Sumerians
– Arrived around 5,000 BCE
– The first to leave written records
– Seemed to live in peace with the Semites
in northern Mesopotamia
 The
Semitic people
– Became politically dominant by 2000 BCE
– Cultural and biological blending between
the Semites and Sumerians occurred
Cities, Kings, and Trade
 Villages
– Farmers usually lived in villages of a few
hundred people
– Worked together
– Satellite villages grew around successful
villages
 Cities
– Formed when villages merged
 City
Life
– Many labored in the fields during the day
– Some made crafts and lived off of the
surplus food
 Pottery,
artwork, weapons and tools
– Some served the gods or were
administrators
 The
City-State
– Cities would collect food surpluses from
neighboring regions in exchange for
military protection
 Irrigation
efforts
– Intensive work
– Year round labor force needed
– Required a strong leader to get that
many people to work on one thing
 Religion
– Temples in the center of villages/cities
– Priest had high political and economic
roles
 Kings
– Between 2000 and 3000 BCE, evidence
of kings in the city-states
– May have been necessary due to citystates fighting over land and water
rights
– The priests lost authority because the
king had the backing of the army
– Some became strong enough to take
over their neighbors
 Akkadian
State; 2350-2230 BCE
– King Sargon began defeating neighbors
– Put governors in conquered cities
– Gave soldiers land to pay for their
loyalty
 Third
Dynasty of Ur; 2112-2004 BCE
– Smaller than the Akkadian state
– Well maintained roads and good
messengers allowed for tighter control
– Standardized calendar
– Standard weights and measures
– Eventually toppled by neighbors
 Babylon
– Ruled by Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 BCE)
 Hammurabi’s
Law Code
 Severe physical punishment used rather than
just paying fines for crimes
– Babylon became the capital city of a wide
spread state
 Trade
– Seagoing vessels ~ 4000 BCE
– Wood, metals and stone exchanged for
wool, cloth, barley and vegetable oil
– Most merchants worked for the palace
 Independent
~1000 BCE
merchants gained influence
Mesopotamian Society
 Urbanized
division
civilizations foster social
– Obvious variation in the status and
wealth of different groups
– Hammurabi’s Law code identifies these:
 1.
free land-owning class
 2. dependent farmers and artisans
 3. slaves
 Role
of Women
– Hard to tell, since most scribes were
educated males
– Believed to have lost social standing
with the spread of agriculture
 Provided
most of the food in
hunter/gatherer communities
 Agriculture depends on heavy labor,
therefore men begin to provide the most
food
 Their focus turned to raising larger families
now that more food was available
– Women could own property and work
outside of the home
Gods, Priests, and Temples
 Sumerian
gods represented the
forces of nature
– Sky, air, water, sun, moon, sexual
attraction and violence
 Semetic
people adopted the
Sumerian gods and gave them new
names
 Cities
built temple complexes
 Priests passed their knowledge to
their sons
 The temple complex focused on the
ziggurat
 Elite and common folk came together
at religious festivals
Technology and Science
 Technology
 Tools
used to manipulate the natural world
 specialized knowledge used to transform
the natural environment
– Irrigation networks
 Required
construction and maintenance of
canals and dikes
– Writing
 Pressed
a pointed reed into wet clay
 Cuneiform (Wedge-shaped) writing
– Metal Working
 Imported
metal to make tools that were
stronger and sharper than stone
– Bricks
 Made
of clay were the main building
material
– Pottery Wheel
 Allowed
pottery to be made faster
– Military Technology
 Year-round
standing military
 Idea of horse-drawn chariots from Asia
– Base 60 Number System
– Astronomy
Egypt
The Land of Egypt: “Gift of the
Nile”
 The
Nile
– Flows northward through Egypt to the
Mediterranean
– The banks of the river or fertile, as is
the river delta
– Travel and communication center on the
river
 The
Other 90%
– Deserts, mountains, rocks
 “Upper
Egypt”
– Southern Egypt
 “Lower
Egypt”
– Northern Egypt, called that because of
the northerly flow of the river
 Cataract
– A series of impassable rocks along the
Nile
Divine Kingship
 Larger
population required unification
by a king
– Narmer, around 3100BCE
– United upper and lower Egypt
 History
broken into segments
– Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New
Kingdom
 Divided
by periods of political fragmentation
 Pharaoh
– King, was considered to be a god on
earth
– His role was to maintain ma’at, or order
to the universe
– Elaborate burial and funerary practices
eventually led to building pyramids as
tombs
 Used
stone tools, levers, pulleys and rollers
 Large numbers of people
Administration and Communication
 Capitals
– Old Kingdom = Memphis (near Cairo)
– Middle and New Kingdoms = Thebes
 Complex
bureaucracy
– Kept detailed records
– Collected taxes
 Government
monopoly over economy
and long distance trade
 Hieroglyphics
– Picture symbols stood for words
 By
2500 BCE, records were kept in
script written on papyrus
 Literary works
– Tales of adventure and magic, love
poetry, religious hymns and instruction
manuals
 Tension
between the bureaucracy
and the centralized power of the
monarchy
 An economy based on agriculture
 Isolated during the Old and Middle
Kingdoms
– All foreigners seen as enemies
– Local militia units backed up a small
standing army
– Did trade to maintain access to
resources
 Traded
southward on the Nile
– Gained gold from Nubia
– Incense, ivory, ebony and exotic
animals
 Eventually,
Egyptian forces moved
south and took control of Nubian
gold fields
The People of Egypt
 Mixed
population
– From dark-skinned people from subSaharan Africa to lighter skinned people
from North Africa and Western Asia
 Social
divisions
– From King to peasant farmers
 Village
life
– Peasants focused on agriculture and
irrigation
– Villages probably helped one another
during agriculturally important times
– Held religious festivals
– Flight into the desert was the only way
to escape forced labor and heavy
taxation
 Slavery
– Existed on a small scale
– Debtors, criminals, prisoners of war
 Lives
of elite women
– According to pictures
 Subordinate
to men
 Went with their husbands
 Engaged in domestic activities
 Usually stayed indoors
– According to legal documents
 Could
own property
 Women could end a marriage and retain her
dowry
 Priestesses supervised the cults of female
deities
Belief and Knowledge
 Imagined
the sky as a great ocean
and the sun god, Re, traveled its
waters every day and returned to the
underworld every night
 The Egyptian King was seen as the
“go between” for the people and the
gods
 Much
of the country’s wealth was
spent on religious monuments
 Obsession with the afterlife
– Led to practice of mummification
 To
preserve the body
– Food, objects and pictures were buried
too
 Egyptian
learning
– Learned anatomy and chemistry from
mummification procedures
– Learned math through agriculture
 Figuring
state
out how much was owed to the
– Developed a calendar
 Had
to be able to predict flooding
The Indus Valley
Civilization
Natural Environment
1
million acre flood plain
– The Indus river floods twice a year
– Once from melting snow in the
Himalayas
– Once from seasonal heavy rainfall
Material Culture
 Remains
found of two urban sites
– Harappa
– Mohenjo-Daro
– Both had high brick walls, streets in a
rectangular grid, covered drainpipes
 Agriculture
in this region
– Since 5000 BCE
 Writing
system
– Used more than 400 signs to represent
sounds or words
 Technology
– Irrigation systems
– Potter’s wheel
– Baked bricks
– Metal smiths – gold, silver, copper, tin
Transformation of the Indus Valley
Civilization
 Cities
abandoned around 1900 BCE
 Maybe
a failure of the political, social and
economic systems
 Maybe a natural disaster
 Maybe gradual ecological changes
 Small
place
agricultural villages took their