Transcript Early Man and Mesopotamia

World History I
Early Man
Why study geography & public
speaking for that matter?
 According
to Miss Teen USA 2007!
Why study history?
 According
to Rafiki!!
What is history?
Pre-history—before
writing
History—study of
written records
BC=before
Christ
Dates go in reverse (255, 254,
253, etc)

AD=Anno
Domini (in the year
of our lord in Latin)
Dates go normally

200
BC
AD
100
Jesus is 100
born
200
Sources
Primary:
st
1
hand
(i.e. diary or letter)
Secondary:
nd
2
hand- person
was not there
(i.e. textbooks)
Study “stuff” (artifacts)
left behind (pottery, tools, buildings,
etc.)
 Radio-carbon Dating
Only organic (once living) material
Measures Carbon 14 left in
material
 Archaeologist-
1974—Dr.
Donald Johanson
discovered “Lucy”—pre-historic
female skeleton
Bipedal
3.2 million years old
Australopithecus
“Southern
Ape”—more ape
than human (Lucy)
4 million years ago
4 ft. tall
Small brain, flat nose, large
teeth
Large Brained Hominids
Homo
habilis 2 mya
“Handy Man”- tools
Homo erectus 1 mya
“Upright Man” - fire
Homo sapiens 200,000 ya
“Wise Man” - smart
Cue “Becoming Human”
Prologue & Evidence
Homo sapiens
East
Africa 100,000400,000 years ago
Migrated from Africa to
Eurasia, Australia, & the
Americas
Ice
Ages allowed migration
Land bridges
Early
humans were
hunters-gatherers
(depended on wild
plants & animals)
Paleolithic Era
(Old Stone Age)
BC – 8,000 BC
 Nomadic
 1st tools
 FIRE
 Lived in clans
 Oral language
 Cave art
 500,000
Neanderthal
 Neander
Valley, Germany
 100,000 years ago
Large brains
Thick bones
Muscular necks & shoulders
Hyoid bone
Cue “Becoming Human”
Lineages
Cro-Magnon
40,000
years ago
Looked like us
35,000 yrs ago CroMagnon replaced
Neanderthal
Homo sapiens—Cro-Magnon
 Excellent
toolmakers
Knife
Chisel
Bone
fish hooks
Bone needles
Stone axe
Canoe—allowed for
transportation and trade
Bow & arrow
Neolithic Era (New Stone Age)
8,000
BC- 3,000 BC
Domesticated
plants=AGRICULTURE
Domesticated animals
Farming allowed humans to
settle down & create
civilizations
Civilization
Produce
food surplus
Establish towns
Establish
governments
Neolithic Revolution
 Specialization
of labor
 Loom —weaving
 Wheel —transportation
 Brick—buildings
 Metal work—weapons, tools, jewelry
 Calendars—planting & harvesting
times
 Religion
Neolithic Revolution
Early
villages developed near
rivers
Different areas grew different
crops
Asia—rice
North/Central America—corn
(maize)
South America—potatoes
Middle East—wheat and barley
Neolithic Revolution
Plow
Bronze
(copper +
tin)
Fertilizers (fish or
manure)
Irrigation
Stonehenge
Site in England that was
begun during the Neolithic
and completed during the
Bronze Age.
Writing
Invented
by priests—
keep track of offerings
Earliest writing—
pictograms (marks &
pictures)
Oldest prehistoric
village-found in
ancient Palestine
(8000 B.C. )
c. 7000 BC
Catal Huyuk
Anatolia (Modern Day
Turkey)
Walls enclosed 32 acres &
6,000 people
Largest Neolithic village
Fertile Crescent
“Cradles of Civilization”
river valleys=rich soil &
irrigation
5,000
BC: Civilization in
Fertile Crescent
Mesopotamia=“land
between 2 rivers” Tigris
& Euphrates Rivers
USA
Mesopotamia was
located in the
Middle East.
The Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent
Sumer
3500 BC—1st cities
city-states—city &
surrounding land with its own,
independent government
Sumer
 City-states
shared
culture:
Cuneiform (600 +
symbols—writing on
clay using wedgetipped reed (stylus) –
only scribes could
read & write
 Polytheists
7
main gods, 1,000 lesser gods
 Farmland owned by god/temple
 Ziggurats—stone temples
– god of heaven
 Enlil – air/wind
 Enki – water
 An
 Creation
story
 Flood story (like Noah)
City-states
had kings
(religious, military, &
political
leader)=Theocracy
 Sumerians
invented:
Potter’s wheel
Wagon wheel
Sundial
12 month calendar
Bronze
Metal plow
Math based on 60
Akkadians
Took
over Sumer
2000s BC
Sargon the Great
(found in river
like Moses)
Babylonians
Hammurabi’s
Code
st
1 set of written laws
“An eye for an eye”
 Stealing
a slave = death
 Slave striking freeman=60 blows w/ ox whip/hand
cut off
 Wife embarrasses husband = divorce
 Unfaithful wife arranges murder of husband=her
& her love impaled
 Woman drinks in tavern = burned to death
 Son strikes father = hand cut off
 Wife disgraced by husband=she leaves w/ dowry
 Man strikes a pregnant lady & child dies=pay 10
gold coins, if lady dies=man’s daughter put to
death
Assyrians
 1st
to use cavalry & chariots
 Battering rams & siege towers
 Cruel to the conquered – deported them
“ I built a pillar over against his city gate, and I flayed all
the chief men who had revolted, and I covered the pillar
with their skins; some I walled up within the pillar, some I
impaled upon the pillar on stakes, and others I bound to
stakes round the about the pillar; many within the border
of my own land I flayed, and I spread their skins upon the
walls; and I cut off the limbs of the officers, of the royal
officers who had rebelled.”
The Book of Nahum tells us that the merchants of
Assyria were more numerous than "the stars of
heaven" (3:16). Among the goods in which Assyrians
traded were high-quality apparel, especially bluecolored clothing, exquisite embroidery, and fine
furniture, expertly made of cedar "bound with cords"
(Ezek.27:23-24). In its time of glory on earth Assyria
"caused terror in the land of the living" (Ezek.32:2123). Except for Babylon, God's people (the Hebrews)
were harmed more by Assyria than any nation.
 650
BC- Assyrian Empire from Persian Gulf
to Egypt
 Saved Epic of Gilgamesh
Chaldeans
 King
Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BC)
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Wall of Babylon
Persians
 Persians–Iran
Darius I (521 BC)
 Largest empire

Imperial Bureaucracy




23 governors
Imperial spies
Royal rds.
Tolerant
Persians
Persian Religion
Zoroastrianism
Ahura Mazda (good)
Ahriman (evil)
Heaven & hell