Transcript Wanderers and Settlers

27 January 2009
WANDERERS AND SETTLERS
DEFINING “WESTERN CIVILIZATION”

Western – Or the “West,” may have multiple meanings. The
term is often associated with particular geographical,
historical, religious, economic, political, cultural, etc.
contexts (i.e. Europe/U.S.A., Rome/Greece, Christian,
capitalist, monarchies/democracies, classical music/blue
jeans/McDonald’s).
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Civilization – has a political, economic, social,
religious/intellectual, cultural system (but is often
associated with “loaded” terms like progress, advanced
state, development, superior sense of self and collective
identity)
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History – an account of past events, often written (can be
oral/memory), that does more than just relay “facts”
(names/dates/places) by attempting to given cause/effect
relationships (the how and why)
WESTERN CIVILIZATION

Economic system
Social system
Political system
Religious/Intellectual system
Cultural system
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How do these things define civilization?
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AFRICAN GENESIS AS ETHNOGRAPHICAL
HISTORY
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Ethnography - The branch of anthropology that
deals with the scientific description of specific
human cultures.
 Early
hominids had: 1) bipedalism 2) very large
brain 3) human larynx
 Did climate changes spur human “evolution?”
 Homo habilis – 2 to 3 million years ago
 Homo erectus – 1.8 million years ago
HOMO SAPIENS
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Between 160,000 and 200,000 years ago
About 40,000 years ago, the first “modern” human
began to appear
A new species, began displacing old human
populations and spread from Africa to the Americas,
Australia and the Arctic
As challenges emerged they went through minor
evolutionary changes in order to adapt
THE STONE AND ICE AGES
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The appearance of the first “man-made” stone tools
around 2 million years ago to the introduction of metal
tools around 5,000 years ago is called the Paleolithic
Age (Old Stone Age)
Periodic cold climate changes, known as ice ages,
occurred frequently considering the expanse of time.
The last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago
DURING THE ICE AGE
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How might an Ice Age speed up social evolutions?
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Climate change forced humans into small, highly
mobile bands creating the “hunter/gatherer” society
as did the genderization of roles create better
efficiency
Because of the nomadic lifestyle, hunter/gatherers
did not spend lots of energy on housing
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“PRE-HISTORY” TO 4,000 B.C.E.
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Prehistoric human societies existed at the mercy of
environment and the constant search for food
 Development of hunter/gatherer societies
 Groups maintained their own territory; didn’t roam
randomly
 Develop early trade patterns
 Tools
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for luxury goods like shells for jewelry
Technological development
 Better
weapons
 Fire
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Early Religious systems
 Ritual
disfigurement of the deceased
 Burial rituals—do they believe in an afterlife? Hierarchy?
CULTURE AND COMMUNITY
Early communities organized around kinship
and “marriage”
 Staying put led to greater “advances” in “arts,”
“sciences,” and “religious developments”
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VENUS OF WILLENDORF
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24,000-22,000 B.C.E.
THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION
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Neolithic means “New Stone Age”
Discovery of agriculture and the domestication of animals
 Called the Neolithic Revolution (10,000 – c. 4,000
B.C.E.)
 From nomadic existences to settled life
 Strong relationship between cultivating crops and
population increase
 First animal to be domesticated: sheep, 8500 B.C.E.
 Led to gender-based division of labor and emergence of
social hierarchy
 Invention of irrigation (~6,500 B.C.E.) facilitated the
establishment of settled agricultural communities in
the Fertile Crescent
ÇATALHÖYÜK, A NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT
ÇATALHÖYÜK
NEOLITHIC POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
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The Earliest Monarchies
 Absolutism
 Essential
duties:
 symbolic

father
Dynasty building
 peace-keeper
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Legal systems
 warrior
NEOLITHIC POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
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Polytheistic Religion
 Gods
and goddesses representing earthly and
celestial elements
 Priest figures celebrated gods with ceremony
 Communal feasts to celebrate gods
 Early calendars built around polytheistic religion
SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF CIVILIZATION
Famine/insufficient nutrition
 Plague
 Division of labor
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 Gender
 Social
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War
class
THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION
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Neolithic means “New Stone Age”
Discovery of agriculture and the domestication of
animals
 Called the Neolithic Revolution (10,000 – c. 4,000
B.C.E.)
 From nomadic existences to settled life
 Strong relationship between cultivating crops and
population increase
 First animal to be domesticated: sheep, 8500 B.C.E.
 Led to gender-based division of labor and emergence
of social hierarchy
 Invention of irrigation (~6,500 B.C.E.) facilitated the
establishment of settled agricultural communities in
the Fertile Crescent
MESOPOTAMIA ~4,000 – 1,000 B.C.E.
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Most historians trace
the origins of “western
civilization” to the land
area between the
Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers
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Mesopotamia=land
between the rivers.
Geography allowed for
the cultivation of
surplus foods and so
the Sumerians and
Babylonians built large
cities near the two
rivers
THE FIRST ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
Mesopotamia, 4000-1000 B.C.E.
 Includes Sumer, Akkadian Empire, Assyria, and
Babylonia
 Egypt, Canaanites, Hebrews, 3050-1000 B.C.E.
 Hittites, Minoans, Mycenaeans, 2200-1000 B.C.E.
 Greek Dark Age, 1000-750 B.C.E.
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WHY IS MESOPOTAMIA IMPORTANT?
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The “West’s” first large-scale societal structure
and system
Developed the wheel, writing, complex math,
complex metal working (bronze), and the first
empire (Akkad)
What “cultural” developments arose from
Mesopotamia? What of ourselves can we
recognize in this society?
THE KEY TO WESTERN HISTORY
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Writing (and so history)
began in Sumer
Cuneiform (wedgeshaped) written
language
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Pictographic
Increasingly intricate
and abstract
Expertise required
Leads to advances in
math, science,
engineering,
metallurgy, etc.
CITIES, KINGS AND TRADE
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Mesopotamia made up of small city-states
Agricultural expansion led to political
centralization
Power in Mesopotamia held by king and
religious elites
~2,350 B.C.E., Sargon, ruler of Akkad, was
the first to unite the small city-states into
one kingdom – Sumer (southern)
The Akkad kings toppled
by the Babylonians ~ 2,000 B.C.E.
HAMMURABI AND THE FIRST LEGAL CODE
SUMERIAN SOCIETY
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4 Main social distinctions in Mesopotamia
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Nobles
Free Clients of the nobility
Commoners
Slaves (society was not, however, organized on the
foundations of slavery)
Society was generally organized around religion
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pleasing of gods and goddesses
The temple (ziggurat) was the meeting place and
temple
ZIGGURAT AT UR
THOUGHT AND RELIGION
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Mesopotamian religion was
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polytheistic
gods and goddesses representing
almost everything in the cosmos
Gods and goddesses were human, with
supernatural powers, particularly in
regards to the natural world
Such religious ideas spawned efforts to
create myths about the origins of the
world
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a Sumerian
creation story
IN SUMMARY
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Environment determined much of development possibilities
Power and authority centralized and out of this comes elite
class and social hierarchies
Emergence of large-scale empires
In this period Civilization then defined by urban settlements,
religious cultural foundations, writing, diversified agricultural
economy, organized political structures
Such organization (political, social, and economic) appears in a
form that seems to typify much of western civilization through
the pre-modern era (until 1789 A.D. or C.E.)
THE GIFT OF THE NILE
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The most important geographical feature of
Egypt is the Nile River
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regular flooding of the Nile provided irrigation and
fertilization for Egyptian agriculture,
many natural resources to exploit, making
Egyptians more self-sufficient (perhaps isolated,
to some extent) than the Mesopotamians
Egyptian society unified by the Nile
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religion, ideology, daily ritual, based on the idea
that the Nile was a “gift” from the gods
THE NILE RIVER
DIVINE KINGSHIP
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Early Political unity of Egyptian
communities into a larger “Egypt” is
called the Old Kingdom (~3,0002,000 B.C.E.)
Further centralization of Egyptian
authority in the form of pharaohship
during the Middle Kingdom period
(~2,000-1,500 B.C.E.)
Egypt would later be characterized
by imperial expansion during the
period of the New Kingdom
(~1,600-1,200 B.C.E.)
DIVINE KINGSHIP
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Egyptians developed complex ideas about the
afterlife
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The pharaoh was the “king” of Egypt
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rooted in the natural world with emphasis on
cycles (i.e. regular flooding of the Nile).
Evidence for this: great tombs and pyramids
a “god” on earth (the son of the sun-god Re),
the chief priest
the embodiment of “Egypt” (as state,
geographical entity, etc.)
the focal point of religion and politics
All of Egypt belonged to the king and everyone
served him
Power reflected in the structure of the tombs and
pyramids
A royal administration kept track of Egypt’s
natural resources and controlled Egypt’s
economy
EGYPTIAN SOCIETY AND CULTURE
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Maat – authorized order of the universe (truth, balance, order,
law, morality, justice)
The Egyptians have advanced writing system—hieroglyphics
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used it to communicate in various forms (not just a religious function,
or learned only by elite scribes)
the basis of advances in chemistry, medicine, mathematics,
engineering and architecture
A heterogeneous population, the Egyptians were divided into 3
broad groups:
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King and high-level officials at the top
Low-level officials, priests, professionals, artisans, and wealthy
farmers in the middle
Peasants, who made up the bulk of the population, at the bottom
(slavery existed, but was not foundational for the Egyptian economy)
EGYPTIAN DECLINE
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Invasion from Africa and the Near East shattered
Egyptian power
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The spread of Egyptian culture came not from its own
imperial ambitions
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Libyans in the north and the Nubians to the south
rather from the borrowing/embracing of Egyptian ideas by
invaders
Egypt never recovered, never really re-unified under
the kind of power displayed during the Old and New
Kingdoms
The decline led to the success of other societies
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Phoenicians, Syrians and Hebrews and the prosperity of
smaller, independent city-states that fragmented out of the
Egyptian Empire’s dissolution