Module in World History 1

Dr. Leonora M. Rodriguez

Faculty, CTE
Batangas State University
Module in SSEd 221 - World History 1

This module is intended for the course SSEd 221 - World History 1 which
provides the basic concepts, theories and historical developments like emergence of
societies and civilization, rise of kingdom-empire states, formation of states age of
exploration, expedition and colonization and age of commercialization from
pre-history up to the medieval period. Ancient and medieval history provides
thorough coverage of world history from prehistory through the mid-1500s with
special topic centers on key eras, civilizations and regions, including the ancient Near
East, Egypt, Greece and Rome; ancient and medieval AFrica, Asia and the Americas
and medieval Europe and the Islamic World. Each civilization’s history is brought to
life by the different instructional materials and infobase history which are fully
cross-searchable.

In this module, you will learn the periods of world history from ancient to
medieval period. You will study these lessons, namely:

Chapter 1 - Early Humans and the First Civilization

Chapter 2 - The Civilization of the Greeks

Chapter 3 - The First World Civilizations: Rome, China, Silk Road

Chapter 4 -The New Patterns of Civilization

Chapter 5 - The Expansion of Civilization in South and Southeast Asia

Chapter 6 - The Flowering of Traditional China

Chapter 7 - The Making of Europe

Chapter 8 - The Byzantine Empire and Crisis Recovery in the west

TARGET SCHEDULE:

WEEK 1-2 - Chapter 1

WEEK 3-4 - Chapter 2

WEEK 5-6 - Chapter 3

WEEK 7-8 - Chapter 4

What are the intended learning outcomes of

this module?
INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Describe significant historical developments made on a world scale.

2. Examine ways in which different cultural groups have interacted through
conquest, migration, commercial exchange and cultural diffusion.
3. Evaluate the importance of significant turning points and events in the world
history.
4. Explain the development and significance of different social, economic and
political systems.
5. Describe achievements in art and culture and discuss their impact on today’s
society.
6. Assess the practices, ideals and developments of major belief systems.
THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS AND THE RISE OF EMPIRES

The term civilization refers to complex societies, but the specific definition
is contested.The advent of civilization depended on the ability of some
agricultural settlements to consistently produce surplus food, which allowed
some people to specialize in non-agricultural work, which in turn allowed for
increased production, trade, population, and social stratification.The first
civilizations appeared in locations where the geography was favorable to
intensive agriculture.Governments and states emerged as rulers gained control
over larger areas and more resources, often using writing and religion to
maintain social hierarchies and consolidate power over larger areas and
populations.Writing allowed for the codification of laws, better methods of
record-keeping, and the birth of literature, which fostered the spread of shared
cultural practices among larger population.

Today, almost every city has a supermarket with a wide variety of available
foods.We take for granted the fact that people have different types of jobs and
that governments exist. But, reliable food sources, specialized work, and
governments did not exist for most of human history! They are the products of
historical processes that began with the first civilizations several thousand years
ago.A civilization is a complex society that creates agricultural surpluses,
allowing for specialized labor, social hierarchy, and the establishment of cities.
Developments such as writing, complex religious systems, monumental
architecture, and centralized political power have been suggested as identifying
markers of civilization, as well. When we see these changes occur, we should
stop and ask, “Did people institute these practices because they were beneficial,
or were they forced on them?” Historians debate this very question, trying to
determine whether civilization was a bottom-up or top-down
development.Most likely, it was a bit of both.

Some people think civilization is an advanced stage in the progression of

human cultural evolution. But, when historians or anthropologists use the term
civilization, they mean a society has many different, interconnected parts. So,
rather than thinking about different forms of social organization as completely
separate models, it’s helpful to think in terms of a spectrum of complexity. On
one end, we have hunter-forager societies—which have little complexity—and
on the other end, we have civilizations—which are highly complex. In between
lie a wide variety of social structures of varying types and levels of complexity.
 CHAPTER 1
EARLY HUMANS AND THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS
What are the objectives of this lesson?

At the end of this lesson, you are expected to be able to:

• Differentiate Paleolithic and Neolithic Age ;
• Identify the different characteristics of civilization evident in ancient
Mesopotamia
• Enumerate the basic features of the major periods of Egyptian history.

Overview of the topic

Scholars define prehistory as events that occurred before the existence of written
records in a given culture or society.
History refers to the time period after the invention of written records in a given
culture or society.
Archaeologists have discovered written records in Egypt from as early as 3200 BCE,
which is the accepted date at which history "begins" there.
Written records give historians resources to deal with that are more detailed in some
ways than other records, such as archaeological or biological remains.
The scope of history
Historians currently think that anatomically modern humans have been around for
between 200,000 and 300,000 of the planet’s 4.5 billion years. And even though 200,000
years is less than one 20,000th of the history of the planet, it is still a very long time!For
context, 200,000 years would represent at least 6,000 generations of your ancestors
(your grandparents are only 2 generations from you). 200,000 years is also nearly 1,000
times as long as the United States has been a country. It is 100 times as distant in the
past as the time of Jesus and the Roman Empire. It's also 40 times as distant in the past
as the earliest written records we have found.
Think about the scope of what must have happened during that time: adventures,
sorrows, environmental change, and the rise and fall of civilizations. As historians, we
have the privilege of exploring this vast expanse of human experience.
Written records
Our main tool as historians is what has been written by those who came before us.
In fact, this is what formally defines history and sometimes sets it apart from
archaeology and anthropology. For example, the oldest written records archaeologists
have discovered in Egypt are from over 5,000 years ago; the date when they were
created is the currently accepted date at which formal history (as opposed to
"prehistory") begins in that part of the world. Of course, we might one day find older
records!
Even with written records, though, we have to be careful and thoughtful. The
writing may be in a dead language that we know little about. If one tribe conquers
another, we might only get the biased, one-sided story of those who won and wrote
about it.
Many times, narratives are only written down after generations of being
transmitted orally, through speech, with every transmitter of the story consciously or
unconsciously changing the specifics. Even for events that happened yesterday, two
direct observers could have two completely different perceptions of what happened,
how, and why.
You can imagine that things get even tougher for prehistory, or the events that
occurred before the existence of written records. But we still have many tools.
Archaeologists can excavate ancient structures and burial sites and begin to infer how
the people lived from fossils (like human remains) and artifacts (human-made items).
Archaeologists can estimate the age of fossils and artifacts through several techniques.
Carbon dating measures the amount of radioactive carbon in fossils to place them in
time. Age can also be determined by identifying the age of the layer of rock that the
artifacts are buried in. This is called stratigraphic dating, from the Latin word stratum,
meaning "layer."Linguists can often piece together possible human migrations and
connections based on similarities in modern, living languages.Similarly, geneticists can
piece together how humanity may have spread and intermingled based on genetic
similarities and differences in populations today.
Uncertainty remains
By putting all of these pieces together, we can construct surprisingly rich narratives
of the distant past. But we should never let the tools and knowledge we have make us
overconfident. After all, every piece of historical evidence needs to be closely read,
sourced, interpreted, contextualized, and compared with other available sources. These
kinds of thinking and questioning are the historians' toolkit.
Even today, we can only piece together a tiny fragment of all that has occurred. And
a lot of that understanding could very well be wrong because it is inevitably partial and
incomplete. Many things that historians take as a given today will be questioned by
future historians armed with new tools and new evidence.
 Photograph of skeletons at an archaeological dig in Whithorn Priory, Scotland. The
skeletal remains of about five humans are visible in a wide expanse of hilly
dirt. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Homo sapiens and early human migration

Homo sapiens evolved from their early hominid predecessors between 200,000
and 300,000 years ago and developed a capacity for language about 50,000 years
ago.
Homo sapiens, the first modern humans, evolved from their early hominid
predecessors between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago. They developed a
capacity for language about 50,000 years ago.
The first modern humans began moving outside of Africa starting about
70,000-100,000 years ago.
Humans are the only known species to have successfully populated, adapted to,
and significantly altered a wide variety of land regions across the world, resulting in
profound historical and environmental impacts.

Where do we begin?
Before we tell the stories that make up world history, it is useful to ask: where
do we begin? Where did our human stories start?
 Homo sapiens is part of a group called hominids, which were the earliest
humanlike creatures. Based on archaeological and anthropological evidence, we
think that hominids diverged from other primates somewhere between 2.5 and 4
million years ago in eastern and southern Africa. Though there was a degree of
diversity among the hominid family, they all shared the trait of bipedalism, or the
ability to walk upright on two legs.

Evolution

Scientists have several theories about why early hominids evolved. One, the aridity
hypothesis, suggests that early hominids were more suited to dry climates and
evolved as the Africa’s dry savannah regions expanded.

According to the savannah hypothesis, early tree-dwelling hominids may have been
pushed out of their homes as environmental changes caused the forest regions to
shrink and the size of the savannah expand. These changes, according to the
savannah hypothesis, may have caused them to adapt to living on the ground and
walking upright instead of climbing.

Hominids continued to evolve and develop unique characteristics. Their brain

capacities increased, and approximately 2.3 million years ago, a hominid known
as Homo habilis began to make and use simple tools. By a million years ago, some
hominid species, particularly Homo erectus, began to migrate out of Africa and into
Eurasia, where they began to make other advances like controlling fire.
Picture of a Homo habilis skull on a blue background. Skull is missing two of its front
teeth.

Homo habilis skull. Image courtesy Wikimedia commons.

Picture of a Homo erectus skull on a white background. The cranium is more shallow
than that of a Homo sapiens skull.
Homo erectus skull. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Though there were once many kinds of hominids, only one remains: Homo
sapiens. Extinction is a normal part of evolution, and scientists continue to theorize
why other hominid species didn’t survive. We do have some clues as to why some
species were less successful at surviving than others, such as an inability to cope with
competition for food, changes in climate, and volcanic eruptions.

Migration and the Peopling of the World

Between 70,000 and 100,000 years ago, Homo sapiens began migrating from the
African continent and populating parts of Europe and Asia. They reached the
Australian continent in canoes sometime between 35,000 and 65,000 years ago.

Scientists studying land masses and climate know that the Pleistocene Ice Age
created a land bridge that connected Asia and North America (Alaska) over 13,000
years ago. A widely accepted migration theory is that people crossed this land bridge
and eventually migrated into North and South America.

How were our ancestors able to achieve this feat, and why did they make the
decision to leave their homes? The development of language around 50,000 years
ago allowed people to make plans, solve problems, and organize effectively. We
can’t be sure of the exact reasons humans first migrated off of the African continent,
but it was likely correlated with a depletion of resources (like food) in their regions
and competition for those resources. Once humans were able to communicate these
concerns and make plans, they could assess together whether the pressures in their
current home outweighed the risk of leaving to find a new one.
Map of the world showing the spread of Homo sapiens throughout the Earth over
time. Homo sapiens are reflected with red arrows (shown populating the entire
world over time), Homo neanderthalensis is reflected in orange in what is Europe
and the Middle East today, and Homo erectus is represented in yellow in Africa,
South Asia, and Southeast Asia.Spread of Homo sapiens. Image courtesy Wikimedia
Commons.

Adaptation and Effects on Nature

When humans migrated from Africa to colder climates, they made clothing out of
animal skins and constructed fires to keep themselves warm; often, they burned
fires continuously through the winter. Sophisticated weapons, such as spears and
bows and arrows, allowed them to kill large mammals efficiently. Along with
changing climates, these hunting methods contributed to the extinction of giant land
mammals such as mammoths, giant kangaroos, and mastodons. Fewer giant
mammals, in turn, limited hunters’ available prey.

In addition to hunting animals and killing them out of self-defense, humans began to
use the earth’s resources in new ways when they constructed
semi-permanent settlements. Humans started shifting from nomadic lifestyles to
fixed homes, using the natural resources there. Semi-permanent settlements would
be the building-blocks of established communities and the development of
agricultural practices. ^88

Paleolithic Societies

Paleolithic societies were largely dependent on foraging and hunting.

While hominid species evolved through natural selection for millions of years,
cultural evolution accounts for most of the significant changes in the history of Homo
sapiens.
Small bands of hunter-gatherers lived, worked, and migrated together before the
advent of agriculture.

Sociocultural Evolution

Paleolithic literally means “Old Stone [Age],” but the Paleolithic era more generally
refers to a time in human history when foraging, hunting, and fishing were the
primary means of obtaining food. Humans had yet to experiment with domesticating
animals and growing plants. Since hunter-gatherers could not rely on agricultural
methods to produce food intentionally, their diets were dependent on the
fluctuations of natural ecosystems. They had to worry about whether overfishing a
lake would deplete a crucial food source or whether a drought would wither up
important plants. In order to ensure enough food production for their communities,
they worked to manipulate those systems in certain ways, such as rotational hunting
and gathering.

This was the case for much of human history; it was not until about 11,000 years ago
that these hunter-gatherer systems began to transform. As humans began migrating
and adapting to new environments, they began developing tools and methods that
equipped them to make the best of their respective environmental constraints.

The study of early humans often focuses on biological evolution and natural
selection. However, it is also equally important to focus on sociocultural evolution,
or the ways in which early human societies created culture. Paleolithic humans were
not simply cavemen who were concerned only with conquering their next meal.
Archaeological evidence shows that the Neanderthals in Europe and Southwest Asia
had a system of religious beliefs and performed rituals such as funerals. A burial site
in Shanidar Cave in modern-day northeastern Iraq suggests that a Neanderthal’s
family covered his body with flowers, which indicates a belief in something beyond
death and a deep sense of spirituality. They also constructed shelter and tools.

An opening to a cave, surrounded by greenery and some simple roads and

structures.

Shanidar Cave, an archaeological site in the Zagros Mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan in

northern Iraq.
Cultures evolved and developed in specific environmental contexts, enabling their
communities to not only survive but to flourish in unique and dynamic ways. But
what exactly is culture? Culture is a broad term which encompasses the full range of
learned human behavior patterns, behaviors which are often linked to survival.

Homo sapiens has not changed much anatomically over the last 120,000 years, but it
has undergone a massive cultural evolution. Accordingly, cultural creativity rather
than physical transformation became the central way humans coped with the
demands of nature.

Nevertheless cultural evolution cannot be divorced from biological evolution, as the

evolution of a more highly developed and advanced human brain, more highly
attuned to social structures, enabled cultural growth. In fact, the very large size of a
human brain itself necessitated certain cultural adaptations: many scientists have
theorized that more difficult births, due to larger skulls, longer gestation periods,
and longer periods of infant dependency, required more advanced social
organization and communication, which played a big role in the cultural evolution of
humans.

Homo sapiens’ unique aptitude for creativity allowed for symbolic expression,
particularly in cultural and spiritual contexts, such as artwork and burial rituals. This
creative activity is the hallmark of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens (wise, wise
human), which is what we are today, a subspecies that is distinctive for its
intellectual abilities.

Small Communities

Eventually, with the expansion of the human population, the density of human
groups also increased. This often resulted in conflict and competition over the best
land and resources, but it also necessitated cooperation. Due to the constraints of
available natural resources, these early communities were not very large, but they
included enough members to facilitate some degree of division of labor, security,
and exogamous reproduction patterns, which means marrying or reproducing
outside of one’s group.

Anthropologists were able to draw these conclusions about Paleolithic people by

extrapolating from the experiences of modern hunter-gatherer communities, such as
the Khoisan of the African Kalahari Desert. Based on the experiences of modern
hunter-gatherer societies, who typically have around 500 members, and based on
theoretical mathematical models of group process, Paleolithic bands of people were
likely around twenty-five members each, and typically about twenty bands
constituted a tribe.
 A man standing and looking off into the distance. In the background, there is sandy
terrain, some green shrubbery, and a wooden rod. He is wearing a kind of beaded
necklace and is not wearing a shirt.

A San man from Namibia. Many San still live as hunter-gatherers. Image courtesy
Wikimedia Commons.

How much land did these bands of people need to provide the necessary food and
water to support life? Anthropologists have estimated that the technology available
to Paleolithic humans who lived between 150,000 and 12,000 years ago would have
required over seventy miles of relatively unproductive land, with a low density of
resources, or over seven miles of fertile land to meet the basic needs of each small
community. However, considering how limited these communities were, this land
requirement is extremely inefficient compared to modern productivity levels. At
such densities, the area of the modern-day United States could sustain no more than
600,000 people, and the entire planet only 10 million. For comparison, the current
population of the United States is well over 300 million, and there are 7 billion
people on the planet!

Division of Labor

Before the advent of agriculture, Paleolithic humans had little control of the
environment, so they focused on staking out territory and negotiating relationships
with nearby communities. Eventually, groups created small, temporary settlements,
often near bodies of water. These settlements allowed for division of labor, and
labor was often divided along gender lines, with women doing much of the gathering,
cooking, and child-rearing and men doing much of the hunting, though this was
certainly not the case across all Paleolithic societies. For example, some
archaeological evidence suggests that Middle Paleolithic cultures in Eurasia split
work fairly equally between men and women.

However, it is important to note that gender dynamics in Paleolithic times were

likely drastically different from our own, and as such, the division of labor between
men and women does not necessarily indicate differences in equality or power.
There are competing theories about whether hunting or gathering contributed more
to group nutrition, but both seemed to have played an important role.

Paleolithic Technology, Art and Culture

Paleolithic groups developed increasingly complex tools and objects made of stone
and natural fibers.Language, art, scientific inquiry, and spiritual life were some of the
most important innovations of the Paleolithic era.

Technological Innovation

Stone tools are perhaps the first cultural artifacts which historians can use to
reconstruct the worlds of Paleolithic peoples. In fact, stone tools were so important
in the Paleolithic age that the names of Paleolithic periods are based on the
progression of tools: Lower Paleolithic, Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic (Middle Stone
Age), and Neolithic (New Stone Age).
Stone tools also give us insight into the development of culture. Anthropologists
think Paleolithic people likely hunted, foraged, and employed a communal system
for dividing labor and resources. Anthropologists have inferred this by drawing
analogies to modern hunter-gatherer groups and by interpreting cave art which
depicts group hunting. Seven tools which appear to be made of stone displayed
against a grey backdrop. Four tools are in the top row and appear to be sharpened to
a point. Three relatively smaller tools are in the bottom row and are not as sharp.

Paleolithic tools found in Bernifal cave in Meyrals, Dordogne, France, estimated to

be 12,000 - 10,000 years old. courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

By approximately 40,000 years ago, narrow stone blades and tools made of bone,
ivory, and antler appeared, along with simple wood instruments. Closer to 20,000
years ago, the first known needles were produced. Eventually, between 17,000 and
8,000 years ago, humans produced more complicated instruments like barbed
harpoons and spear-throwers.

It is likely that many tools made out of materials besides stone were prevalent but
simply did not survive to the present day for scientists to observe. One exception is
the Neolithic “Ice Man”, found by two hikers in the Ötztal Alps, who was preserved
in ice for 5,000 years! He was found with a robust set of stone and natural-fiber tools,
including a six-foot longbow, deerskin case, fourteen arrows, a stick with an antler
tip for sharpening flint blades, a small flint dagger in a woven sheath, a copper axe,
and a medicine bag.
An image of a model of a pre-historic man. He is wearing garments made of fur and
hide and carries a stick. He has significant facial hair.

Naturalistic reconstruction of Ötzi the Paleolithic Ice Man in South Tyrol Museum of
Archaeology. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Language, Culture and Art

Language was perhaps the most important innovation of the Paleolithic era.
Scientists can infer the early use of language from the fact that humans traversed
large swaths of land, established settlements, created tools, traded, and instituted
social hierarchies and cultures. Without the aid of language, these things would likely
have been impossible.
Examinations of the craniums of archaic Homo sapiens suggest large brains with
indentations that imply the development of brain areas associated with speech.
Exactly how humans developed a capacity for language is a matter of considerable
debate. However, the historical record shows that language allowed for increasingly
complex social structures, with an enhanced capacity for deliberation, morality,
spirituality, and meaning-making.

Artwork such as cave painting and portable art demonstrates creativity and group
structures as well. They show an interest in sharing knowledge, expressing feelings,
and transmitting cultural information to later generations. Though artwork from
over 35,000 years ago is rare, there is ample evidence of cave paintings and
statuettes from later periods.

A bison figure painted with red pigment on a smooth tan-colored surface with some
visible cracks. The painter also utilized black strokes to add detail.
Reproduction of a bison illustration nearly 14,000 years old, from the Cave of
Altamira located near Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain. The cave was first
rediscovered in 1868 Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

In addition to cave art, portable figurines dated to Paleolithic times have been found.
Many of these include finely carved facial features, while others accentuate sexual
organs and buttocks, such as the 25,000 year old figurine found at Dolni Vestonice in
the modern-day Czech Republic. Such an object shows a desire to create beautiful
figurines, but some also suggest that objects like this are tied to an interest in human
fertility.

A statue made of polished dark stone representing a female figure with exaggerated
breasts and hips. There are no defined facial features and distinct arms are not
visible.
Venus of Dolní Věstonice, a Venus figurine, a ceramic statuette of a nude female figure dated to
29,000–25,000 BCE. It was found at the Paleolithic site Dolní Věstonice in the Moravian basin
south of Brno, in the base of Děvín Mountain. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The Dawn of Agriculture

Agriculture likely began during the Neolithic Era before roughly 9000 BCE when
polished stone tools were developed and the last ice age ended.
Historians have several theories about why many societies switched from hunting
and foraging to settled agriculture.
One of these theories is that a surplus in production led to greater population.
Not everyone needed to be focused on food production, which led to specialization
of labor and complex societies.

The World Before the Agriculture

Based on current archeological evidence, anatomically modern humans have
existed roughly 200,000-300,000 years. However, before roughly 15,000-20,000
years ago, we have no evidence that our ancestors had agriculture. Instead, we
believe they strictly hunted or foraged for food. There were times when they had a
big kill and had more food than they knew what to do with. There were other times
when they overforaged or hunted and they didn’t know how many days it would be
until their next meal. If they didn’t find food, they or their families would starve.
Even when there was food, it might take miles of walking to find it. For many of
these preagricultural societies, a good bit of their energy went into just getting more
energy—in other words, food—to keep going and reproduce.There also couldn’t be
too many humans living in one area since there was only so much food to be found
or killed. Because of this, a tribe of 100 hunter-foragers would have needed to be the
only humans on 50 to 500 square kilometers to survive—places lush with life, like
tropical rain forests, could support a higher density. With only hunting and foraging
to support human populations, it is estimated that the Earth could only support
about 10 million people. Historians estimate the world population was around six to
ten million 10,000 years ago.

The Birth of Agriculture

About 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, humans began to mold nature to their needs
and agriculture emerged in multiple places around the planet. We believe that it
emerged independently and spread from places as varied as Mesopotamia, China,
South America and sub-Saharan Africa. As we explore more, it is likely that scientists
will find more places where agriculture may have emerged even earlier. The birth of
agriculture is often referred to as the Neolithic Revolution since it seems to coincide
with the Neolithic period—or new stone age. The Neolithic period’s name stems
from the fact that stone artifacts were more smooth and refined than those of the
Paleolithic period, or old stone age. Many of these tools facilitated early agriculture.

Five agricultural tools found in the Iberian settlement Bastida of Alcusses, ca. late 5th
century B.C.E. to the 4th century B.C.E. Tools are textured and brown. .

The first agriculture was likely cultivation of wild species of plants and basic herding
of livestock. As time went on, humans became more and more sophisticated at
breeding the plants and livestock that best met our needs. The corn you see in the
grocery store and the pigs, cows, and sheep you see at a farm did not evolve
independently in the wild. They are the product of thousands of years of human
selection and breeding from original, wild forms.

Why did Agriculture emerge when and where it did?

The simple answer is that we’re not sure. We do, however, have several
theories—can you think of more?End of a glacial period: The last glacial period
ended 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. This seems to coincide with the emergence of
agriculture. After the glacial period ended, there was more moisture in the air, less
frozen soil, and better conditions overall for more plant and animal life. These
conditions would have also been more suitable for agriculture. This theory still has
several open questions:

1) Why have we not found evidence of agriculture during the last

interglacial—warmer—period over 100,000 years ago? Have we just not found it yet?
2) Even during the glacial period, weren’t there some places on Earth in the tropics
that would have still been suitable for agriculture?

Continued human development: Even though anatomically modern humans have

been around for roughly 200,000 years, our brains, language, and culture may have
continued to develop and change—including through natural selection. It is possible
that only 10,000 to 20,000 years ago did we first have the right mix of environmental,
mental, and cultural development to implement agriculture. This theory is bolstered
by the fact that the dawn of agriculture seems to coincide with humans being able to
make the more sophisticated stone objects which define the Neolithic period.

Pastoralism: A branch of Agriculture

A branch of agriculture—called pastoralism—began around the same time as

cultivation of plants. Pastoralism is the domestication and herding of animals such as
goats, sheep, and cattle. In regions where plant cultivation proved difficult due to
rocky terrain or climates that were inhospitable to plants, pastoralists herded
animals. While many pastoralists were nomadic, their lifestyle differed
fundamentally from that of hunter-foragers in that they did not rely exclusively on
naturally occurring resources. They milked animals for dairy products and used their
wool to weave textiles, which they could trade with agricultural societies if they lived
in close enough proximity to them.

A mix of cooperation and conflict resulted from the relationship between

pastoralists and farmers. Pastoralists’ military-related artifacts suggest that they may
have come into conflict with farming societies; however, in other cases, pastoralists
traded goods with farmers in a cooperative relationship.

Impact of Agriculture

The impact of agriculture has been profound on humanity, most clearly in terms of
population. This is because breeding plants and animals has significantly increased
the availability of human consumable calories per square kilometer. One way to
think about it is that we replaced things that weren’t consumable by humans with
things that were. Through techniques like irrigation, we were also able to make
things grow where they might not have before.
To put this in perspective, before the agricultural revolution experts estimate that
there were six to ten million people, which is about how many hunter-foragers the
Earth could sustain. By the time of the Roman Empire, about 10,000 years later, the
world population had grown over 25-fold to 250 million. Fast forward 2000 years to
the present, and the population has grown another 28-fold to seven billion. In
roughly 10,000 to 15,000 years, advances in agriculture have allowed the human
population to become roughly 1000 times larger!

Agriculture also has had environmental impacts. Farmers used complex tools to
cultivate and irrigate their fields and to build settlements. To expand their amount of
usable land, agriculturalists cleared forests using the slash and burn technique; they
would remove a ring of bark from the trees, drying out the trees and allowing them
to burn more quickly. The ash from the trees acted as a fertilizer for the soil.

Pastoralism also brought challenges to the environment and people. Herds of

animals concentrated in one area could overgraze the land, ultimately rendering it
unusable or subject to erosion. In addition, with a closer proximity to animals, came
a higher likelihood that diseases could be transmitted from animals to humans.

By actively managing their food supplies, agricultural societies were able to produce
more food than hunter-foragers and support denser populations. Having a large
population nearby made it worthwhile for farmers to grow more food than they
needed for themselves, as they could trade this surplus for other goods. For
non-farmers, this meant that they could focus on making other goods and trading
these goods for food and other things. People could specialize—focus on doing one
thing—which led to increased productivity. Increased productivity led to the creation
of better buildings, tools, weapons, and also to the rise of governments to oversee
this activity and military forces to protect people and resources.

Many population centers evolved into the first wave of city-states that emerged
within a few thousand years of the agricultural revolution. Eventually those states
began to have complex bureaucracies to tax and administer their people, a
significant catalyst for the birth of writing, which was transformational for
civilization.

First civilizations
The first civilizations appeared in major river valleys, where floodplains contained
rich soil and the rivers provided irrigation for crops and a means of
transportation. Foundational civilizations developed urbanization and complexity
without outside influence and without building on a pre-existing civilization, though
they did not all develop simultaneously. Many later civilizations either borrowed
elements of, built on, or incorporated—through conquest—other civilizations.
Because foundational civilizations arose independently, they are particularly useful
to historians and archaeologists who want to understand how civilization first
developed.

Gray world map showing probable areas of independent development of agriculture,

in green, in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, China, Peru, Mexico, and North
America. Possible routes of diffusion across the globe are drawn in blue.

Map showing probable areas of independent development of agriculture, in green,

and possible routes of diffusion. Note that while there is much overlap between
these regions and the locations of first civilizations, some areas—like the Indus
Valley in northwest India—appear to have developed agriculture after the practice
spread to the region. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Geography alone cannot explain the rise of the first civilizations. The process of
agricultural intensification had been going on for thousands of years before the first
civilizations appeared, and it is important to remember that while agricultural
surpluses were necessary for civilization, their existence in a given place did not
guarantee that a civilization would develop.As civilizations grew, they required
increased intensification of agriculture to maintain themselves.

What do civilizations have in common?

Cities were at the center of all early civilizations. People from surrounding areas
came to cities to live, work, and trade. This meant that large populations of
individuals who did not know each other lived and interacted with one another. So,
shared institutions, such as government, religion, and language helped create a
sense of unity and also led to more specialized roles, such as bureaucrats, priests,
and scribes.
Cities concentrated political, religious, and social institutions that were previously
spread across many smaller, separate communities, which contributed to the
development of states. A state is an organized community that lives under a single
political structure. A present-day country is a state in this sense, for example. Many
civilizations either grew alongside a state or included several states. The political
structures that states provided were an important factor in the rise of civilizations
because they made it possible to mobilize large amounts of resources and labor and
also tied larger communities together by connecting them under a common political
system.

Early civilizations were often unified by religion—a system of beliefs and behaviors
that deal with the meaning of existence. As more and more people shared the same
set of beliefs and practices, people who did not know each other could find common
ground and build mutual trust and respect.

It was typical for politics and religion to be strongly connected. In some cases,
political leaders also acted as religious leaders. In other cases, religious leaders were
different from the political rulers but still worked to justify and support the power of
the political leaders. In Ancient Egypt, for example, the kings—later called
pharaohs—practiced divine kingship, claiming to be representatives, or even human
incarnations, of gods.

Both political and religious organization helped to create and reinforce social
hierarchies, which are clear distinctions in status between individual people and
between different groups. Political leaders could make decisions that impacted
entire societies, such as whether to go to war. Religious leaders gained special status
since they alone could communicate between a society and its god or gods.

In addition to these leaders, there were also artisans who provided goods and
services, and merchants who engaged in the trade of these goods. There were also
lower classes of laborers who performed less specialized work, and in some cases
there were slaves. All of these classes added to the complexity and economic
production of a city.

Writing emerged in many early civilizations as a way to keep records and better
manage complex institutions. Cuneiform writing in early Mesopotamia was first used
to keep track of economic exchanges. Oracle bone inscriptions in Ancient China
seem to have been tied to efforts to predict the future and may have had spiritual
associations. Quipu—knotted strings used to keep records and perform
calculations—appeared in South America. In all the places where writing
developed—no matter its form or purpose—literacy, or the ability to read and write,
was limited to small groups of highly educated elites, such as scribes and priests.
Black-and-white drawing of quipu. Fifteen vertical pieces of string are attached to
one horizontal rope of string. Each string has one or more knots placed at different
junctures along its length.

Is it writing? A quipu was a system of knotted strings that could be used to perform
calculations and to record transactions. Evidence for the use of quipu has been
found in many Andean cultures over the past several millenia. Image courtesy
Wikimedia Commons.

Writing offered new methods for maintaining law and order, as well. The first legal
codes, or written collections of laws, were the Code of Ur-Nammu from Sumer,
written around 2100 to 2050 BCE and the Code of Hammurabi from Babylon, written
around 1760 BCE. The benefit of written laws was that they created consistency in

the legal system.

Law Code of Hammurabi inscribed on a black stone slab, rounded at the top and
rectangular at the bottom. At the rounded top of the slab, taking up about a quarter
of the space on the front, is a relief sculpture of two people, one sitting in a throne
and wearing an elaborate gown, the other standing with their arms crossed. The
lower portion of the slab has law codes written on it in cuneiform.

Law Code of Hammurabi inscribed on basalt stele. If you look closely, you can make
out the cuneiform writing in the center. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

This shift toward writing down more information might not seem like a significant
development, especially since most people were unable to read or write. However,
having consistent, shared records, laws, and literature helped to strengthen ties
between increasingly large groups.

Another notable feature of many civilizations was monumental architecture. This

type of architecture was often created for political reasons, religious purposes, or for
the public good. The pyramids of Egypt, for example, were monuments to deceased
rulers. The ziggurats of Mesopotamia and the pyramids of early American societies
were platforms for temples. Defensive walls and sewer systems provided defense
and sanitation, respectively. Although a few examples of monumental architecture
from pre-agricultural societies exist, the greater organization and resources that
came with civilization made it much easier to build large structures.

There were many features that early civilizations had in common. Most civilizations
developed from agrarian communities that provided enough food to support cities.
Cities intensified social hierarchies based on gender, wealth, and division of labor.
Some developed powerful states and armies, which could only be maintained
through taxes.

Civilization is a tricky concept for many reasons. For one thing, it can be difficult to
define what counts as a civilization and what does not, since experts don’t all agree
which conditions make up a civilization. For example, people living in the Niger River
Valley in West Africa achieved agricultural surplus, urbanization, and some
specialization of labor, but they never developed strong social hierarchies, political
structures, or written language—so scholars disagree on whether to classify it as a
civilization. Also, due to extensive cultural exchange and diffusion of technology, it
can be difficult to draw a line where one civilization ends and another begins.

The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro: Amid the brick ruins of a 3rd-millennium BCE city,
stairs descend on two sides into a large, rectangular brick-lined pit. Wooden stakes
and wire encircle the perimeter, preventing entry by modern-day tourists.

Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro, with the Great Bath in the foreground and the
Buddhist Stupa in the background. Image courtesy Wikipedia.
Characteristics of Early Civilizations

The growth of agriculture resulted in intensification, which had important

consequences for social organization.Larger groups gave rise to new challenges and
required more sophisticated systems of social administration.
Complex societies took the forms of larger agricultural villages, cities, city-states,
and states, which shared many features.
Specialized labor gave rise to distinct social classes and enabled creative and
innovative developments.
Systems of record-keeping and symbolic expression grew more complex, and many
societies had systems of writing.

Larger Social Group Formation

In various parts of the world, including the valleys of the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, Indus,
and Huang rivers, larger and denser settlements began to emerge. These large
concentrations of people are referred to as complex societies or civilizations, which
share many features, including having a dense population, an agriculture-based
economy, a social hierarchy, a division of labor and specialization, a centralized
government, monuments, record-keeping and writing, and complex systems of
belief.

These complex societies most often took the shape of cities or city-states like Uruk
and Ur. These first cities were nexuses of power, production, culture, and innovation.
Sustaining these cities was not easy, however. It required extensive and often
irreversible manipulation of the surrounding environment in order to extract energy
in the form of firewood, materials for building like stone, and resources like food and
water. Because of this, these cities were very sensitive to fluctuations in weather and
climate. A flood could destroy the entire supply of barley, for example, and a
drought could make water supplies worryingly scarce. Because these societies were
densely populated, disease, conflict, and shortages were felt even more dramatically.
An outbreak of a disease could quickly become an epidemic. In response to these
vulnerabilities, these communities developed ways to anticipate the changes in their
natural environments, such as storing food and water.

As these small communities developed from small villages to city-states with

thousands of residents, they were met with greater challenges and needed to
develop mechanisms of social organization to address these obstacles more
effectively.
Formation of Governments and Social Classes

Civilizations evoke images of stone walls, monuments, and roads, but they are more
than robust physical infrastructure. To facilitate the organization and administration
of these large, dense communities, people began to create social infrastructures:
economic, political, and religious institutions that created new social hierarchies.
These hierarchies were populated with people playing specialized roles, such as
professional administrators, farmers, artisans, traders, merchants, and spiritual
leaders. Additionally, due to increased trade and conflict with external civilizations,
cities required diplomats, armies, and centralized rulers.

In the foreground, low walls built with tan-colored brick and stone, forming the
perimeter of rectangular rooms. In the background, a tall copper-colored stone
structure, with a wide base and a tapering top.

The ruins of Ancient Ur of Sumer, one of the world's earliest cities, with the Ziggurat
of Ur visible in the background. Located in present-day Tell el-Mukayyar in
Iraq. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Most cities grew out of villages, and some ultimately became city-states, which are
self-governing urban centers and the agricultural territories under their control. The
surplus food production generated by villages in the vicinity allowed for some
residents not to participate in food production, which led to the development of
distinct specialized roles and associated classes.

In order to facilitate cooperation between these many different classes and to

organize large numbers of people to work together for the large-scale construction
of irrigation systems, monuments, and other projects, leaders were required,
comprising a new social class. Political leadership would take many different forms in
the first civilizations, though powerful states, centralized systems of government and
command, were the norm.
Ancient Mesopotamian Civilization

Overview.Mesopotamian civilizations formed on the banks of the Tigris and

Euphrates rivers in what is today Iraq and Kuwait. Early civilizations began to form
around the time of the Neolithic Revolution—12000 BCE. Some of the major
Mesopotamian civilizations include the Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian, and
Babylonian civilizations.Evidence shows extensive use of technology, literature, legal
codes, philosophy, religion, and architecture in these societies.

Civilization Born Along Rivers

By roughly 6000 to 8000 years ago, agriculture was well under way in several regions
including Ancient Egypt, around the Nile River; the Indus Valley civilization;
Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; and Ancient China, along the
Yellow and Yangtze rivers. This is because the regular river floods made for fertile
soil around the banks and the rivers could also supply fresh water to irrigate crops.
It’s no coincidence that as agriculture allowed for denser and denser populations
along with more specialized societies, some of the world’s first civilizations
developed in these areas as well.
Ancient Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia—mainly modern-day Iraq and Kuwait—in particular is often referred

to as the cradle of civilization because some of the most influential early city-states
and empires first emerged there—although it’s not the only place! Its modern name
comes from the Greek for middle—mesos—and river—potamos—and literally
means a “country between two rivers.” Those two rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates.
Not only was Mesopotamia one of the first places to develop agriculture, it was also
at the crossroads of the Egyptian and the Indus Valley civilizations. This made it a
melting pot of languages and cultures that stimulated a lasting impact on writing,
technology, language, trade, religion, and law.

Associated with Mesopotamia are ancient cultures like the Sumerians, Assyrians,
Akkadians, and Babylonians. Learning about this time period can be a little confusing
because these cultures interacted with and ruled over each other over the course of
several thousand years. These terms can also be associated with city-states,
languages, religions, or empires—depending on the time and context we are looking
at.

Sumerians

Let’s start with Sumer. We believe Sumerian civilization first took form in southern
Mesopotamia around 4000 BCE—or 6000 years ago—which would make it the first
urban civilization in the region. Mesopotamians are noted for developing one of the
first written scripts around 3000 BCE: wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay tablets.
This cuneiform—another way to say wedge-shaped—script was also adapted by
surrounding peoples to write their own languages for roughly 2000 years, until
Phoenician, which the letters you are reading now are based on, began to become
the dominant script in the first millennium BCE. Cuneiform is also the script that one
of the world’s first great works of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, was written in.
Mesopotamians used writing to record sales and purchases, to write letters to one
another, and to tell stories. The incredibly important invention of the wheel is also
credited to the Sumerians; the earliest discovered wheel dates to 3500 BCE in
Mesopotamia.

Sumerians built ships that allowed them to travel into the Persian Gulf and trade
with other early civilizations, such as the Harappans in northern India. They traded
textiles, leather goods, and jewelry for Harappan semi-precious stones, copper,
pearls, and ivory.

Sumerian religion was polytheistic—or worshipped multiple gods—many of which

were anthropomorphic—they took human-like form. Temples to these gods were
constructed atop massive ziggurats which were in the centers of most cities. These
structures would have taken thousands of people many years to construct.

A black-and-white image of an Epic of Gilgamesh tablet on a black background with

cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing.

A tablet from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Image(Opens in a new window) courtesy

Boundless.

Akkadian Empire

Around 3000 BCE, the Sumerians had significant cultural interchange with a group in
northern Mesopotamia known as the Akkadians—named after the city-state of
Akkad. The Akkadian language is related to the modern languages of Hebrew and
Arabic. These languages are known as Semitic languages. The term Semitic comes
from the biblical character Shem, a son of Noah, the purported progenitor of
Abraham and, accordingly, the Jewish and Arab people.

Around 2334 BCE, Sargon of Akkad came to power and established what might have
been the world’s first dynastic empire. The Akkadian Empire ruled over both the
Akkadian and Sumerian speakers in Mesopotamia and the Levant—modern day Syria
and Lebanon. The Empire of Akkad collapsed in 2154 BCE, within 180 years of its
founding.

The Akkadian Empire is pictured in brown. The directions of the military campaigns
are shown as yellow arrows.

Map of the Akkadian Empire. Image courtesy Boundless.

Assyrian Empire

Assyria is named for its original capital, the ancient city of Ašur—also known as
Ashur—in northern Mesopotamia. Ashur was originally one of a number of
Akkadian-speaking city states ruled by Sargon and his descendents during the
Akkadian Empire. Within several hundred years of the collapse of the Akkadian
Empire, Assyria had become a major empire.

For much of the 1400 years from the late twenty-first century BCE until the late
seventh century BCE, the Akkadian-speaking Assyrians were the dominant power in
Mesopotamia, especially in the north. The empire reached its peak near the end of
this period in the seventh century. At that time, the Assyrian Empire stretched from
Egypt and Cyprus in the west to the borders of Persia—modern-day Iran—in the east.
The major exceptions to Assyrian dominance were the Babylonian Empire
established by Hammurabi and some more chaotic dark ages where there wasn’t a
dominant power.

Babylon

Babylon was a minor city-state in central Mesopotamia for a century after it was
founded in 1894 BCE. Things changed with the reign of Hammurabi, from 1792 to
1750 BCE. He was an efficient ruler, establishing a centralized bureaucracy with
taxation. Hammurabi freed Babylon from foreign rule and then conquered the whole
of southern Mesopotamia, bringing stability and the name of Babylonia to the
region.

One of the most important works of this First Dynasty of Babylon was the
compilation in about 1754 BCE of a code of laws, called the Code of Hammurabi,
which echoed and improved upon the earlier written laws of Sumer, Akkad, and
Assyria. It’s similar to the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu of Ur’s code, written from 2100
to 2050 BCE. Hammurabi’s code is one of the oldest deciphered writings of
significant length in the world. Written in about 1754 BCE by the sixth king of
Babylon, Hammurabi, the Code was written on stone stele—slabs—and clay tablets.
The Code consists of 282 laws with scaled punishments depending on social status,
adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". For example, if a person from a
noble class broke an enslaved person’s arm, they would have to pay a fine, whereas
if a noble person broke another noble person's arm, the offending noble would have
their arm broken. Some have seen the Code as an early form of constitutional
government, the presumption of innocence, and the ability to present evidence in
one's case.

The Babylonian Empire established by Hammurabi lasted for 260 years until Babylon
got sacked by invaders in 1531 BCE. In the period between 626 BCE and 539 BCE,
Babylon asserted itself again over the region with the Neo-Babylonian Empire. This
new empire was overthrown in 539 BCE by the Persians who then ruled over the
region until the time of Alexander the Great, 335 BCE.

Map of Babylonia at the time of Hamurabi. Map is of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
and the surrounding areas. Empire highlighted in brown and, near Babylon, red.

The extent of the Babylonian Empire at the start and end of Hammurabi's
reign. Image courtesy Boundless.
Ancient Egyptian Civilization

Early Egypt

Much of the history of Egypt is divided into three “kingdom” periods—Old, Middle,
and New—with shorter intermediate periods separating the kingdoms. The term
"intermediate" here refers to the fact that during these times Egypt was not a
unified political power, and thus was in between powerful kingdoms. Even before
the Old Kingdom period, the foundations of Egyptian civilization were being laid for
thousands of years, as people living near the Nile increasingly focused on sedentary
agriculture, which led to urbanization and specialized, non-agricultural economic
activity.

Evidence of human habitation in Egypt stretches back tens of thousands of years. It

was only in about 6000 BCE, however, that widespread settlement began in the
region. Around this time, the Sahara Desert expanded. Some scientists think this
expansion was caused by a slight shift in the tilt of the Earth. Others have explored
changing rainfall patterns, but the specific causes are not entirely clear. The most
important result of this expansion of the Sahara for human civilization was that it
pushed humans closer to the Nile River in search of reliable water sources.

Apart from the delta region, where the river spreads out as it flows into the sea,
most settlement in the Nile Valley was confined to within a few miles of the river
itself (see map above). The Nile River flooded annually; this flooding was so regular
that the ancient Egyptians set their three seasons—Inundation, or flooding, Growth,
and Harvest—around it.

This annual flooding was vital to agriculture because it deposited a new layer of
nutrient-rich soil each year. In years when the Nile did not flood, the nutrient level in
the soil was seriously depleted, and the chance of food shortages increased greatly.
Food supplies had political effects, as well, and periods of drought probably
contributed to the decline of Egyptian political unity at the ends of both the Old and
Middle Kingdoms.

Although we do not know the specific dates and events, most scholars who study
this period believe that sometime around the year 3100 BCE, a leader named either
Narmer or Menes—sources are unclear on whether these were the same
person!—united Egypt politically when he gained control of both Upper and Lower
Egypt.
Map of Ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean and Red seas. Land is beige and the
habitable regions of Egypt are highlighted in Green (all along the Nile River and the
delta that opens out to the Mediterranean Sea in the north). Lower Egypt is the
northern region and Upper Egypt is the southern region of this map.

The areas in green show the habitable regions of Egypt. Note the locations of the
Nile Delta, Upper and Lower Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, and Kush
(Nubia). Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Somewhat confusingly, when you look at a map of this area, Lower Egypt is the delta
region in the north, and Upper Egypt refers to the southern portion of the country,
which is upriver from the delta. You may encounter this terminology when reading
about rivers in history, so a good trick is to remember that rivers flow downhill, so
the river is lower toward its end at the sea and higher closer to its source!

After political unification, divine kingship, or the idea that a political ruler held his
power by favor of a god or gods—or that he was a living incarnation of a
god—became firmly established in Egypt. For example, in the mythology that
developed around unification, Narmer was portrayed as Horus, a god of Lower Egypt,
where Narmer originally ruled. He conquered Set, a god of Upper Egypt. This
mythologized version of actual political events added legitimacy to the king’s rule.

The use of hieroglyphics—a form of writing that used images to express sounds and
meanings—likely began in this period. As the Egyptian state grew in power and
influence, it was better able to mobilize resources for large-scale projects and
required better methods of record-keeping to organize and manage an increasingly
large state. During the Middle Kingdom, Egyptians began to write literature, as well.
Some writing was preserved on stone or clay, and some was preserved on papyrus, a
paper-like product made from reed fiber. Papyrus is very fragile, but due to the hot
and dry climate of Egypt, a few papyrus documents have survived. Hieroglyphic
writing also became an important tool for historians studying ancient Egypt once it
was translated in the early 1800s.

An example of New Kingdom hieroglyphics from the thirteenth century BCE. Four
vertical columns of colorfully painted hieroglyphics on a white background depict
birds, eyes, a crab, and pottery, among other images.

An example of New Kingdom hieroglyphics from the thirteenth century BCE. Image
courtesy British Museum

As rulers became more powerful, they were better able to coordinate labor and
resources to construct major projects, and more people required larger supplies of
food. Projects to improve agricultural production, such as levees and canals became
more important. Irrigation practices consisted of building mud levees—which were
walls of compacted dirt that directed the annual flooding onto farmland and kept it
away from living areas—and of digging canals to direct water to fields as crops were
growing.

Elites, those individuals who were wealthy and powerful, began building larger
tombs which were precursors to the pyramids. These tombs represented a growing
divide between the elite and common people in Egyptian society. Only the wealthy
and important could afford and be considered as deserving of such elaborate burials.

A mastaba, which was the typical grave marker for early Egyptian elites. Looks like a
pyramid except lower to the ground and with a flat top instead of a pointed one.

A mastaba, which was the typical grave marker for early Egyptian elites. These were
precursors to the pyramids. Image courtesy British Museum.

Old Kingdom Egypt

During the Old Kingdom period, Egypt was largely unified as a single state; it gained
in complexity and expanded militarily. Old Kingdom rulers built the first pyramids,
which were both tombs and monuments for the kings who had them built.
Building monumental architecture—such as the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx in
Giza, and temples for different gods—required a centralized government that could
command vast resources.
Great Sphinx of Giza (mythical creature with a human head and a lion's body) and
the pyramid of Khafre. The tourists in the photo look like specks compared to these
structures.

Great Sphinx of Giza and the pyramid of Khafre. The people in the photo give you a
sense of how large the structure is! Image credit: Boundless

The builders of the pyramids were not enslaved people but peasants, working on the
pyramids during the farming off-season. These peasants worked alongside specialists
like stone cutters, mathematicians, and priests. As a form of taxation, each
household was required to provide a worker for these projects, although the wealthy
could pay for a substitute. This demonstrates both the power of the state to force
people to provide labor and also the advantages enjoyed by elites, who could buy
their way out of providing labor.

Egyptians also began to build ships, constructed of wooden planks tied together with
rope and stuffed with reeds, to trade goods such as ebony, incense, gold, copper,
and Lebanese cedar—which was particularly important for construction
projects—along maritime routes.

Egyptian painting of a ship with passengers and crew.

Egyptian ship, circa 1420 BCE. Ships like this would have been used on typical trading
voyages. Image credit: Boundless

New Kingdom

Around 1550 BCE, the New Kingdom period of Egyptian history began with the
expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt and the restoration of centralized political
control. This period was Egypt's most prosperous time and marked the peak of its
power.
Also in this period, Hatshepsut, Egypt’s most famous female ruler, established trade
networks that helped build the wealth of Egypt and commissioned hundreds of
construction projects and pieces of statuary, as well as an impressive mortuary
temple at Deir el-Bahri. She also ordered repairs to temples that had been neglected
or damaged during the period of Hyksos rule.

Photo of Hatshepsut's Temple at the base of a large rock formation. The temple is
rectangular with three tiers and a wide ramp in the center. At the top tier, set
furthest back into the rock formation, there are statues placed in front of columns.
All of the columns and doorways are long and rectangular.

Hatshepsut's Temple. Image credit: Boundless

The term pharaoh, which originally referred to the king's palace, became a form of
address for the king himself during this period, further emphasizing the idea of
divine kingship. Religiously, the pharaohs associated themselves with the god
Amun-Ra, while still recognizing other deities.

In the mid-1300s BCE, one pharaoh attempted to alter this tradition when he chose
to worship Aten exclusively and even changed his name to Akhenaten in honor of
that god. Some scholars interpret this as the first instance of monotheism, or the
belief in a single god. This change did not survive beyond Akhenaten’s rule, however.

New Kingdom Egypt reached the height of its power under the pharaohs Seti I and
Ramesses II, who fought to expand Egyptian power against the Libyans to the west
and the Hittites to the north. The city of Kadesh on the border between the two
empires was a source of conflict between the Egyptians and the Hittites, and they
fought several battles over it, ultimately agreeing to the world’s first known peace
treaty.

Map of Hittite (modern-day Turkey) and Egyptian empires in about 1274 BCE. Hittite
empire is colored in red and Egyptian empire is colored in green.

Egyptian and Hittite Empires in about 1274 BCE. Kadesh is the city right on the
boundary between the two. Image credit: Boundless

Third Intermediate Period: 1069-664 BCE

The costs of war, increased droughts, famine, civil unrest, and official corruption
ultimately fragmented Egypt into a collection of locally-governed city-states. Taking
advantage of this political division, a military force from the Nubian kingdom of Kush
in the south conquered and united Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and Kush. The
Kushites were then driven out of Egypt in 670 BCE by the Assyrians, who established
a client state (a political entity that is self-governing but pays tribute to a more
powerful state) in Egypt.

In 656 BCE, Egypt was again reunited and broke away from Assyrian control. The
country experienced a period of peace and prosperity until 525 BCE, when the
Persian king Cambyses defeated the Egyptian rulers and took the title of Pharaoh for
himself, along with his title as king of Persia.
The Hittites and Ancient Anatolia

The Hittites were an ancient group of Indo-Europeans who moved into Asian Minor
and formed an empire at Hattusa in Anatolia (modern Turkey) around 1600 BCE.

The Hittite Empire reached great heights during the mid-1300s BCE, when it spread
across Asia Minor, into the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.

Like many Indo-Europeans, the Hittites were able to travel long distances and
migrate to other lands due to the domestication of horses. The spread of
technologies like the wheel and wagon, which were also used in ancient
Mesopotamia and other early civilizations in the region, also assisted pastoralists and
agrarian civilizations.

After about 1180 BCE, the empire ended and splintered into several independent
Neo-Hittite—new Hittite—city-states, some of which survived until the eighth
century BCE.

A map of the Hittite empire at its greatest extent in the mid-1300s. The Hittite
empire is colored in green and is bordered by the Black Sea and the Mediterranean
sea.
The Hittite empire at its greatest extent in the mid-1300s BCE. Image courtesy
Boundless.

Culture

The Hittite language was a member of Indo-European, a family of related languages

that today are widely spoken in the Americas, Europe, and Western and Southern
Asia. Hittites are so named because of their initial identification with the Biblical
Hittites, according to nineteenth-century archaeology. The Hittites are usually
referred to as a people living among the Israelites.

Although their civilization thrived during the Bronze Age, starting around 3000 BCE,
the Hittites were pioneers of the Iron Age and began manufacturing iron artifacts
around 1400 BCE. This is significant because the Hittites’ use of iron and steel
created tools and weapons that were more efficient than those made of bronze. A
couple of theories exist about how the Hittites developed this technology. Some
scholars believe the Hittites had been experimenting with metalworking for years,
eventually leading them to discover a smelting process that would melt iron, which
melts at a higher temperature than other metals like copper or tin. It’s also possible
that the Hittites learned some of this technology from peoples in the Zagros
Mountains in western Iran. The Hittites’ trading partners in Assyria and parts of the
Egyptian empire had a high demand for iron products.

After 1180 BCE, amid general turmoil in the Levant with the sudden arrival of the Sea
Peoples—people of unknown nationality who used ships to raid Mediterranean and
Egyptian cities—the kingdom scattered into several independent Neo-Hittite
city-states.^33cubed The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from
cuneiform texts found in the area of their former kingdom and from diplomatic and
commercial mail found in archives in Egypt and the Middle East. The cuneiform
writing suggests that the Hittites had some connection with Mesopotamian empires,
either through direct communication or through the Hittites’ conquest of another
central-Anatolian group, the Hatti, who had connections to the Sumerians—a
Mesopotamian empire. Either way, Mesopotamians’ writing technology was
transferred to the Hittites.

Government

The head of the Hittite state was the king, followed by the heir-apparent—one of the
king’s offspring born into the position of succeeding him. Some officials, however,
exercised independent authority over various branches of the government, so the
king did not control all aspects of the kingdom. For example, the Chief of the Royal
Bodyguards, the Chief of the Scribes—who was in charge of bureaucracy—and even
the Chief of the Wine Stewards!
The actual day-to-day life and culture of the Hittites is mysterious because the
written documents from this culture deal mainly with the kings and their campaigns.
It is known that the Hittites wrote using Akkadian script but in their own
Indo-European language and used cylinder seals to sign documents and mark
property as people did throughout Mesopotamia, suggesting a link between the two
cultures.

However, Hittites may have learned about Mesopotamian customs through the Hatti,
an Anatolian people the Hittites conquered, who had prior connections to Sumer in
Mesopotamia. The details of Hittite life and culture we’ve learned seem to be slight
variations on those of the Hatti. But we don’t know the exact nature of the
relationship between these two groups given the small number of primary sources
that have been found.

Religion

Storm gods were prominent in the Hittite pantheon—the set of all the gods in a
polytheistic religion. Tarhunt was referred to as The Conqueror, The King of
Kummiya, King of Heaven, and Lord of the land of Hatti. He was the god of battle and
victory, especially against foreign powers. This might indicate that the Hittites placed
value on military might.

The Battle of Kadesh

One military engagement the Hittites are famous for is the Battle of Kadesh against
the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II’s army in 1274 BCE. This battle is especially
important because both sides claimed victory, which led to the first known peace
treaty in the history of the world, in 1258 BCE.

Conflict between Hittites and Egyptians

The Hittites had been making headway into the Egyptian empire and had caused
trouble for the Pharaoh Tutmoses III. Pharaoh Ramesses II resolved to drive the
Hittites from his borders. He hoped to gain an advantage by capturing of the city of
Kadesh, a center of commerce which the Hittites held. Ramesses marched from
Egypt at the head of over 20,000 soldiers in four divisions to fight against the troops
of Muwatalli, the king of the Hittites.
Battle

The Egyptian and Hittite armies were pretty evenly matched, which is probably why
both were able to claim victory. The Egyptian chariots were faster because they only
had two people aboard them, while the Hittite chariots accommodated an extra
person, allowing more spears to be thrown from each chariot. The combination of
chariots and iron tools, which were stronger than bronze ones, meant that the
Egyptian and Hittite military technology was some of the most sophisticated of its
time. Both civilizations boasted strong state power and the ability to send troops to
war in order to fight for control over their empires.

Aftermath

Ramesses claimed a great victory for Egypt: he had defeated his enemy in battle.
Muwatalli also claimed victory because he didn’t lose Kadesh. The Treaty of
Kadesh—the first peace treaty—was an important document because it showed the
ability of large civilizations to determine whether or not they were at war with each
other.

Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus River Valley Civilization, 3300-1300 BCE, also known as the Harappan
Civilization, extended from modern-day northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and
northwest India.
Important innovations of this civilization include standardized weights and measures,
seal carving, and metallurgy with copper, bronze, lead, and tin.
Little is understood about the Indus script, and as a result, little is known about the
Indus River Valley Civilization’s institutions and systems of governance.
The civilization likely ended due to climate change and migration.

In 1856, British colonial officials in India were busy monitoring the construction of a
railway connecting the cities of Lahore and Karachi in modern-day Pakistan along the
Indus River valley.

As they continued to work, some of the laborers discovered many fire-baked bricks
lodged in the dry terrain. There were hundreds of thousands of fairly uniform bricks,
which seemed to be quite old. Nonetheless, the workers used some of them to
construct the road bed, unaware that they were using ancient artifacts. They soon
found among the bricks stone artifacts made of soapstone, featuring intricate artistic
markings.

Though they did not know it then, and though the first major excavations did not
take place until the 1920s, these railway workers had happened upon the remnants
of the Indus Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, after
Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated, in what was then the Punjab province
of British India and is now in Pakistan. Initially, many archaeologists thought they
had found ruins of the ancient Maurya Empire, a large empire which dominated
ancient India between c. 322 and 185 BCE.

Before the excavation of these Harappan cities, scholars thought that Indian
civilization had begun in the Ganges valley as Aryan immigrants from Persia and
central Asia populated the region around 1250 BCE. The discovery of ancient
Harappan cities unsettled that conception and moved the timeline back another
1500 years,situating the Indus Valley Civilization in an entirely different
environmental context.

This map shows the extent of the Indus Valley Civilization during the Mature
Harappan Phase. Civilization is highlighted in brown in the area of modern-day
Pakistan and northern India. The rest of the map is green and is a partial map of
India and the area northwest of Pakistan.

Indus Valley Civilization in the Mature Harappan Phase (2600-1900 BCE). Image courtesy
Wikimedia Commons.
 Scholars are still piecing together information about this mysterious civilization, but
they have learned a great deal about it since its rediscovery. Its origins seem to lie in
a settlement named Mehrgarh in the foothills of a mountain pass in modern-day
Balochistan in western Pakistan. There is evidence of settlement in this area as early
as 7000 BCE.

The Indus Valley Civilization is often separated into three phases: the Early Harappan
Phase from 3300 to 2600 BCE, the Mature Harappan Phase from 2600 to 1900 BCE,
and the Late Harappan Phase from 1900 to 1300 BCE.

At its peak, the Indus Valley Civilization may have had a population of over five
million people. The Indus cities are noted for their urban planning, a technical and
political process concerned with the use of land and design of the urban
environment. They are also noted for their baked brick houses, elaborate drainage
systems, water supply systems, and clusters of large, nonresidential buildings.

The Indus Valley Civilization began to decline around 1800 BCE. Archaeological
evidence indicates that trade with Mesopotamia, located largely in modern Iraq,
seemed to have ended. The advanced drainage systems and baths of the great cities
were built over or blocked. Writing began to disappear, and the standardized
weights and measures used for trade and taxation fell out of use.

Shang Dynasty Civilization

The Shang had a number of religious practices, one of which was veneration of dead
ancestors; Shang people made sacrifices to and asked questions of their ancestors.
Ancient Chinese nobles sought to tell the future by writing on bone fragments or pieces
of turtle shell and throwing those bones into a fire; the fortune seekers saw messages
about the future in the cracks that formed.
Shang dynasty craftspeople mastered bronze, an alloy of copper and tin; bronze
weapons gave Shang foot soldiers and charioteers a tactical advantage in combat.

The very earliest period in traditional Chinese history is called the Mythical Period,
when—according to legend—the Xia dynasty ruled China. The Shang dynasty, the first
historically confirmed dynasty, supposedly began when the Shang overthrew the Xia
sometime around 1760 BCE.

Did this overthrow actually happen? We’re not sure. The Shang dynasty is the oldest
Chinese dynasty whose existence is supported by archaeological finds, but more
evidence for the existence of the Xia dynasty may yet emerge. It’s estimated that the
Shang ruled the Yellow River Valley of China for most of the second millennium BCE—so
about 1766 to 1046 BCE.
For centuries, people found what they called dragon bones—bones and shells with
mysterious inscriptions—in many parts of China. Excavations of the ancient city of
Anyang in the early twentieth century revealed tens of thousands of these bone
fragments and bronze vessels, many of which had inscriptions in proto-Chinese
characters.These artifacts contained records dating back to the Shang dynasty, allowing
scholars to learn much about Shang life, such as their agricultural methods, medical
treatments, legal system, and craft making styles.

The Shang built huge cities with strong social class divisions, expanded earlier irrigation
systems, excelled in the use of bronze, and developed a writing system. Shang kings
fulfilled a sacred, not political, role, while a council of chosen advisers and
bureaucrats—official administrators—organized and ran the government.

Both banks of the Yellow River had massive amounts of loess‚ pronounced like the
English word less—a fertile sediment that allowed Shang-era farmers to grow a large
surplus of food. This supported specialization and allowed a class of Shang artisans and
craftspeople to develop sophisticated technology and culture.

Ultimately, the Shang dynasty was overthrown in 1046 BCE by the Zhou, a subject
people—a people who lived under imperial rule—living in the western part of the
kingdom, but their cultural contributions carried on through future dynasties.

Writing and Culture

The oldest surviving form of Chinese writing is found as inscriptions of divination records
on the bones or shells of animals, called oracle bones; oracle, from a similar Latin root as
the English word orator, means holy messenger or speaker. The writing found on oracle
bones shows complexity, indicating that this language had existed for a long time. In fact,
modern scholars are able to read it because the language is very similar to the modern
Chinese writing system.
 Piece of ox bone with Shang-era writing. Writing is written vertically, like
modern-day Chinese writing, in a red color.Ox scapula with a divination inscription
from the Shang dynasty. Image courtesy Wikipedia.

Oracle bones are pieces of bone or turtle shell that were used by the ancient Chinese,
especially Chinese kings, in attempts to predict the future. The ancient kings would
inscribe their name and the date on the bone along with a question. They would
then heat the bone until it cracked and then interpret the shape of the crack, which
was believed to provide an answer to their question.

Technological Innovation and Exchange

Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, was a hugely important metal during the Shang
period. Shang metal workers developed a highly sophisticated method for casting
bronze and used it to make ceremonial objects and weapons. Bronze swords and
spearheads were stronger than other available metals, giving Shang soldiers an
advantage in battle.

Bronze vessel with three legs, two handles, and intricate carvings of symbols.

A Shang dynasty bronze vessel, often ceremonial objects, used to make offerings to
ancestors. Image courtesy Wikipedia.Mastery of bronze was an important
advancement for the Shang militarily, but the combination of horse, chariot, and
composite bow were also integral to its success. The chariot, a two-wheeled war cart
pulled by horses, allowed Shang soldiers to move vast distances at great speeds and
also acted as a mobile archery platform. Shang archers also had composite bows
made by combining animal sinew and horn or bone with wood. These materials gave
the bow more power than a wooden bow of the same size. Archers were able to
keep their bows small enough to shoot easily while standing in a chariot without
losing power.These military technologies were important because the Shang were
constantly at war. A significant number of oracle bone inscriptions show that the
Shang used chariots as mobile command vehicles and in royal hunts. Members of the
royal household were often buried with a chariot, horses, and a charioteer. Shang
armies expanded the borders of the kingdom and captured precious resources and
prisoners of war, who could be enslaved or used as human sacrifices. The oracle
bones also show deep concern over the "barbarians" living outside the empire, who
were a constant threat to the safety and stability of the kingdom; the military had to
be constantly ready to fight them.

Power and Social Hierarchy

The Shang dynasty’s power was concentrated in many ancient cities, some of which
have been unearthed by archaeologists. The first Shang ruler supposedly founded a
new capital for his dynasty at a town called Shang, near modern-day Zhengzhou, a
city of 2.6 million people in eastern China’s Henan Province. Archaeological remains
of this town may have been found, and it seems to have functioned as a sacred
capital, where the most sacred temples and religious objects were housed. This city
also had palaces, workshops, and city walls.

Shang, along with other ancient Chinese cities, had two city walls—one inner and
one outer wall. The common residents could live within the outer wall, but could not
go past the inner wall, which enclosed a temple area, cemetery sites, bronze
foundries, bronze casting areas, and bone workshops. The inner walls thus encircled
an area of political elite and craft specialists, who together were the engineers of the
important ritual performances. In this way, the architecture of these cities was
designed to separate different social classes.

However, it seems that there were many capitals aside from this one, and rulers may
have moved from one to the other because of religious rituals, military strategy, or
food requirements. That suggests that the power of the dynasty was concentrated in
the king, whose political authority was reinforced by the Shang religion. To
consolidate their authority further, kings often went on excursions and military
expeditions to walled towns outside the capitals where aristocrats had a lot of
influence. Consolidating power in these areas was crucial, as control of
peasant-farmed agricultural territories ensured sufficient resources for the
inhabitants of the walled towns.
 Test your knowledge
Application No. 1

Answer the following questions.

1. Why must we study our past?

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

2. Discuss the two interpretations on the origin of man:

A) The Bible story and
B) Darwin’s theory.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

3. Describe the development and importance of writing.

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

4. What are the stages in the evolution of man? Give examples of men in each stage.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

5. Do you think that social hierarchies are necessary for civilization?

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
6. Why do you think some societies adopted agriculture while others did not?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

7. Why did Mesopotamian rulers decide to build ziggurats if they required such
massive amounts of human labor?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

8. What were some of the distinctive features of the class system introduced by the
Aryan people?
_____________________________________________________________________
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_____________________________________________________________________
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CHAPTER 2
The Civilization of the Greeks

What are the objectives of this lesson?

• Discuss how the geography of Greece affect Greek history?
• Identify the chief features of a city-state
• Explain in what ways the Athenian political system a democracy; and
• Differentiate the political, economic and social institutions
of the Hellenistic world from those of Classical Greece.

Overview of the topic

Black-figured amphora (wine-jar) signed by Exekias as potter and attributed to him

as painter 540-530 B.C.E. (The British Museum)

Achilles killing the Amazon Queen Penthesilea, 540-530 B.C.E., black-figured

amphora (wine-jar), signed by Exekias as potter and attributed to him as painter, 46
cm tall, Athens, Greece © Trustees of the British Museum. Penthesilea brought her
Amazon warriors to help the Trojans defend their city, but was killed in combat with
Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors.

The ancient Greeks lived in many lands around the Mediterranean Sea, from Turkey
to the south of France. They had close contacts with other peoples such as the
Egyptians, Syrians and Persians. The Greeks lived in separate city-states, but shared
the same language and religious beliefs.

Bronze Age Greece

Map of Greece showing Mycenae

During the Bronze Age (around 3200 – 1100 B.C.E.), a number of cultures flourished
on the islands of the Cyclades, in Crete and on the Greek mainland. They were
mainly farmers, but trade across the sea, particularly in raw materials such as
obsidian (volcanic glass) and metals, was growing.

Mycenaean culture flourished on the Greek mainland in the Late Bronze Age, from
about 1600 to 1100 B.C.E. The name comes from the site of Mycenae, where the
culture was first recognized after the excavations in 1876 of Heinrich Schliemann.
Pottery stemmed bowl decorated with a procession of riders in chariots, Mycenaean,
about 1400-1300 B.C.E., 42 cm high, Cyprus © Trustees of the British Museum

Pottery stemmed bowl decorated with a procession of riders in chariots, Mycenaean,

about 1400-1300 B.C.E., 42 cm high, Cyprus, Greece
© Trustees of the British Museum. The upper zone of the vase is painted with a
frieze of chariots, pulled by elongated horses, in which ride a charioteer and a
passenger. Such chariot processions on vases may well have been inspired by
contemporary fresco-paintings which decorated the walls of Mycenaean palaces.

The Mycenaean period of the later Greek Bronze Age was viewed by the Greeks as
the "age of heroes" and perhaps provides the historical background to many of the
stories told in later Greek mythology, including Homer's epics. Objects and artworks
from this time are found throughout mainland Greece and the Greek islands.
Distinctive Mycenaean pottery was distributed widely across the eastern
Mediterranean. These show the beginnings of Greek mythology being used to
decorate works of art. They come from about the same time that the epics of Homer
were reaching the form in which we inherit them, as the earliest Greek literature.

The collapse of Mycenaean civilization around 1100 B.C.E. brought about a period of
isolation known as the Dark Age. But by around 800 B.C.E. the revival had begun as
trade with the wider world increased, arts, crafts and writing re-emerged and
city-states (poleis) developed.
The Strangford Apollo, c. 500-490 B.C.E., 101 cm high, perhaps from Cyclades,
Aegean Sea © Trustees of the British Museum

Archaic period

Two of the most distinctive forms of free-standing sculpture to emerge during the
Archaic period of Greek art (about 600-480 B.C.E.) were statues of youths (kouroi)
and maidens (korai).

Kouros (the singular form) is a term used to describe a type of statue of a male figure
produced in marble during the Archaic period of Greek art. Such statues can be
colossal (that is larger than life) or less than life size. They all have a conventional
pose, where the head and body can be divided equally by a central line, and the legs
are parted with the weight placed equally front and back. The male figures, usually in
the form of naked young men, acted both as grave markers and as votive offerings,
the latter perhaps intended to be representations of the dedicator. The female
figures served similar functions, but differed from their male counterparts in that
they were elaborately draped.

The mouth is invariably fixed in a smile, which is probably a symbolic expression of

the arete ("excellence") of the person represented. It used to be thought that all
kouroi were intended as representations of the god Apollo. However, although some
may be intended as representations of gods or heroes, many were simply grave
markers. The kouros was not intended as a realistic portrait of the deceased, but an
idealized representation of values and virtues to which the dead laid claim: youthful
beauty, athleticism and aristocratic bearing, among others.

Classical period

By around 500 B.C.E. "rule by the people," or democracy, had emerged in the city of
Athens. Following the defeat of a Persian invasion in 480-479 B.C.E., mainland
Greece and Athens in particular entered into a golden age. In drama and philosophy,
literature, art and architecture, Athens was second to none. The city’s empire
stretched from the western Mediterranean to the Black Sea, creating enormous
wealth. This paid for one of the biggest public building projects ever seen in Greece,
which included the Parthenon.

Ancient Greece also played a vital role in the early history of coinage. As well as
making some of the world’s earliest coins, the ancient Greeks were the first to use
them extensively in trade.

Marble portrait of Alexander the Great, Hellenistic Greek, 2nd-1st century

B.C.E.,37cm high, Alexandria, Egypt © Trustees of the British Musem

Hellenistic period

Following the death of Alexander and the division of his empire, the Hellenistic
period (323-31 B.C.E.) saw Greek power and culture extended across the Middle East
and as far as the Indus Valley. When Rome absorbed the Greek world into its vast
empire, Greek ideas, art and culture greatly influenced the Romans.
Alexander was always shown clean-shaven, which was an innovation: all previous
portraits of Greek statesmen or rulers had beards. This royal fashion lasted for
almost five hundred years and almost all of the Hellenistic kings and Roman
emperors until Hadrian were portrayed beardless.

The British Museum collection includes objects from across the entire Greek world,
ranging in date from the beginning of pre-history to early Christianity in the
Byzantine era.

Test your knowledge

Application No. 2

1. Write a short essay about each of the different Olympic Games held in honor
of the God Zeus, the supreme God of the Greek Mythology that attracted people
from acrossed Greece.

A. Equestrian Events
B. Combat Sports
C. Running
D. Jumping
E. Pentathlon
CHAPTER 3
The First World Civilizations: Rome, China,
Silk Road

What are the objectives of this lesson?

At the end of this lesson, you are expected to be able to:

• identify the similarities between the Roman Empire and Han Empire
• describe the emergence of the Silk Road
• Discuss the trade process of the Chinese Silk in Rome

Overview of the topic

State power and the Silk Road

One cause of expanded trade was the growth of imperial power. Near the end of the
second century BCE, Emperor Wu of Han mounted many campaigns against the
nomadic Xiongnu people. Xiongnu horsemen had raided Chinese settlements along
the northern border for many years. Emperor Wu looked for a new source of horses
for his cavalry in order to deal with the threat of the Xiongnu.

Emperor Wu sent an emissary named Zhang Qian to find allies in the fight against
the Xiongnu. Zhang returned to China, eager to discuss the wonders he had seen in
Ferghana—modern-day Uzbekistan. Along with rice, wheat, and grapes, the region
produced hardy, "heavenly" horses.

Ferghana horses became a highly-desired trade item in China. China imported so

many horses that the Dayuan people who controlled the Ferghana valley refused to
sell any more of the horses! This led to a three-year conflict known as the War of the
Heavenly Horses. By 101 BCE, the Ferghana valley belonged to Han China. Control of
the Ferghana valley also opened a route to the West.

With a new supply of horses, Han China projected its new military strength
throughout Asia. The expansion of Han control led to the first Pax Sinica—or Chinese
Peace. During this time, the standard of living in China rose and cities grew in size.
Economic growth and political stability led to increased demand for luxury goods
from far-off places.
A "Heavenly Horse" of Ferghana, depicted in a 2nd century CE bronze sculpture from
Han China.

The Roman empire was expanding during this time, too. Victory in the Punic
Wars gave Rome control over the western Mediterranean Sea. Over the next few
centuries, Rome expanded to control all of the Mediterranean shoreline.

The first century CE saw the beginning of the Pax Romana—Roman Peace. The Pax
Romana lasted about 200 years and was a period of relatively few wars. As with Han
China, political stability brought more trade. Rome gained access to overseas trade
routes to India via Egypt and began to trade regularly.

Although Rome and Han China expanded greatly, there was still a lot of distance
between them. Central Asia is covered with mountains, deserts, and vast grasslands.
Traders provided an essential link between the Roman and Han empires.
Extent of Silk Roads. Red is land route and blue is sea/water route.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road was a vast trade network connecting Eurasia and North Africa via land
and sea routes.The Silk Road earned its name from Chinese silk, a highly valued
commodity that merchants transported along these trade networks.

Advances in technology and increased political stability caused an increase in trade.

The opening of more trade routes caused travelers to exchange many things: animals,
spices, ideas, and diseases.

In the first century CE, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, silk had become a big
problem. The luxury fabric, imported at great cost from China, had become a symbol
of decadence and excess among Romans. In order to make their supply of silk last
longer, merchants unraveled and re-wove their fabric into thinner, sheer garments.
This practice had a side-effect of making the garments nearly transparent.

Seneca the Younger, a writer and imperial advisor, complained of people wearing
silk:
 “I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor
even one's decency, can be called clothes. ... Wretched flocks of
maids labor so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin
dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any
outsider or foreigner with his wife's body.”

In the year 14 CE, the Roman historian Tacitus reported that the Imperial Senate
made it illegal for men to wear silk, resolving that "Oriental [Eastern] silks should no
longer degrade the male sex. "

This prohibition on silk did not last. The demand for silk continued to drive trade
between the Roman Empire, China, India, and many places in between.

Travel on the Silk Road

Traders had to find ways to move their goods efficiently. To travel overland, the
camel was favored mode of transportation. Nomadic peoples in central Asia started
domesticating camels as early as the second millennium BCE. For example, the Han
Chinese used camels captured from the Xiongnu to carry military supplies. Camels
could withstand the harsh desert conditions through central Asia and were also able
to carry up to 500 pounds at a time! Pack animals—especially camels—made the
transportation of goods over land on the Silk Road viable.

Relief with camel, Persepolis, Iran.

Merchants and sailors made use of the ocean to transport goods, too. Sailors needed
a strong understanding of wind patterns and storm systems to successfully navigate
the oceans. For example, in the Indian Ocean, monsoon winds blow from the
northeast in the winter and from the southwest in the summer. With a southwestern
wind pushing them east, merchants were able to travel from the Red Sea between
Egypt and Arabia to India in the summer and then back to the Red Sea in the winter.
This information was exchanged among sailors and made its way beyond the Indian
Ocean.

A map of the monsoon pattern, made by Khan Academy. Map shows the Red sea
and the land surrounding it (east Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, southeast Asia). Blue
arrows point south and west, showing the winter winds from the northeast. Red
arrows point north and east across the Red Sea, showing the summer winds coming
from the southwest.

The Effects of Exchange

One obvious effect of trade along the Silk Road was more goods were available in
more places. Silk, owing to its soft texture and appealing shimmer, became so hotly
desired that it was used as currency in central Asia. However, the process of raising
silkworms and creating fabric from their cocoons remained a Chinese secret through
the 6th century C.E. The fact that China remained the only source of silk meant that
trade goods continued to travel across Asia. This involved many people and locations
in the Silk Road trade networks.
Spices from the East Indies, glass beads from Rome, silk, ginger, and lacquerware
from China, furs from animals of the Caucasian steppe and slaves from many
locations all travelled along the Silk Road.

Some effects were cultural. During the rule of the Tang dynasty of China, for
example, sculptures of camels from the caravans that frequently traded in China
were placed in graves. Clearly the animals made an impression!
Part of a 7th-century purchase contract, exchanging a fifteen-year-old enslaved
person for six bolts of silk and five Chinese coins. This contract is from the city of
Turfan, an oasis city along the Silk Road.

Ideas and diseases were also exchanged along the sea lanes and camel-routes—and
both would have profound effects on the locations they traveled to. Toward the end
of the second century, a plague tore through the Roman Empire, killing 10% of the
population. Historians think that this plague first appeared in China before making its
way through trade routes to the Near East, where Roman soldiers were
campaigning.

As for the exchange of ideas, Buddhism came to China through trade with India. The
Sogdians of central Asia often acted as traders between India and China. Sogdians
also translated Sanskrit sutras into Chinese and spread the Buddhist faith as they
traded. Other faiths, like Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Christianity also traveled
along the sea and land routes. These religions developed and changed to fit the new
regions they travelled to.

Chinese Silk in Rome

So now we have a sense of the economic and political conditions that enabled
Chinese silk to make its way to Roman markets. Both the Han Chinese and Roman
Empires controlled vast territories and kept them relatively peaceful. The Han
conquered their way into central Asia. From there, nomadic traders carried goods
farther west or south. Trade brought new faiths, new ideas, and new goods to places
they had not previously been.
 Test your knowledge
Application No. 3

Answer the following questions:

1. Why is economic growth and political stability causes more trade?

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
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2. How did environmental factors influence trade patterns along the Silk Roads?
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3. What is the effect of silk as only being produced in China?

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4. What effects did trade have beyond moving goods?

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5. Describe what the Han Dynasty Horse is? What does it suggests?
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CHAPTER 4
NEW PATTERNS OF CIVILIZATIONS

What are the objectives of this lesson?

At the end of this lesson, you are expected to be able to:

• Describe the new patterns of civilizations
• Identify the major early civilizations in the Americas
• Compare and contrast the different political, social and religious
characteristics of the Mesoamerican civilizations

Overview of the topic

Examination of the timing, methods of movement, routes, and origins of human

migration into the hitherto unpopulated western hemisphere has engaged
archaeological inquiry for over 150 years. The last of the Pleistocene migrations by
fully modern humans, and arguably the last of the great earthbound human
migrations, this journey covered thousands of kilometers over the course of several
1,000 years, well after the movement of modern humans out of Africa (c. 50,000 BP)
and Central and Eastern Asia (c. 45,000–40,000 BP). Upon their arrival, these first
migrants then appear to have quickly spread throughout the entire (and then
completely unknown) hemisphere within a matter of just a few 1,000 years,
adapting to a complex and variable array of local climates, landscapes, and biota
while also exhibiting concomitantly diverse technologies and lifeways on the
landscape in very widely distributed locations.

Civilizations in the Americas emerged separately from other major civilizations in the
world. The indigenous people of the Americas are believed to have been
immigrants from Asia, who crossed over to America during the Ice Age,
approximately 20,000 years ago. These new immigrants quickly spread throughout
the Americas, in small and culturally distinct groups. The development of agriculture
in the Americas five thousand years ago led to the flourish of new culturally
advanced societies and innovations. Pre-Columbian American civilizations, such as
the Mayas, Aztecs, Incas, and Olmecs were socially stratified and technologically
advanced.

MESOAMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS
Avocado, tomato, and chocolate. You are likely familiar with at least some of these
food items. Did you know that they all originally come from Mexico, and are all
based on Nahuatl words (ahuacatl, tomatl, and chocolatl) that were eventually
adopted by the English language?

Nahuatl is the language spoken by the Nahua ethnic group that is found today in
Mexico, but with deep historical roots. You might know one Nahua group: the Aztecs,
more accurately called the Mexica. The Mexica were one of many Mesoamerican
cultural groups that flourished in Mexico prior to the arrival of Europeans in the
sixteenth century.

Map of Mesoamerica, with the borders of modern countries

Mesoamerica refers to the diverse civilizations that shared similar cultural

characteristics in the geographic areas comprising the modern-day countries of
Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Some
of the shared cultural traits among Mesoamerican peoples included a complex
pantheon of deities, architectural features, a ballgame, the 260-day calendar, trade,
food (especially a reliance on maize, beans, and squash), dress, and accoutrements
(additional items that are worn or used by a person, such as earspools).

Some of the most well-known Mesoamerican cultures are the Olmec, Maya, Zapotec,
Teotihuacan, Mixtec, and Mexica (or Aztec). The geography of Mesoamerica is
incredibly diverse—it includes humid tropical areas, dry deserts, high mountainous
terrain, and low coastal plains. An anthropologist named Paul Kirchkoff first used the
term “Mesoamerica” (meso is Greek for “middle” or “intermediate”) in 1943 to
designate these geographical areas as having shared cultural traits prior to the
invasion of Europeans, and the term has remained.

Typically when we discuss Mesoamerican art we are referring to art made by

peoples in Mexico and much of Central America. When people mention Native North
American art, they are usually referring to indigenous peoples in the U.S. and Canada,
even though these countries are technically all part of North America. More recently,
archaeologists and art historians have considered connections between the
Southwestern and Southeastern U.S. and Mesoamerica, an area sometimes called
either the Greater Southwest or Greater Mesoamerica. Focusing on these
connections demonstrates how people were in contact with one another through
trade, shared beliefs, migration, or conflict. Ball courts, for instance, are found in
Arizona sites such as the Pueblo Grande of the Hohokam. It is important to
remember that modern-day geographic terms—like Mesoamerica or the
Southwestern U.S.—are recent designations.

The history of Mesoamerica is usually divided into specific periods which, taken
together, reveal the development of culture in the region and, for the purposes of
this definition, the emergence and cultivation of the Maya Civilization.

The Archaic Period: 7000-2000 BCE – During this time a hunter-gatherer culture
began to cultivate crops such as maize, beans and other vegetables and the
domestication of animals (most notably dogs and turkeys) and plants became widely
practiced. The first villages of the region were established during this period which
included sacred spots and temples dedicated to various gods. The villages excavated
thus far are dated from 2000-1500 BCE.

The Olmec Period: 1500-200 BCE – This era is also known as the Pre-Classic or
Formative Period when the Olmecs, the oldest culture in Mesoamerica, thrived. The
Olmecs settled along the Gulf of Mexico and began building great cities of stone and
brick. The famous Olmec heads strongly suggest highly sophisticated skill
in sculpture and the first indications of Shamanic religious practices date from this
period. The enormous size and scope of Olmec ruins gave birth to the idea that the
land was once populated by giants. Though no one knows where the Olmecs came
from, nor what happened to them, they lay the foundation for all the future
civilizations in Mesoamerica.

The Zapotec Period: 600 BCE-800 CE – In the region surrounding modern-day Oaxaca,
the cultural center now known as Monte Alban was founded which became the
capital of the Zapotec kingdom. The Zapotecs were clearly influenced by (or, perhaps,
related to) the Olmecs and, through them, some of the most important cultural
elements of the region were disseminated such as writing, mathematics, astronomy
and the development of the calendar; all of which the Maya would refine.

The Teotihuacan Period: 200-900 CE – During this era the great city of Teotihuacan
grew from a small village to a metropolis of enormous size and influence. Early on,
Teotihuacan was a rival of another city called Cuicuilco but, when that community
was destroyed by a volcano c. 100 CE, Teotihuacan became dominant in the region.
Archaeological evidence suggests that Teotihuacan was an important religious center
which was devoted to the worship of a Great Mother Goddess and her consort the
Plumed Serpent. The Plumed Serpent god Kukulkan (also known as Gucamatz) was
the most popular deity among the Maya. Like many of the cities which now lie in ruin
throughout the southern Americas, Teotihuacan was abandoned sometime around
900 CE.
he El Tajin Period: 250-900 CE – This period is also known as the Classic Period in
Mesoamerican and Mayan history. The name `El Tajin’ refers to the great city
complex on the Gulf of Mexico which has been recognized as one of the most
important sites in Mesoamerica. During this time the great urban centers rose across
the land and the Maya numbered in the millions. The very important ball game
which came to be known as Poc-a-Toc was developed and more ball courts have
been found in and around the city of El Tajin than anywhere else in the region. Who,
precisely, the people were who inhabited El Tajin remains unknown as there were
over fifty different ethnic groups represented in the city and dominance has been
ascribed to both the Maya and the Totonac.

Temple of the Inscriptions, Palenque

by Jan Harenburg (CC BY)

The Classic Maya Period: 250-950 CE – This is the era which saw the consolidation of
power in the great cities of the Yucatec Maya such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal. Direct
cultural influences may be seen, in some sites, from the Olmecs and the Zapotecs
and the cultural values of Teotihuacan and El Tajin but, in others, a wholly new
culture seems to have emerged (such as at Chichen Itza where, though there is
ample evidence of cultural borrowing, there is a significantly different style to the art
and architecture). This period was the height of the Maya civilization in which they
perfected mathematics, astronomy, architecture and the visual arts and also refined
and perfected the calendar. The oldest date recorded in this era is on Stele 29 in the
city of Tikal (292 CE) and the latest is from an inscription on the Stele at the site of
Tonina (909 CE). The city-states of the Mayan civilization stretched from Piste in the
north all the way down to modern-day Honduras.

The Post-Classic Period: 950-1524 CE – At this time the great cities of the Maya were
abandoned. Thus far, no explanation for the mass exodus from the cities to outlying
rural areas has been determined but climate change and over population have been
strongly suggested among other possibilities. The Toltecs, a new tribe in the region,
took over the vacant urban centers and re-populated them. At this time, Tula and
Chichen-Itza became dominant cities in the region. The widely popular conception
that the Maya were driven from their cities by the Spanish Conquest is erroneous as
the cities were already vacant by the time of the Spanish invasion (in fact, the
Spanish conquerors had no idea the natives they found in the region were
responsible for the enormous complexes of the cities). The Quiche Maya were
defeated at the Battle of Utatlan in 1524 CE and this date traditionally marks the end
of the Maya Civilization.

Test your knowledge

Application No. 4

A. THINGS TO REMEMBER
Describe the following words.

1. Mesoamerica- ____________________________________________________
2. Nahuatl - ____________________________________________________
3. Tikal - _____________________________________________________
4. Monte Alban - ______________________________________________________
5. El Tajin- ______________________________________________________
6. Teotihuacan Period- _________________________________________________
7. Archaic Period- ____________________________________________________
8. Battle of Utatlan- ___________________________________________________
9. Cuicuilco - __________________________________________________________
10. Mayan Civilization- ________________________________________________
References:

Duiker, W. J. (2014). History of the World. Pasig City, Philippines

CengageLearning Asia Pte Ltd

Claudio, L. E. (2018). The Contemporary World. South Triangle, Q.C.: C & E

Publishing.

Internet Sources