HS Workshop Day One, Session 3 MIDDLE SCHOOL REVISION I Afroeurasia the Eastern Hemisphere

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HS Workshop Day One, Session 3MIDDLE SCHOOL
REVISION I Afroeurasia (the Eastern Hemisphere)
What were the major civs of the E. Hem?
How did they change over 4,000 years in
Afroeurasia?
How did they pave the way to modernity?
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Middle School Revision and Intro to HS Era 4

• What are the essential aspects of the MS CEs that
  you need to revise with students before embarking
  upon Era 4?
• the BIG changes that occurred in the Eastern
  Hemisphere between c. 4000 BCE and 300 CE
• how these played out at the inter-regional level
• enough local examples to give substance to the
  big picture
• In particular you need to concentrate on Eras 2
  and 3
• WHG Era 2 Early Civilizations and Cultures and
  the Emergence of Pastoral Peoples (4000-1000 BCE)
• WHG Era 3 Classical Traditions, World
  Religions, and Major Empires (1000 BCE 300 CE)

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Pt. 1 Eras 2 and 3 The Later Agrarian Era

• Most World History courses concentrate on the
  Late Agrarian Era and the Modern Erac. 3,000
  BCE to the present
• In this revision lecture we do not attempt a
  detailed survey of the Later Agrarian Era
• Instead, we look at large trends and patterns
• What were the main features of human history in
  this era?
• What were the most important changes?

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The Dominant Features of Eras 2 and 3

• An era in which many people still lived as
• Foragers
• Pastoralists
• Early agriculturalists
• But more and more people lived in
• Agrarian civilizations
• And Agrarian Civilizations became the most
  powerful, dynamic and important of all human
  communities

The Roman Emperor Augustus
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What are Agrarian Civilizations?

• Regions in which
• Agriculture was the main technology (Agrarian)
• Cities were the largest communities
  (Civilization is linked to city)
• States were the most powerful political
  structures
• Some Other features
• Tributes (states could exact resources by force)
• Division of Labor (many different specialized
  professions, so that people were inter-dependent)
• Writing and Bureaucracies
• Hierarchies of wealth, gender, power and
  ethnicity

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An Interconnected World

• But the different lifeways were never completely
  separated from each other
• Regions of agrarian civilizations traded, fought,
  exchanged ideas with
• Each other
• With Pastoralists
• With Early Agriculturalists
• With Foragers

Nomadic traders of the Sahara Desert
www.cascadeclimbers.com
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Interconnections mattered!

• Connections between different regions and
  different types of society were the key to
  Collective Learning
• The more interconnections between different
  communities
• - The more knowledge accumulated
• - The faster the pace of change

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But not all parts of the world were interconnected

• There were four separate World Zones in the
  later Agrarian Era
• Agrarian Civilizations appeared in only two of
  them
• Australasian and Oceanic zones
• Agriculture appeared, but no cities or
  states(though some Pacific islands almost
  created full-blown states)
• Afroeurasian and American
• zones
• Agrarian civilizations
• became the dominant types
• of society

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Pt. 2. Expansion and Growth Trend 1 Spread of
agrarian civilizations

• Now we start looking at some long-term trends
• The spread of agrarian civilizations
• Over 4,000 years, agrarian civilizations became
  the
• Most widespread,
• Largest,
• Most powerful,
• Most dynamic and
• Most populous communities
• of all

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Agrarian Civilizations c. 3,000 BCE
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Agrarian Civilizations c. 1,000 BCE

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Agrarian Civilizations by c. 1,000 CE
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Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
1 Megameter 100,000 sq. k
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Trend 2Increasing power, size, effectiveness of
States Empires

• States and Rulers got better at their job
• They became more skillful and more powerful
• States took on a wider range of functions
• They extracted more taxes
• Built larger armies
• Built roads to ease the movement of trade and
  armies
• Established law and order over large areas
• States controlled larger areas

worldroots.com/brigitte/ royal/habs-f.htm
Holy Roman Emperor, Franz II
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Written Laws Encouraged Stability
Hammurabis Law Code was inscribed on this tall
basalt pillar. It is the first known written code
of laws. Hammurabi ruled Babylon from 1792-1750
BCE
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Improved communications helped armies and
encouraged trade
The Appian Way linked Rome Greece. It was
constructed 2,200 years ago!
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States increased in sizec. 3-2,000 BCE Sumer
Babylon
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c. 2,500 BCE Indus Valley Civilization
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c. 1,800-600 BCE Assyrian Empires
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c. 1,500 BCE-1,000 BCEChina under the Shang
Dynasty
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600 BCE The first Giant Empire The Persian
Empire
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Remains of the Persian Empire
Remains of Persepolis, the Achaemenid capital
Darius, Emperor of Persia, 522-486 BCE
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CE 200-500 Roman, Han, Gupta Empires
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600-1200 CE Asian Empires
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Trend 3) Networks of exchange expand? Collective
learning

• Exchanges between different regions increased
• Cities States are like Stars They dominate
  their surroundings
• They are the most powerful things in their region
• Their gravitational pull affects large regions
• Towns and villages orbit them like planets and
  moons
• They energize the area around them
• Drawing in ideas, goods, innovations, people
• They stimulate exchanges and collective learning

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Networks of Exchange

• Improved communications linked agrarian
  civilizations and other communities in large
  NETWORKS OF EXCHANGE
• These increased the scope and variety of
  Collective Learning
• What was exchanged?
• Trade Goods (e.g. silk, glass, ceramics)
• Religious Ideas (e.g. Buddhism, Islam)
• Languages (e.g. Indo-European, Turkish)
• Diseases (e.g. the Black Death)
• New Technologies (e.g. paper, gunpowder)

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Agrarian Civ. 1
Independent Farmers
Pastoralists
Foragers
Agrarian Civ. 2
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An Afro-Eurasian example The Silk Roads, c. 1
BCE
Areas of Agrarian Civilization
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Hub Regions and Centers of Gravity linked
Afro-Eurasia
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Eventually all of Afro-Eurasia was linked in one
zone

• By 2,000 BCE, certainly by 1 BCE
• All of Afro-Eurasia was linked into one huge zone
  of collective learning, exchanging
• Ideas,
• Goods,
• People,
• Technologies,
• Religions
• Diseases
• The most dynamic region of collective learning in
  the world

Ancient Silk Roads market town of Kashgar, in
China today
www.uygurworld.com/ _sgt/m7m2_1.htm
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e.g. 1 New Technologies and the Spread of
Indo-European Languages
Pastoralism took Indo-European Languages to many
parts of Eurasia
Modern innovations in warfare and transportation
have also spread around the world
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e.g. 2 The Spread of Islam between 733 1500 CE
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Trend 4 Innovation Growth

• Innovation and Economic Growth
• Agrarian Civilizations spread because
• Their populations grew
• They became more powerful
• They became more inter-connected
• As they expanded, processes of collective
  learning intensified, stimulated by
• Improvements in Information Technology
• Improvements in Transportation
• Governments protected and encouraged exchanges

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PART 3 How rapid was growth in the later
agrarian era?

• Many Factors encouraged growth
• Spread of New Technologies (e.g. irrigation
  farming)
• Expansion of trade and commerce (led to exchanges
  of ideas and technologies)
• Increasing government power protected economic
  activity (governments needed cities and farmers
  to thrive because they taxed them)
• Growth itself exponentially encouraged innovation
  and further growth

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Estimates of World PopulationMillions
Populations increased five fold, from 50 to 250
million
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But there were also many barriers to growth

• Governments Tribute-taking Governments did not
  fully support trade and commerce
• Cities and Disease Cities were unhealthy and
  checked population growth
• Trade and Disease Exchanges over large areas
  led to epidemics
• Result? Innovation could not keep up with
  population growth

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Barriers to Growth1) Tribute-taking Governments

• Agrarian states were tributary
• i.e. most of their wealth came from taxes, not
  trade
• Sometimes, they encouraged trade and exchanges
• e.g. road building
• The establishment of laws and maintenance of
  order
• Often, they stifled trade and exchanges
• Most tributary states were hostile to merchants
  and traders, and sometimes, they seized their
  wealth
• They spent money mainly on
• War
• Monumental architecture and
• Their own elite groups

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Emperor Marcus Aurelius(161-180 CE)
Government was primarily about war, not commerce
Philosopher AND Warrior!
Rulers saw themselves first and foremost as
warriors and leaders, not as economic managers
CB with Marcus Aurelius, Rome July 2008
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Warfare the business of rulersRomans fight
Barbarians, c. 251 CE (Ludovici sarcophagus)
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From the Bayeux Tapestry William the Conqueror
invades Britain 1066
Rulers were expected to be warriors
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This is why traditional leaders admired pursuits
such as jousting
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Or hunting!
Floor mosaic from Sicily, depicting
hunting. Later Roman Empire
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Governments also spent huge sums on monumental
architecture
www.ottophoto.com/ gallery/places.html
Remains of Persepolis, the Persian capital under
Darius
The Colosseum in Rome
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Barriers to Growth 2) Cities and Disease

• Cities were unhealthy places!
• In most cities, more people died than were born
• There was little sewage
• Drinking water was polluted
• Air was polluted from industrial workshops
• Diseases flourished
• Pre-modern cities kept growing only because of
  migrations from the country
• Cities were demographic sinks, and checked
  population growth throughout the early agrarian
  era

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Remains of the Roman port of Ostia
A typical pre-modern city. Streets were narrow,
domestic and industrial waste was often thrown in
the street, diseases flourished.
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Medieval Florence
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Barriers to Growth3) Exchanges and Disease

• As different regions came into contact with each
  other
• They encountered each others diseases
• Leading to outbreaks of epidemic diseases which
  killed millions

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ bioterror/agen
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The Black Death spread through the Mongol Empire
along the Silk Roads 1347 CE
Mongol Empire
Areas of Agrarian Civilization
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Marseilles during the Black Death (1347-1351)
The Black Death spread from E. Asia through the
Mongol Empire and entered Europe via Genoa in
1347. It killed one third of all people living
in Europe
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Result? Growth rates in the Later Agrarian Era
were sluggish

• Populations, states, cities, commerce expanded
  faster than ever before
• But growth was much slower than today
• So, innovation could not keep up with population
  growth
• Agriculture was the foundation, so slow growth in
  agricultural output was the key to long term
  patterns of growth and decline

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The result of slow innovation? Malthusian
Cycles Dominant Rhythm of Late Agrarian Era
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Malthusian Cycles affected all areas of life

• They help explain why periods of growth were
  often followed by sharp collapses
• In times of growth, money was available for
  architecture, culture, literature
• In times of collapse, populations shrank,
  governments fought for scarce resources
• A French historian described these cycles as the
  immense respiration of an entire social structure

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Why is growth and innovation so much faster today?

• This is one of the big questions the HS WHGCEs
  attempt to answer!
• After lunch we will continue with revision of the
  Middle School material, much of which is also
  relevant to HS Era 4
• When we come back we will take a big picture
  look at the Civilizations of the Americas (the
  Western Hemisphere) in Eras 2 and 3
• See you soon!