Civilization Begins

1
Civilization Begins

• Prehistory 3000 B.C.

2
Understanding Our Past

• Geography is the study of people, their
  environments, and the resources available to
  them.
• Anthropology is the study of the origins and
  development of people and their societies.
• Archaeologists learn about the human past by
  studying artifacts, or objects made by people,
  such as tools, weapons, pottery, clothing, and
  jewelry. (Pre-History, before writing)
• Historians reconstruct the past by studying
  written evidence such as letters or tax records
  and visual evidence such as photographs or films.
• Must evaluate information for reliability

3
Geography, the study of people and their
environments

• Geographers study five major themes
• Location, where a place is on the surface of the
  Earth Absolute Location Longitude (measures
  distance north or south of Equator) Latitude
  (measures distance east or west of Prime Meridian
• Relative Location where one place is located in
  relation to another
• Place, physical and human characteristics of a
  location
• Interaction, how people have shaped and been
  shaped by the places where they lived
• Movement, movement of people, goods, and ideas
• Region, places with similar unifying physical,
  economic, or cultural features

4
Prehistory

• Long period of time before the invention of
  writing about 5,500 years ago.

5
The Dawn of History

• Old Stone Age or Paleolithic age, until about
  10,000 BC
• The people were know as hunter gatherers or
  nomads
• People made tools, digging sticks, spears and
  axes from natural materials (bones, wood, or
  stone)
• Learned to build fires and wear clothing
• Developed spoken languages
• Religions began
• Animisim belief that spirits and forces reside
  in animals, objects, or dreams.
• Burying dead w/ tools weapons

Sungir, Russia, buried some 25,000 years ago
6
New Stone Age or Neolithic Age.11,000 years ago

• Humans learned to farm, a development that
  transformed the way people lived
• Planting seeds and domesticating animals
• By about 5,000 years ago, the advances made by
  early farming communities led to the rise of
  civilizations.
• Social hierarchy
• Accumulation of personal property
• New technologies

7
Beginnings of Civilizations

• Cities, first rose in river valleys
• Water
• Farming
• Renewable soil
• Animals
• Transportation

8
Eight basic features common to most early
civilizations

• Cities
• In fertile areas producing a food surplus
• Well-organized central governments
• Needed to maintain order and the surplus
• Divine Right
• Bureaucracy developed
• Complex religions
• Polytheistic, believing in many gods
• Controlling the natural forces and human
  activities
• People created ceremonies, temples and priests to
  intervene with the gods on behalf of the people
• Job specialization
• Artisans, priests, farmers, weapons maker and
  soldiers

Marduk God of Thunder
9
Features

• Social classes
• The importance of the persons job ranked them
  socially
• Arts and architecture
• Temples to the gods
• Places for the rulers
• Public works to benefit the city
• Defensive walls, irrigation systems, roads and
  bridges
• Writing
• Pictograms
• Leaders needed to keep records

10
Civilizations Spread and Change

• Cultural diffusion is the spread
• of ideas, customs, and technologies from one
  people to another. Cultural diffusion occurred
  through migration, trade, and warfare.