Foundations Visuals South America tobacco groundnut potato cotton

Foundations Visuals

South America : tobacco, groundnut, potato, cotton, tomato, pine-apple, pimiento, cassava, rubbertree Middle East : oat, wheat, peas, lentil, flax, olivetree, vine, fig-tree, date palm-tree Meso-America : maïze, bean, squashes, avocado, tomato, vanilla, cocoa Central Africa : sorghum, yam, coffee, oil palm-tree South-East Asia, Southern Western China : millet, soya, Pacific : rice, banana, sugar tea, rice cane, orange tree, egg plant, coconut tree, pepper

How Agriculture changed life Well how about. . . • Egalitarian to social stratification and patriarchy • Communal food sharing to surpluses and taxes • Semi nomadic to sedentary • Kinship groups to membership based on territory • Community pressure to laws and rules and punishments • Leisure time to less leisure time. . . Just for starters Millet

musk duck It’s a zebu

Alternatives to early agriculture Slash and Burn: A system of cultivation typical of shifting cultivators; forest floors cleared by fire are then planted. pastoral nomads: An intermediate form of ecological adaptation dependent on domesticated animal herds that feed on natural environment; typically more populous than shifting cultivation groups

Çatal Hüyük • One of best preserved Neolithic village, in Anatolia (now modern Turkey) • founded in c. 7000 BCE • inhabitants grew mainly wheat, barley and peas; supplemented their diet by apples, hackberries, almonds and acorns, which were collected locally. • The principal meat source was cattle although it seems that wild animals were also important, judging from the wall paintings • raw materials had to be imported • Houses closely packed, without streets (access by wooden laddes fro roofs) • Center of trading (timber, bsidian, flint, copper, shells)

River Valley Civilizations Brainstorm: The impact of agriculture. . . What’s the same in each area? What’s diff? Why? And don’t forget the Olmecs, who weren’t around a river valley

Indus River COMPARING RIVERS • “gift of the Indus” • As waters charge down hill from mountains, they pick of silt and deposit in in lower lands • Much less predictable than Nile Huange He: • three thousand miles long, it begins high above sea level in the northern mountain province of Qinghai and ends at the Yellow Sea. • Westerners call it "China's Sorrow, " because over the centuries it has killed more people than any other river in the world. In 1887 flooding killed nearly two million people, in 1931 the death toll was almost four million, and in 1938 it was almost one million Slide one of two

Tigris and Euphrates: • TWO rivers • Flooding more violent, less predictable than the Nile • Source of rivers in higher mountains • the "Gift of the Nile. “ • Predictable • Each summer, like clockwork, the river would take possession of a strip of land on either side of its banks. When the water receded, a very thin, evenly spread layer of black mud was left behind. Farmers would immediately plant their crops -- never needing fertilizers because the flood soil was so rich. Slide two of two

Indo-European Migrations by series of tribes from central Asia; most significant contribution was the broad distribution of languages throughout Eurasia

Political Organization of Sumerian city states: Form and Structure: can you say decentralized as in city-states? As in “A form of political organization typical of Mesopotamian civilizations; consisted of agricultural hinterlands ruled by an urban-based king” Slide one of one

Political Characteristics of Mesopotamian Civilizations æ City states æ Each city had its own king and patron god or goddess æ City states often warred with each other æ Theocracy -- king as god’s representative æ Highly legalistic æ Law Codes æ Contracts æ Judicial proceedings and appeals processes æ Extensive trading networks Slide two of two

The Cradle of Civilization New Iraqi Constitution PREAMBLE We the sons of Mesopotamia, land of the prophets, resting place of the holy imams, the leaders of civilization and the creators of the alphabet, the cradle of arithmetic: on our land, the first law put in place by mankind was written; in our nation, the most noble era of justice in the politics of nations was laid down; on our soil, the followers of the prophet and the saints prayed, the philosophers and the scientists theorized and the writers and poets created. Slide one of two Translated from the Arabic by The Associated Press

Sumerian Inventions: a legacy æ æ æ æ Cuneiform writing The wheel Potter’s wheel Sailing ship Pick-axe Brick mold Glass 60 -based counting system: 60 minutes to an hour, 360 degrees to a circle æ Beer æ Lyre æ Epic poetry Slide two of two A depiction of onager-r-drawn carts on the Sumerian "battle standard of Ur" (circa 2600 BC)

Ziggurat: Massive towers usually associated with Mesopotamian temple complexes. PERSIA: “Political, Economic, Religious, Social, Intellectual, Artistic”

Cuneiform [ky. U n. EE uh fôrm, ky. U n. EE uh-] A form of writing developed by the Sumerians using a wedge-shaped stylus and clay tablets

Sumerian Religion Polytheistic Each city had its own gods THEOCRACY: Government of the gods/priest class. The powerful gods communicate their desires to humanity through the medium of a powerful priestly class or autocratic king who served as the intermediary. This system centralizes power in the hands of a small group of people and gives political decisions to a religious authority

Phoenician Traders This map shows the Phoenicians’ sea routes and the principal cities where they traded. Many of these cities, like Carthage, were Phoenician colonies. The Phoenicians were the masters of trade in the Mediterranean, exporting jewelry, furniture, textiles, cedar wood, and purple dye. They also dealt in slaves and in precious metals, which came from the mines of the Iberian Peninsula—the lands of present-day Spain and Portugal.

Form and Structure of Political Organization in Ancient Egypt The pharaoh - man, ruler and god The Egyptians themselves perceived clearly that their overlord fulfilled a number of essentially different roles. Sennefer, an 18 th dynasty mayor of Thebes wrote of himself in his tomb: He who filled both ears of the Horus in his palace, The great confidant in the house of the king, who has access to his lord in single audience NOTE ALSO: theirs was a CENTRALIZED form of political organization (empires are you know)

STATUS OF WOMEN Women in Egypt seem to have had more freedoms than in other ancient societies. In addition, they had equal legal and economic status as Egyptian men - at least in theory (note that this does not mean that Egyptian law was egalitarian—just that distinctions seemed to be based on class and not gender). . . “Women could manage, own, and sell private property, which included slaves, land, portable goods, servants, livestock, and money. Women could resolve legal settlements. Women could conclude any kind of legal settlement. Women could appear as a contracting partner in a marriage contract or a divorce contract; they could execute testaments; they could free slaves; women could make adoptions. Women were entitled to sue at law. This amount of freedom was at variance with that of the Greek women who required a designated male, called a kourios, to represent or stand for her in all legal contracts and proceedings. This male was her husband, father or brother. ” http: //www. library. cornell. edu/colldev/mideast/womneg. htm

A few Women gain status as Queens Tooth May Have Solved Mummy Mystery Some archaeologists say they have evidence that this mummy, found in an obscure and unadorned tomb in the Valley of the Kings, is Hatshepsut, one of the great queens of ancient Egypt, who died at about age 50. Times August, 2007 Nefertiti (the name is an Egyptian phrase meaning "the beautiful one who has come") was the Great Wife of Akhenaten New York

Egyptian Writing Hieroglyphics

BANTU MIGRATIONS Originated in eastern Nigeria in West Africa; migrated into central and southern Africa using rivers–particularly the Congo Basin; spread language, iron technology and agriculture

Form and Structure of Political Organization for the Shang Dynasty • Centralized organized state, regulated irrigation • Kept histories • Philosopher kings • “Mandate of Heaven” (Zhou) • Need to defend from nomads so developed military tech.

Bronze in the Shang Dynasty ýBrilliant bronze culture ý casting of intricate ritual vessels ý tools ýShang bronze types were copied and reused later in Chinese history, even into the nineteenth century

Oracle Bones ý Oracle bones used for divination. ý A question was written on the bone, which was then fired and a T shaped crack was produced to be interpreted; the interpretation was then written on the bone. ý After the predicted event occurred, the date of the occurrence was also written on the bone.

Form and Structure of Political Organization for Indus Civilization Mohenjo daro “priest king” Not a lot of info--- large granaries near the cities indicate gov’t control— Sewers, planned streets indicated coordinated govt Appears decentralized—a series of cities Fall to Aryans (nomadic tribes from Caucuses Mtns area) with horses and advanced Granary/Palace? at Harappa weapons

INDUS SEALS Soapstone seals • purpose of a seal is to prove authenticity • indicate trade with both Mesopotamians and China across ocean (mountain passes isolate from other trade) • Provide Evidence of writing

Indus Valley Writing Not deciphered Harappan pictograph writing

Indus Valley Trade

OLMEC CIVILAZATION Olmecs in Mesoamerica: apparently not united politically; unusual for ancient civilizations, highly developed astronomy; used to predict agricultural cycles and please the gods; Polytheism; religious rituals important, shamans as healers, writing, calendars; Ritual ballgames; Irrigation and drainage canals, Well-developed agriculture based on maize, beans and squash—no large domesticated animal

OLMEC HEADS Perhaps the best-recognized Olmec art are the enormous helmeted heads. There have been 17 colossal heads unearthed to date. No known pre-Columbian text explains these impressive monuments that have been the subject of much speculation. Given the individuality of each, these heads seem to be portraits of famous ball players or perhaps kings rigged out in the accoutrements of the game. The unique elements in the headgear can also be recognized in headdresses of human figures on other Gulf Coast monuments, suggesting that these are personal or group symbols. The heads range in size from the Rancho La Corbata head, at 3. 4 m high, to the pair at Tres Zapotes, at 1. 47 m. Some sources estimate that the largest weighs as much as 40 tons, although most reports place the larger heads at 20 tons.

Olmec Writing Olmec is a syllabic writing system used in the Olmec heartland from 900 BC- AD 450. This is the earliest text written in America, helps us to understand the culture religion and politics of the Olmec.