World History: Foundations 10,000 BCE to 600 CE flash cards

Set: World History: Foundations 10,000 BCE to 600 CE

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All 53 terms

Term	Definition
BCE	Dates that countdown backwards to the year zero.
CE	Represents dates after the year zero. Stands for Common Era.
Neolithic Revolution	A turning point in the stone age when humans began farming.
Fertile Crescent	The swath of land in the Middle East where agriculture and later urbanization and later the first empires began.
Mesopotamia	Means "land between the rivers" and refers to the region of present-day Iraq.
Civilization	A traditional and somewhat controversial term to describe an urbanized society with written language, complex social, political, and religious institutions.
Harappans	The first river valley civilization of India on the Indus River. They mysteriously disappeared.
Sumerians	The name of the first culture in the world to develop cities.
Indo-Europeans	In about the 1500s BCE these people were migrating tribes from present-day southeast Russia. Some traveled to Europe, some to Persia, and some to India. Thus, today many people in Europe, Perisa, and India share some lingustic, cultural, and biological roots.
Persian Wars	Two failed attempts by the Persian Empire in the 400s BCE to conquer the Greeks in the 400s BCE
Karma	A Hindu and Buddhist concept that by doing good to others, good will happen to you (and vise versa)
Greeks	Known for their culture (such as art, architecture and philosophy). Made up of city-states. Didn't have a large empire or military.
Daoism	Chinese religion from 500s BCE that emphasized following the mystical and indescribable "Way." It celebrated the chaos and contradictions of reality as well as the harmony of nature. The Yin and Yang symbolizes many aspects of this religion.
Qin	Chinese dynasty in 200s BCE. Lasted 15 years. Unified Chinese kingdoms, built the Great Wall and its emperor was the legalistic Shi Huangdi.
Persian Empire	Greatest empire in the world up to 500 BCE. Spoke an Indo-European language. A multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. Fell to Alexander the Great.
Roman Empire	Existed from 27 BCE to about 400 CE. Conquiered entire Mediterranean coast and most of Europe. Ruled by an emperor. Eventually oversaw the rise and spread of Christianity.
Shang	Chinese Dynasty from 1750 BCE to 1050 BCE. Area around Yellow River valley. First dynasty we have physical evidence of (oracle bone writings and bronze art).
Reincarnation	Hindu and Buddhist belief that souls are reborn into new bodies over and over.
Confucianism	Chinese belief system from 500s BCE that emphasized family loyalty, respecting elders, education, obedience, and ancestors.
Buddhism	Belief system that started in India in the 500s BC. Happiness can be achieved through removal of one's desires. Believers seek enlightenment and the overcoming of suffering.
Ashoka	Leader of the Mauryan dynasty of India who conquered most of India but eventually gave up violence and converted to Buddhism.
Gupta Dynasty	Indian Empire (320 CE-550 CE) known for re-establishing Hinduism and for achievements in math and science.
Aqueducts	Famous example of Roman engineering that also made possible the existence of large cities.
roads	Classical Rome and China both had new foreign religions that spread widely in their empires due to the fact that both had built networks of these.
Han	Chinese Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE) ruled a centralized and growing empire for 400 years. Complex centralized buraucracy with Civil service system based on Confucianism. Traded on Silk Road.
universal	Christianity and Buddhism, though fundamentally very different both are offshoots of older exclusive ethnic-based religions. Each spread throughout the reminents of a great classical empire of the time. Because anyone could join these new religions, they could be described as _______.
Tigris and Euphrates	Mesopotamia is the land between what two rivers?
Black Sea	This body of water is North of present-day Turkey.
Persian Gulf	This body of water separates the Arabian peninsula from the more mountainous land of Persia
Mediterranean	The Phonecian traders brought the first alphabet from the Middle East to the Greeks because both were seafaring traders in this sea.
Roman Republic	This city state was ruled by a senate, spoke Latin, and borrowed heavily from Greek culture. They militarily expanded their territory for centuries but the senate eventually was overthrown by an imperial system.
Alexander the Great	He and his father defeated and united the weakened Greek city-states and he defeated the Persian Empire in 330 BCE thus spreading Greek culture and influence throughout Western Asia.
Agricultural Revolution	Resulted not only in a more reliable food source, but also in a shifting of dependancy and power to males over females, the claiming and defending of land, and the establishment of the first political and religious institutions.
Himalayas	These mountains separate India from China and are the tallest in the world.
Christianity	Although initially it was seen as a bizarre cult and was violently persecuted, eventually it gained acceptance and in the 300s became the official religion of the Roman state.
Julius Caesar	During a civil war the Roman Senate allowed him to become a dictator but he refused to give it up and the senate eventually killed him. But his name came to mean "emperor".
Shi Huangdi	Called himself the First Emperor. He united China and buried himself with hundreds of terracotta soldiers.
Yellow	Chinese civilization began as small kingdoms and dynasties on this river, named after the color of the loess-type soil.
Huns	All three of the classical empires (Romans, Han, and Gupta) faced the threat of invasion by this central Asian pastoral nomadic group.
Empire	Starting in approximately 2500 BC, the Akkadians invaded the Sumerians and created what is probably the first ______, which is when societies are in some way taken over and dominated by a central authority.
Historiography	The study of how history is done, such as how different people perceive past events and how a source's point-of-view impacts its portrayal of the past.
Americas	People in this region developed complex urban societies and empires without the benefit of large pack animals or Iron technology.
Inca	Although it had a rich and sophisticated civilization, this American empire did not have a written language.
Maya	This American civilization is most famous for its many pyramids, and its relative mathematical and scientific accomplishment of the time.
pyramids	The Sumerians, Egyptians, and Americans all built different types of this kind of structure because they all had a heavily centralized governments with emperors who were seen as closely tied to religion or were even seen as gods.
Urban Revolution	Between approximately 4000 and 1500 BCE human societies in certain river valleys transformed from Neolithic farming villages into more complex urban societies. What might this transition be called?
The Middle East	Christianity first developed in Palestine on the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, which is in what general region of the world?
Patriarchal	Before agriculture, men and women are believed to have a greater degree of equality. But after the rise of agriculture, most human societies became ________
The Red Sea	This body of water separates the Arabian Peninsula from Africa.
Mediterranean Sea	This body of Water separates Europe and Africa
tones	Chinese language is made up of four different _____ which change the meaning of the words being spoken.
cuneiform	The first written language, which was created by the Sumerians in about 3000 BCE.
imported	Both Greece and Japan owe their advancement to the fact that they ______ ideas from other more sophisticated regions (China in the case of Japan and the Middle East in the case of Europe)