Key Terms for The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History; Ch. 1: From the Origins of Agriculture to the 1st River-Valley Civilizations (8000 - 1500 B.C.E.)
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goveganplease on May 23, 2011
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27 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 civilization | indicated by: -cities that served as administrative centers -political system based on control of defined territory rather than on kinship connections -significant number of people engaged in specialized, non-food-producing activities -status distinctions usually linked to the accumulation of substantial wealth by some groups -monumental building -system for keeping permanent records -long-distance trade -major advances in science/arts |
| culture | learned patterns of action/expression; i.e.: skills/ideas deliberately passed along w/in societies involving production of artworks & tools over wide areas & long periods of time; includes material objects (dwellings, clothing, tools, crafts) & nonmaterial (beliefs, languages) |
| history | development, transmission, & transformation of cultural practices and events |
| Stone Age | from about 2 million ya to about 4,000 ya; began w/ appearance of stone tool making (1st cultural activity); misleading title b/c not all tools made of stone (bone, skin, wood) |
| Paleolithic | Old Stone Age; subdivision of Stone Age; lasted until 10,000 ya (about 3,000 yrs after end of last Ice Age - when glaciers covered N. America, Europe, Asia) |
| Neolithic | New Stone Age; associated w/ origins of agriculture |
| foragers | hunting/food-gathering ppls; now in Kalahari Desert of southern Africa & Ituri Forest of Central Africa - eat vegetables daily & meat @ feasts (Stone Age probably did same but tools & equip for vegs left few traces) |
| Agricultural Revolution | more precise than "Neolithic Revolution" b/c emphasizes central role of food production & signals changeover occurred many times |
| Holocene | since about 9000 B.C.E.; named for global warming that ended last Ice Age |
| megaliths | "big stones," relate to religion |
| Babylon | most important city in southern Mesopotamia in 2nd & 1st millennia B.C.E. |
| Sumerians | in southern Mesopotamia at least by 5000 B.C.E.; dominated Mesopotamia in 3rd millennium B.C.E. |
| Semitic | family of languages spoken in parts of western Asia & northern Africa (Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician [ancient]; Arabic [today]); ppl maybe descendants of nomads from desert west of Mesopotamia, seemed to live in peace w/ Sumerians; language indicated by personal names recorded from northerly cities as early as 2900 B.C.E. |
| city-state | self-governing urban center & agricultural territories it controlled |
| scribe | administrator or scholar charged by temple or palace w/ reading & writing tasks; male domination complicated efforts to reconstruct lives of women - writings reflect elite male activities |
| ziggurat | multi-story, mud-brick, pyramid-shaped tower approached by ramps & stairs; unclear function/meaning |
| amulets | small charms meant to protect bearer from evil; survival suggests widespread belief in magic (use of special words & rituals to manipulate forces of nature) |
| cuneiform | combo of strokes & wedges that evolved from usual method of writing (pressing point of sharpened reed into moist clay tablet - reed made wedge-shaped impressions); Latin for "wedge-shaped"; several 100 signs compared to 25 or so in alphabetic system; mastery required yrs of practice; lack of simplification by scribes due to prestige & regular employment |
| pharaoh | New Kingdom term for Egyptian king, from Egyptian phrase meaning "palace"; from Old Kingdom on, considered god on earth, incarnation of Horus & son of sun-god Re (conception of divine king may explain absence in Egypt of impersonal code of law comparable to Hammurabi's Code in Mesopotamia) |
| ma'at | divinely authorized order of universe; maintained by pharaoh |
| pyramid | series of stone platforms laid one on top of the other at Saqqara, near Memphis; construction order by Djoser (3rd Dynasty king) around 2630 B.C.E.; 4th Dynasty rulers filled in steps of Djoser's tomb |
| Memphis | near modern Cairo at apex of Nile Delta; capital (in area of original power base) during Old Kingdom |
| Thebes | far to south, replaced Memphis during Middle & New Kingdom |
| papyrus | made from stems of papyrus reed that grew in Nile marshes; made by laying out stems in vertical & horizontal grid pattern, moistening, & pounding w/ soft mallet until adhered into sheet; "paper" comes from Greek & Roman words for papyrus |
| mummy | produced by removing organs for preservation & storage in stone jars laid out around corpse & filling body w/ packing materials, immersing corpse in dehydrating & preserving chemicals, wrapping in linen |
| Harappa & Mohenjo-Daro | urban sites that best typify Indus Valley civilization; high water table at sites makes excavation of earliest levels of settlement impossible |
| Harappa | 3.5 mi (5.6 km) in circumference may have housed 35,000 & M.D. several times that; similarities: high, thick, encircling walls of brick; streets laid out in rectangular grid; covered drainpipes to carry away waste; consistent width of streets & length of city blocks & uniformity of mud construction bricks (suggests strong central authority located possibly in citadel [elevated, enclosed, containing buildings - well-ventilated structures nearby stored grain, barracks suggest large # of artisans in organized groups); 500 mi (805 km) north of M.D.; gateway for copper, tin, stones, & other resources coming from northwest |
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