 Social Structure  Small bands  Status difference between men and women is small  Beliefs  Polydaemonism – belief in many different spirits that inhabit living and nonliving things in nature  Not polytheistic (belief in many different gods)

 Increase in reliable food supplies  Human control of food production  Animals improve efficiency of farming and provide food source  Rapid increase in human population  Life span increases due to improved nutrition  Job specialization (priests, traders, builders)  Widening gender difference  Men took over agriculture and domestication of animals  Women in charge of raising children and cooking  Patriarchal system – men holding power over the family, economy, and government  Distinction between settled people and nomads

 Large cities that dominate surrounding area  Monumental architecture and public building projects  Complex political organization  Specialization of labor  Long distance trade  Material culture – pottery, tools, textiles  Nonmaterial culture – beliefs, customs, values  Written Language (usually)  Advanced Art and Literature (if literate)

 Civilis – Latin for “of the citizens”  Roman usage – distinguish selves from “inferior” people outside republic/empire  It is not “advanced” vs. “backward”

ADVANTAGESDISADVANTAGES  Development of specialized skills, inventions, arts, and literature  Building of economically and politically coordinated cities  Increased ability to protect people from dangers both inside and outside the city  Growth of prosperity, improving quality of life  Increase in class and gender distinctions, creating oppression for many  Overproduction of land, depletion of soil, eventual destruction caused by increase population  Increased attacks from outsiders attracted to wealth  Internal crime promoted by crowded conditions  Creation of life-threatening congestions, pollution, disease, and decrease in sanitation

 Shifting cultivation  Slash and burn  Rain forest zones  Environmental destruction increases with movment  Pastoral Nomadism  Following the herds  Horse nomads (chariot first!)  Reindeer herders (Scandinavia)  Camel herders (Sudan and Arabian peninsula)  Cattle nomads (Upper Nile, Southern Sudan)  Nomadism – practice of moving frequently from one place to the other  Have major impacts, especially when migrating

 Early job specialization  Pottery – cooking and storage; art  Metallurgy (copper)  knives, axes, hoes, and weapons  learned to heat to improve malleability and quality  Textile production  Plant and animal fibers  Spinning thread and weaving fabrics  Early River Civs  Plow  more land could be cultivated more efficiently  Greater productivity – growth in towns & cities  Bronze  Alloy of copper and tin  Writing  Record keeping  Transmission of knowledge

 Location in river valleys (loess)  Complex irrigation systems  Development of legal codes  Use of money  Elaborate art forms and/or written literature  More formal scientific knowledge, numbering systems and calendars  Intensification of social inequality

Early River Civilizations

 BCE Gilgamesh rules over Uruk  2340 BCE Sargon the Great establishes Akkadian Empire  1800 BCE Amorites conquer renamed as Babylon  Code of Hammurabi  Epic of Gilgamesh  1500 BCE Hittites conquer Babylon  Bring Iron  1000 BCE Assyrians conquer  Epic of Gilgamesh  Ashurbanipal – ruthless ruler who establishes 30,000 volume library  Conquer Israel in 700s BCE  612 BCE Chaldeans conquer Assyrians  Nebuchadnezzar – Hanging Gardens of Babylon  529 BCE Persians conquer Chaldeans  Cyrus the Great

 Created in a region that agriculture is possible  Irrigation and drainage possible  Forced people to work together and formed communities

 Rivers supplied basics for existence  food  water  sanitation  Also provided for shelter  How?  basics of building?

 Problems with living near a river valley?  Destroyed by frequent floods that ravaged entire cities  restrained political development (Sumer was a geographical maze)  Communication amongst the various isolated cities was very difficult

 Origins of Writing probably go back to the ninth millennium B.C.  4th millennium- realized that drawing tokens was easier than making tokens  Result was the development of cuneiform:  “wedge-shaped”  pictographic system

 Sumer was different from all other earlier civilizations  Advanced cities  Specialized workers  Complex institutions  Record keeping  Advanced technology  Developed city-states  Food surplus increased population expanded trade expansion of Sumerian society

 Polytheistic  Wrote myths (Epic of Gilgamesh)  Had social classes  Priests and kings were at the top  Slaves were at the bottom  Women probably couldn’t attend school but had many other rights  Advances in mathematics  Number system based on 60 (60 seconds=1 minute)

 Wagon wheel  Potter’s wheel (shape containers)  Number system  12 month calendar  Metal plow  Sail  Some of the earliest known maps  New architecture

 The Sumerian city-states eventually fell to foreign invaders (2000s BCE)  The Akkadians:  Semites- nomadic people from the Arabian Peninsula that migrated to Mesopotamia  Sargon I ( BCE) unites all Mesopotamian cities (creates first empire)  Under Sargon I  Akkadians adopted Sumerian religion  Akkadians adopted Sumerian farming

 Amorites ( BCE)  Located in modern day Syria  Conquered many parts of old Sumeria (including Babylon)  Hammurabi--created a law code with harsh punishments  Borrowed heavily from Sumerian culture  After Hammurabi’s death Babylon declined

 Began to conquer Asia Minor (2000 BCE)  A strong army with chariots  Conquered Babylon in 1595 BCE  Borrowed from Mesopotamian and Egyptian culture  Had a law code less harsh than Hammurabi’s  Lasted until about 1200 BC

 Started to gain strength about 900 BCE  Powerful army  Treated conquered people cruelly  Large empire with good roads  Collapsed about 612 BCE

 Defeated the Assyrains in about 612 BC  Descended from Hammarabi’s Babylonians  At its height during the rule of Nebuchadnezzar ( BCE)  Spent a lot of money on Babylon  Built Hanging Gardens  Empire collapsed in 539 BC after being defeated by the Persians

 Were Indo-Europeans  Cyrus (conquered from the Nile to the Indus)  Darius I  Administered the empire using satraps (governors)  Tolerant to those who were conquered  Increased trade and built roads  Lost to the Greeks in 480 BC