nice postwolrd history class posts_3
civilization represents a new and particular
type of human society, made possible by the immense productivity of the
Agricultural Revolution. Such societies encompassed far larger populations than
any earlier form of human community and for the first time concentrated some of
those people in sizable cities, numbering in the many tens of thousands. In these
cities, people were organized and controlled by powerful states whose leaders could
use force to compel obedience. page 86
page 87 Norte Chico
"Less well known and only recently investigated by scholars was a third early
civilization that was developing along the central coast of Peru from roughly
3000 B.C.E. to 1800 B.C.E., at about the same time as the civilizations of Egypt and Sumer.
Norte Chico was a distinctive civilization in many ways. Its cities were smaller
than those of Mesopotamia and show less evidence of economic specialization.The
economy was based to an unusual degree on an extremely rich fishing industry in
anchovies and sardines along the coast.These items apparently were exchanged for
cotton, essential for fishing nets, as well as food crops such as squash, beans, and
guava, all of which were grown by inland people in the river valleys using irrigation
agriculture. Unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, Peruvian civilization did not rest
upon grain-based farming; the people of Norte Chico did not develop pottery or
writing; and few sculptures, carvings, or drawings have been uncovered so far."
TOTALLY new civ i never heard of.
page 88 Indus Valley
Unlike its Middle Eastern counterparts, the Indus Valley civilization apparently
generated no palaces, temples, elaborate graves, kings, or warrior classes.
Shang
The early civilization of China, dating to perhaps 2200 B.C.E., was very different
from that of the Indus Valley.The ideal of a centralized state was evident from
the days of the Xia dynasty (2200–1766 B.C.E.), whose legendary monarch Wu
organized flood control projects that “mastered the waters and made them to flow
in great channels.” Subsequent dynasties—the Shang (1766–1122 B.C.E.) and the
Zhou (1122–256 B.C.E.)—substantially enlarged the Chinese state, erected lavish
tombs for their rulers, and buried thousands of human sacrificial victims to accompany
them in the world to come. By the Zhou dynasty, a distinctive Chinese political
ideology had emerged, featuring a ruler, known as the Son of Heaven. This
monarch served as an intermediary between heaven and earth and ruled by the
Mandate of Heaven only so long as he governed with benevolence and maintained
social harmony among his people. An early form of written Chinese has been discovered
on numerous oracle bones, which were intended to predict the future and
to assist China’s rulers in the task of governing. Chinese civilization, more than any
other, has experienced an impressive cultural continuity from its earliest expression
into modern times.
Olmec
A final First Civilization, known as the Olmec, took shape around 1200 B.C.E.
along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico near present-day Veracruz in southern
Mexico. Based on an agricultural economy of maize, beans, and squash, Olmec
cities arose from a series of competing chiefdoms and became ceremonial centers
filled with elaborately decorated temples, altars, pyramids, and tombs of rulers.The
most famous artistic legacy of the Olmecs lay in some seventeen colossal basalt
heads, weighing twenty tons or more. Recent discoveries suggest that the Olmecs
may well have created the first written language in the Americas by about 900 B.C.E.
page 92:
However they got started (and much about this is still guesswork), the First
Civilizations, once established, represented a very different kind of human society
than anything that came before.All of them were based on highly productive agricultural
economies.Various forms of irrigation, drainage, terracing, and flood control
enabled these early civilizations to tap the food-producing potential of their
regions. In dry lands with good soil, such as northern China and southern Iraq,
water made all the difference and vastly increased the agricultural output. In all these
civilizations, pottery likewise enhanced the productivity of farming, as did animaldrawn
plows and metalworking in Afro-Eurasia. Ritual sacrifice, often including
people, usually accompanied the growth of civilization, and the new rulers normally
served as high priests or were seen as divine beings, their right to rule legitimated
by association with the sacred.
Also, I found so many intersting tidbits scintilating
civilization represents a new and particular
type of human society, made possible by the immense productivity of the
Agricultural Revolution. Such societies encompassed far larger populations than
any earlier form of human community and for the first time concentrated some of
those people in sizable cities, numbering in the many tens of thousands. In these
cities, people were organized and controlled by powerful states whose leaders could
use force to compel obedience. page 86
page 87 Norte Chico
"Less well known and only recently investigated by scholars was a third early
civilization that was developing along the central coast of Peru from roughly
3000 B.C.E. to 1800 B.C.E., at about the same time as the civilizations of Egypt and Sumer.
Norte Chico was a distinctive civilization in many ways. Its cities were smaller
than those of Mesopotamia and show less evidence of economic specialization.The
economy was based to an unusual degree on an extremely rich fishing industry in
anchovies and sardines along the coast.These items apparently were exchanged for
cotton, essential for fishing nets, as well as food crops such as squash, beans, and
guava, all of which were grown by inland people in the river valleys using irrigation
agriculture. Unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, Peruvian civilization did not rest
upon grain-based farming; the people of Norte Chico did not develop pottery or
writing; and few sculptures, carvings, or drawings have been uncovered so far."
TOTALLY new civ i never heard of.
page 88 Indus Valley
Unlike its Middle Eastern counterparts, the Indus Valley civilization apparently
generated no palaces, temples, elaborate graves, kings, or warrior classes.
Shang
The early civilization of China, dating to perhaps 2200 B.C.E., was very different
from that of the Indus Valley.The ideal of a centralized state was evident from
the days of the Xia dynasty (2200–1766 B.C.E.), whose legendary monarch Wu
organized flood control projects that “mastered the waters and made them to flow
in great channels.” Subsequent dynasties—the Shang (1766–1122 B.C.E.) and the
Zhou (1122–256 B.C.E.)—substantially enlarged the Chinese state, erected lavish
tombs for their rulers, and buried thousands of human sacrificial victims to accompany
them in the world to come. By the Zhou dynasty, a distinctive Chinese political
ideology had emerged, featuring a ruler, known as the Son of Heaven. This
monarch served as an intermediary between heaven and earth and ruled by the
Mandate of Heaven only so long as he governed with benevolence and maintained
social harmony among his people. An early form of written Chinese has been discovered
on numerous oracle bones, which were intended to predict the future and
to assist China’s rulers in the task of governing. Chinese civilization, more than any
other, has experienced an impressive cultural continuity from its earliest expression
into modern times.
Olmec
A final First Civilization, known as the Olmec, took shape around 1200 B.C.E.
along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico near present-day Veracruz in southern
Mexico. Based on an agricultural economy of maize, beans, and squash, Olmec
cities arose from a series of competing chiefdoms and became ceremonial centers
filled with elaborately decorated temples, altars, pyramids, and tombs of rulers.The
most famous artistic legacy of the Olmecs lay in some seventeen colossal basalt
heads, weighing twenty tons or more. Recent discoveries suggest that the Olmecs
may well have created the first written language in the Americas by about 900 B.C.E.
page 92:
However they got started (and much about this is still guesswork), the First
Civilizations, once established, represented a very different kind of human society
than anything that came before.All of them were based on highly productive agricultural
economies.Various forms of irrigation, drainage, terracing, and flood control
enabled these early civilizations to tap the food-producing potential of their
regions. In dry lands with good soil, such as northern China and southern Iraq,
water made all the difference and vastly increased the agricultural output. In all these
civilizations, pottery likewise enhanced the productivity of farming, as did animaldrawn
plows and metalworking in Afro-Eurasia. Ritual sacrifice, often including
people, usually accompanied the growth of civilization, and the new rulers normally
served as high priests or were seen as divine beings, their right to rule legitimated
by association with the sacred.
Also, I found so many intersting tidbits scintilating
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