Pathways
Series of man-made waterways through China that increased the amount of trade and prosperity.
What is the Grand Canal?
This was a system used by the Incas in which people under the empire needed to do work projects for a few months each year.
What is the mit'a system?
The Chinese invented this for fireworks and small cannons, but it would spread and revolutionize warfare.
What is gunpowder?
Peasant farmers in Europe who were bound to the land.
Who are serfs?
This trade network traversed an African desert and connected the North to the Western and Eastern parts of the continent.
What is the Trans-Saharan Trade Network?
Muslims found it difficult to do this in Hindu-majority India, which is to actively seek converts to their religion. Hint: one of the Words of the Day
What is proselytize?
In Europe, the practice of dedicating your life to God and living in a community of monks even though you would still serve the secular community.
What is monasticism?
The Chinese invented this process, which allowed them to print literature at a much faster rate. This came four hundred years before Europe's printing presses.
What is woodblock printing?
Hindus are divided into these social groups based on their perceived purity according to their religion.
What are castes?
A lively trade occurred in this ocean between Muslim merchants, East, South and Southeast Asia, and East Africa.
What is the Indian Ocean?
Name for the kingdoms that existed in India, ruled by Hindu princes, which made power very decentralized.
What are the Rajput Kingdoms?
Oral storytellers and historians of family lineages and events in African communities.
Who are griots/griottes?
The Chinese invented this device, which at first was used for astrology, but later came in handy during exploration because it told where north, south, east, and west were.
What is the magnetic compass?
What is a vassal?
Called one road, it was really a series of merchant roads through Asia connecting the far East to the Middle East.
What is the Silk Road?
Mystical, religious movement in which Hindus focused on developing a close relationship to one particular deity.
What is the Bhakti Movement?
Belief that elements of the world could have supernatural, spiritual powers.
What is animism?
Originally invented in China, in the 2nd century BCE, it made its way throughout Eurasia and began to be used in books and for posters.
What is paper/paper manufacturing?
Chinese social class of Confucian-educated bureaucrats.
What are the scholar-gentry?
Major Inca roadway system that connected its 2,500 mile territory.
What is the Carpa Nan?
One of the modern countries that the Khmer Empire of Southeast Asia ruled.
What is Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, or Thailand?
Civilizations in the Americas such as the Mississippians followed this: which means that social standing is determined by the woman's side of the family.
What is matrilineal society?
Aztecs constructed these small islands from the mud of Lake Texcoco and used them to grow crops for Tenochtitlan's residents.
What are chinampas?
What are daimyo?