Geography and the Environment
The first civilizations all settled near this geographic feature.
What are rivers or river valleys?
The early civilizations all needed this to grow their populations and develop cities and job specialization.
What is a surplus?
This process involves selecting and breeding wild plants and/or animals so that it they can be cultivated and controlled.
What is Domestication?
This terms refers to a system for ranking groups of people in a society, usually based on wealth, religion, ethnicity, or other factors...
What is a Social Hierarchy?
a community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland.
What is an Agrarian Society?
Meaning “between two rivers," this early civilization was located in geographic region known as the Fertile Crescent.
What is Mesopotamia?
According to the documentary Mankind: The Story of All of Us, the spread of agriculture, land ownership, and the accumulation of goods led to what ongoing issues or problems in human societies?
What is violence and war?
This form of written language was made up of hundreds of small pictures carved on monuments and pottery, mostly for ceremonial and religious purposes.
What are Hieroglyphics?
This is ancient text is considered to be the first example of written legal codes.
What is Hammurabi's Code?
This type of society is typically characterized by the belief in or worship of more than one god...
What is a polytheistic society?
During this period, the largest and most active regional trade network was operating in this geographical region.
1) What was the name of the region, and
2) What is the famous title of this trade network?
Afro-Eurasia, The Silk Road
This civilization established a system of city-states, built splendid pyramids and sculptures, developed trading networks, and greatly influenced later civilizations like the Maya and Aztec before almost completely disappearing around 350 CE.
What is the Olmec Civilization?
This process involves bringing in water from canals or other man-made means, rather than relying on rainfall alone.
A nation or territory that is considered to be an organized political community under one government.
What is a State?
What is Babylon or Babylonia?
This historical and cultural region includes Mexico, Central America, and the Yucatan Peninsula prior to the arrival of Europeans.
What is Mesoamerica?
Another word for "food scarcity," climate change, crop failures, and overpopulation often led to this disastor in a number of ancient civilizations.
What is a famine?
This system of writing helped scholars and historians decipher the language of ancient China and provided important information on the late Shang dynasty.
What are Oracle Bones?
Long distance trade developed because people in cities wanted and needed things that they could not grow or make themselves...
However, this class of people also influenced the growth of trade, due to their demand for the luxury items needed to show off their wealth and status.
What are Elites?
Historians and archeologists found no evidence of kings or palaces in the remains of their technologically advanced cities, so it’s possible that this Civilization was run by a number of wealthy families rather than a central ruler.
What is the Indus River Valley Civilization?
Farming in North Africa was possible because the Nile River’s annual flooding deposited this fertile, nutrient-rich soil on the riverbanks.
What is Silt?
In ancient China, dynasties often rose and fell. Once a new dynasty claimed power, the new ruler would typically claim that the previous dynasty had lost this title, meaning they lost the favor of the gods.
Hint: Hammurabi claimed something similar in Mesopotamia.
What is the Mandate of Heaven?
Ancient Egyptians developed a technique for making this common everyday object from a plant, found along the bank of the Nile.
Hint: Provide both the invention and its name derived from the plant.
What is Paper; Papyrus?
Hammurabi's Code was written on a large stele (stone pillar), in this ancient script or system of writing...
What is Cuneiform Writing
Long-distance trade was more difficult in the Americas due to their lack of domesticated animals. However, merchants would still travel long distances on foot in order to trade these two commodities typically used in religious practices and weapon-making...
What are Jade and Obsidian?