From Foraging to Farming
The period from 8000-3000 BC marked by the development of agriculture and permanent settlements.
What is the Neolithic Age
The civilization that emerged between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, known for its ziggurats and the Code of Hammurabi.
What is Mesopotamia (or Babylon)?
According to Chris Harman, the main driver of historical change is conflict between these groups over control of surplus.
What is class struggle/class conflict? (Elites vs working classes)
It's a firsthand account, like a diary, letter, or artifact from the period being studied.
What is a primary source?
This ancient Chinese practice involved applying heat to animal bones to crack them and divine answers from the spirit world.
What is oracle bone divination?
Hunter-gatherers possessed deep knowledge of local plants, animals, and ecology, challenging the view of them as this.
What are primitive or unsophisticated people?
Early archaeologists often labeled Nubian pyramids and pharaohs as merely "Egyptian imitations," a view now challenged as reflecting this type of historical bias.
What is Eurocentrism or cultural diffusionism? (Acceptable: racism or underestimation of African civilizations.)
This term describes excess resources, whose control is a central source of social inequality and conflict.
What is surplus?
This type of source analyzes or interprets primary sources, like a history textbook or a scholarly article.
What is a secondary source?
This philosophical system, used by the Qin, believed humans were evil and required harsh punishments to keep order.
What is Legalism?
A major consequence of agriculture was the ability to produce this, which led to population growth and social stratification.
What is a food surplus?
Unlike the river valley civilizations, this classical civilization was defined by its mountainous terrain, city-states (poleis), and access to the Mediterranean Sea.
What is Ancient Greece?
A history that focuses on kings and pharaohs, as opposed to one focusing on farmers and laborers.
What is a history of elites versus a people's history (or bottom-up history)?
The statement "The Code of Hammurabi was created in 1754 BC" is one, while "It was a cruel set of laws" is not.
What is a historical fact versus an opinion?
This Han Dynasty innovation gave government jobs to skilled people who passed difficult exams, not just to nobles.
What is the Civil Service System?
These systems allowed for larger-scale agriculture but could also lead to increased social hierarchy and centralized control.
What are irrigation systems?
The Harappan civilization is noted for its advanced urban planning and this rigid social hierarchy, evidence for which comes from later texts.
What is the caste system (or varna system)?
The Code of Hammurabi is an early example of how these, along with social norms, formalize class hierarchies and inequality.
What are laws (or a legal code)?
A historian might struggle with this if most surviving sources come only from kings, priests, or elites, missing other perspectives.
What is a bias in the historical record (or a lack of sources from common people)?
These two major rivers were the cradles of Chinese civilization.
What are the Yellow River (Huang He) and the Yangtze River?
A social and political consequence of settled agriculture was the rise of these, including defined rulers, soldiers, and priests.
What are social classes (or a complex social hierarchy)?
The predictable flooding of the Nile directly enabled the agricultural surplus that supported the state, making control of these two interlinked systems the primary source of pharaonic power.
What are agriculture and labor mobilization?
Studying gender roles in different civilizations reveals that these systems are not natural or universal, but historically constructed.
What are social differences (or gender relations/patriarchy)?
While a finely crafted Olmec jade mask reveals elite artistry, it tells historians little about the daily lives of these people, whose objects rarely survive.
Who are commoners or the lower classes?
A key criticism of Confucianism is that by strictly defining social roles, it served to justify and perpetuate this type of societal structure.
What is a social hierarchy or patriarchy?