Course Themes
This theme focuses on how communities organize people into groups and includes customs related to family, gender roles, and classes.
Social Structures
The varied ways of thinking that humans have developed to answer questions about life's meaning.
Belief system
This term describes early belief systems where the whole natural world was part of an invisible spirit world that existed alongside the physical one.
Animism
This term describes the collection of gods and goddesses found in more structured, early belief systems.
Pantheon
The creation of this, brought on by early farming, supported major social changes
Food surpluses
This theme examines how societies organize their governments and includes topics like the growth of empires and revolutions.
Political Structures
Many religious people consider their beliefs sacred because they are believed to come from this source.
God (or gods)
In early belief systems, this person received messages from the spirit world.
Diviner (or shaman)
With the rise of agriculture and social hierarchies, these religious specialists emerged to communicate with gods and goddesses.
Priests or priestesses
In early farming societies, the creation of food surpluses led to this societal change, where people began to focus on specific roles like priests, rulers, or artisans
Hierarchy
This theme examines how the mutual influence of the natural world and people.
Human-Environmental Interaction
Related to god or god-like beings.
Divine
The doctrine or belief that there is only one God
Monotheism
Official ceremonies or actions that are considered holy
Rituals
The new, portable religious systems inspired these behavioral changes in followers
Selflessness, cooperation, and compassion
This theme centers on the shared beliefs, practices, and traditions of a group and how they spread globally.
Cultural Structures
Term referring to belief systems that were more movable
Portable
The belief in or worship of more than one god.
Polytheism
These helped make belief systems transportable by ensuring rituals could be performed correctly in new places
Sacred writings or texts
In early farming societies, the creation of food surpluses led to this societal change, where people began to focus on specific roles like priests, rulers, or artisans
Job specialization
This theme of history explores how societies find food, organize labor, and view wealth.
Economic Structures
Belief systems that are open to outsiders
Universal
Besides pleasing spirits in the natural world, many early belief systems also aimed to contact these figures who had passed into the spirit world.
Ancestors
The spread of more organized religions was aided by the growth of exchange networks and the conquering of new territories by these political entities
Empires
The process of blending different belief systems throughout history
Syncretism