ap world history summer project 2014 - houstonisd.org · that said, to make some sweeping...

AP World History Summer Project 2014 All parts of the summer project will be on the wwwBellaireorg website and on the AP World History blog httpwwwapworldbellaireblogspotcom

FOLLOW DIRECTIONS EXACTLY AS WRITTEN Register at the turnitincom website Go to create a user profile at top right corner Follow the directions after that It will eventually ask for the class ID and enrollment password You will turn your four essays to the proper folders at turnitincom Class ID 8053358 Password APWORLD (case sensitive) Turnitincom will verify that the work you turn in is your work alone _____________________________________________________________________________________________

Activity one After reading the background information case studies and cartoons (below) write an

800 word report (two paragraphs) describing the hunter-gatherer societies of the Paleolithic Era

and the transition to farming people of the Neolithic Era discuss the following topics in your paper

bull Lifestyle including diet and nutrition

bull Invention of early tools including simple weapons

bull Understanding of how to make fire

bull Social organization

bull Development of oral language

bull Art and its importance

(800 words=1 page typed Times New Roman font single spaced size 12 standard margins) Do

NOT quote the information summarize only Turn in your essay to wwwturnitincom before the

first day of school

Background Information of Paleolithic Peoples Archeological evidence indicates that during the Paleolithic era hunting-foraging bands of humans

gradually migrated from their origin in East Africa to Eurasia Australia and the Americas adapting their

technology and cultures to new climate regions

A Humans used fire in new ways to aid hunting and foraging to protect against predators and to adapt

to cold environments

B Humans developed a wider range of tools specially adapted to different environments from tropics to

tundra

C Economic structures focused on small kinship groups of hunting-foraging bands that could make what

they needed to survive However not all groups were self-sufficient they exchanged people ideas and

goods

Paleolithic and Neolithic Societies The Stone Age

One of the principal characteristics separating hominids from their immediate ancestors was tool use it

has been traditional to divide human prehistory into eras based on levels of technological capability

Hominids made their tools out of many materials such as wood bone and animal skins But the most

noteworthy were the ones made of stone The first period of history is known as the Stone Age This era

is broken down into at least two periods the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age (10000 to 25 million years

ago) and Neolithic or New Stone Age (5000 to 10000 years ago) The change from Paleolithic to

Neolithic is associated with the end of the Ice Age

Early Tool-making

During the Paleolithic era Homo habilis and Homo erectus used crude tools including clubs and

choppers to crack open bones rudimentary axes and scrapers to prepare animal hides The earliest

humansmdashNeanderthal Cro-Magnon and Homo sapiens sapiensmdashimproved upon these tools and created

new ones Tools were generally designed to provide shelter protection and defense and foods and

clothing The earliest hominids lived in natural shelters like caves and canyons Fire was developed one

million years ago and then hominids made tent like structures and simple huts to live in By the end of the

Paleolithic the hominids were building more advanced wood and stone structures They also developed

weapons like clubs and rocks They devised tools for hunting and food preparation which could also be a

weapon such as the bow and arrow spears axes and knives

Paleolithic Religion

Paleolithic peoples were very spiritualistic Animism is the belief that everything had its own spirit

people animals trees rivers mountains and the sky The interaction of these spirits within this unseen

world was what shaped the visible events of everything around them weather wars and health

Those who demonstrated certain powers the shamans or witchdoctors were both greatly respected and

greatly feared They were understood to possess special magical powers that could be worked to the

good-or the bad--of the community The community as a whole felt that it exercised some controlling

influence over events--by their ability to pre-enact the necessary events of their lives Thus the

community engaged in ritualistic war dances hunting dances rain dances medicine dances and rituals

which supposedly had the power to predispose or control the behavior of the unseen spirits in order to

assure a forthcoming favorable outcome--whatever the event or whatever the communitys particular

need

Hunting and Gathering the New Stone Age

As time passed hominids began to organize themselves in social groups This would eventually

give birth to family units and these families would tend to cluster together by ties of kinship As clans

became larger they usually mixed with neighboring groups that grew into bands or tribes

Paleolithic groups sustained themselves by hunting and gathering This practice is known as

foraging Rather than produce food themselves hunter-gatherer societies lived off the resources from the

land They killed birds and animals for food especially mammoths bison deer and rodents They also

picked roots and berries from surrounding trees When the resources dried up the band or tribe moved to

a new area with sustainable resources

The early tribes also developed a form of government This organization was based on chiefs

leaders and religious figures to head the tribe They were to main figure to these early hunter-gatherer

societies and are responsible for keeping them together The early tribes also worshipped deities and

practiced a variety of religious rituals It is said that Cro-Magnon buried their dead over 100000 years

ago indicating the belief in an afterlife The religious ceremonies became more sophisticated with the

sacrificing to gods goddesses and spirits The early tribes were very artistic people they were known to

play music and paint on cave walls

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Case Study Neander Valley

Modern man was really forced to stop and think when unusual fossils (bones) were found in 1856 near

Duesseldorf Germany in the Neander Valley Workers were mining for limestone in a cave when they

came across a skull and other various bones This is of course how Neanderthal gets its name

This was not the first discovery of Neanderthal fossils though It was about 1829 or 1830 when fragments

from the skull of a Neanderthal child were found in Belgium and in 1848 a full skull of an adult was

found in Gibraltar But the find in the Neander Valley began all of the excitement it stirred up many

questions and theories

These remains found in the cave near Duesseldorf were examined by Rudolf Vichow a German

Anatomist He concluded that it was just a Homo sapiens (modern human) with rickets Vichow claimed

that the flattened head was due to some form of injury

A biologist named Thomas Huxley declared that it was

an ancestor of modern humans Paleontologist Marcellin

Boule argued that Neanderthals were not direct

ancestors of Homo sapiens sapiens and so called them

Homo neanderthalensis Boule also gave the impression

that these creatures were stupid Of course this is

disputable with the evidence of the average brain size of

a Neanderthal compared with that of a modern human

There was a dispute to whether Neanderthals were direct ancestors or an extinct species of their own

Immediately they were portrayed as slouched over violent bruteape-like cavemen And this image was

carried on until almost 1960 At this time scientists realized that the first found Neanderthal had arthritis

and they did in fact walk upright It is said that if you were to put a cleaned up Neanderthal with a group

of modern day humans there would not be much difference at all

The average height is thought to be about 5 feet tall Their

bodies were probably quite stocky or muscular with very

strong legs-most likely due to traveling or wandering They

had low brow ridges Their front teeth were quite large larger

than the modern humanrsquos and worn - indicating much use for

chewing Neanderthalsrsquo average brain size is larger than

some modern humans

According to evidence they lived between 130000 and

35000 years ago dating back to the fourth glaciation Neanderthals seemed to live primarily in Europe

and in Western Asia this is concluded because most of the fossils were found in these areas

Many Mousterian tools were found with the fossil remains consisting of different kinds of scrapers and

points Many believe they primarily hunted reindeer and whenever possible the larger animals such as

mammoths cave bears etc Neanderthals were probably huntergatherer groups If so their diets

consisted of mainly small animals vegetation and less often the larger animals They would have used

whatever was in their environment for food and tools

Evidence shows that they possibly buried their dead Remains have been found in shallow graves often

buried with items such as flowers tool etc perhaps as offerings to the dead

Sources

Fagan Brian M The Journey From Eden Thames and Hudson Ltd London 1990

Wenke Robert J Patterns in Prehistory humankindrsquos first three million years Oxford University

Press Inc New York 1980 1984 1990

___________________________________________________________________________________

What are the key characteristics of Paleolithic art

It seems a bit flippant to try to characterize the art from a period that encompasses most of human history

Paleolithic art is intricately bound to anthropological and archaeological studies that professionals have

devoted entire lives toward researching and compiling The truly curious should head in those directions

That said to make some sweeping generalizations Paleolithic art

Concerned itself with either food (hunting scenes animal carvings) or fertility (Venus figurines)

Its predominant theme was animals

Is considered to be an attempt by Stone Age peoples to gain some sort of control

over their environment whether by magic or ritual

Represents a giant leap in human cognition abstract thinking

Engines of our Ingenuity No 1908 BLOMBOS CAVE Dr John H Lienhard

Today lets visit Blombos Cave The University of Houstons College of Engineering presents this series

about the machines that make our civilization run and the people whose ingenuity created them

You and I have to struggle with our of Clan-of-the-Cave-Bear thinking Weve been trained to believe that

only about thirty-five-thousand years ago the fine upright Cro-Magnons arose to displace the brutish Neanderthals

Well thats all being turned on its ear by the Blombos Cave site

Blombos Cave overlooks the Indian Ocean on the south coast of South Africa In 1993 it stunned the

anthropological world when it yielded hundred-thousand-year-old finely-formed bone tools -- two or three times

the age of such tools from Europe And the people who made them were anatomically Modern Humans -- like you

and me

Let me give some benchmark dating here the Paleolithic Era (which means the Era of Old Stone) It starts

with the first human tool-making two and a half million years ago It ends after the last Ice Age and the beginnings

of agriculture After that we talk about the Neolithic Era (the Era of New Stone) It lasted until we took up

metalworking and we invented writing

The older Paleolithic Era took place in two parts Lower and Upper During the latter part the Upper

Paleolithic Era Modern Humans appeared and rapidly extended tool making beyond simple chipped rocks For a

long time wed believed all thatd started just a little over thirty thousand years ago

But most of the evidence for that had come out of Europe Now Blombos Cave has moved the rise of

Modern Humans back to a time long before the Neanderthals vanished It has tripled the length of the Upper

Paleolithic Era and it places the cradle of Modern Humans down at the far tip of the African continent

Among those oldest-known bone tools we find spear points awls spatulas We find standard forms of

tools We find the first evidence of fishing We find fine stonework of a kind that didnt turn up in Europe until

twenty-thousand years ago We find different areas of the cave devoted to specific activities

The most remarkable discovery is that of purely artistic technologies Ochre was widely used Ochre is a

form of iron ore that makes a fine paint It can be used on human bodies or on walls And those chunks of ochre

themselves have been scribed with abstract designs The cave has also yielded up a seventy-five-thousand-year-old

snail-shell necklace -- the oldest ever found

All this suggests something beyond just tool making These uses of an esthetic symbolic language would

hardly have been possible without speech as well And speech was also something wed thought was only thirty

thousand years old

Its neat to find our grandparents doing so well so long ago As I was reading about that old necklace my

wife showed me a simi-lar one in a jewelry catalog She said I guess we havent come as far as wed thought

Well its true We really did not start being smart just the day before yesterday

Earliest evidence for cheese making in the 6th millennium BCE

in northern Europe Melanie Salque et al (Nature International Journal of Science Dec 2012)

The introduction of dairying was a critical step in early agriculture with milk products being rapidly

adopted as a major component of the diets of prehistoric farmers and pottery-using late hunter-gatherers The

processing of milk particularly the production of cheese would have been a critical development because it not

only allowed the preservation of milk products in a non-perishable and transportable form but also it made milk a

more digestible commodity for early prehistoric farmers The finding of abundant milk residues in pottery vessels

from seventh millennium sites from north-western Anatolia provided the earliest evidence of milk processing

although the exact practice could not be explicitly defined1 Notably the discovery of potsherds pierced with small

holes appear at early Neolithic sites in temperate Europe in the sixth millennium BC and have been interpreted

typologically as lsquocheese-strainersrsquo although a direct association with milk processing has not yet been

demonstrated Organic residues preserved in pottery vessels have provided direct evidence for early milk use in the

Neolithic period in the Near East and south-eastern Europe north Africa Denmark and the British Isles based on

the δ13

C and Δ13

C values of the major fatty acids in milk Here we apply the same approach to investigate the

function of sievesstrainer vessels providing direct chemical evidence for their use in milk processing The

presence of abundant milk fat in these specialized vessels comparable in form to modern cheese strainers provides

compelling evidence for the vessels having being used to separate fat-rich milk curds from the lactose-containing

whey This new evidence emphasizes the importance of pottery vessels in processing dairy products particularly in

the manufacture of reduced-lactose milk products among lactose-intolerant prehistoric farming communities

The emergence of dairying was a major innovation in prehistoric societies enabling the supply of nutritious

food without the slaughtering of precious livestock The processing of milk particularly the production of cheese

would have been an important development however the origins of cheese making are currently unknown

Iconographic and written evidence from the mid-third-millennium BCE weakly documents the history of cheese

making although its origins probably lie much earlier in prehistoryhellip

Activity two Read ldquoConsequences and future of plant and animal domesticationrdquo by Jared

Diamond (below) and write an 800-1200 word summary (1-1 frac12 pages typed Times New Roman

font single spaced size 12 standard margins)

o Explain why humans began to domesticate plants and animals and how the species subsequently

changed

o Describe the reasons why so few species were suitable and why certain areas became

agricultural hearths

o Finally explain the consequences of domestication

Do NOT quote the article summarize only Turn in your summary to wwwturnitincom before the

first day of school

Consequences and future of plant and animal domestication Jared Diamond

Domestication interests us as the most momentous change in Holocene human history Why did it

operate on so few wild species in so few geographic areas Why did people adopt it at all why did they

adopt it when they did and how did it spread The answers to these questions determined the remaking of

the modern world as farmers spread at the expense of hunterndashgatherers and of other farmers

Plant and animal domestication is the most important development in the past 13000 years of

human history It interests all of us scientists and non-scientists alike because it provides most of our

food today it was prerequisite to the rise of civilization and it transformed global demography Because

domestication ultimately yielded agents of conquest (for example guns germs and steel) but arose in only

a few areas of the world and in certain of those areas earlier than in others the peoples who through

biogeographic luck first acquired domesticates acquired enormous advantages over other peoples and

expanded As a result of those replacements about 88 of all humans alive today speak some language

belonging to one or another of a mere seven language families confined in the early Holocene to two

small areas of Eurasia that happened to become the earliest centers of domestication mdash the Fertile

Crescent and parts of China Through that head start the inhabitants of those two areas spread their

languages and genes over much of the rest of the world Those localized origins of domestication

ultimately explain why this international journal of science is published in an Indo-European language

rather than in Basque Swahili Quechua or Pitjantjatjara

The past of domestication Our decision to domesticate

The question why farm strikes most of us modern humans as silly Of course it is better to grow

wheat and cows than to forage for roots and snails But in reality that perspective is flawed by hindsight

Food production could not possibly have arisen through a conscious decision because the worlds first

farmers had around them no model of farming to observe hence they could not have known that there

was a goal of domestication to strive for and could not have guessed the consequences that domestication

would bring for them If they had actually foreseen the consequences they would surely have outlawed

the first steps towards domestication because the archaeological and ethnographic record throughout the

world shows that the transition from hunting and gathering to farming eventually resulted in more work

lower adult stature worse nutritional condition and heavier disease burdens The only peoples who could

make a conscious choice about becoming farmers were hunterndashgatherers living adjacent to the first

farming communities and they generally disliked what they saw and rejected farming for the good

reasons just mentioned and others

Instead the origins of domestication involved unforeseen consequences of two sets of changes mdash

changes in plants and animals and changes in human behavior As initially recognized by Darwin many

of the differences between domestic plants and their wild ancestors evolved as consequences of wild

plants being selected gathered and brought back to camp by hunterndashgatherers while the roots of animal

domestication included the ubiquitous tendency of all peoples to try to tame or manage wild animals

(including such unlikely candidates as ospreys hyenas and grizzly bears) Although humans had been

manipulating wild plants and animals for a long time hunterndashgatherer behavior began to change at the

end of the Pleistocene because of increasingly unpredictable climate decreases in big-game species that

were hunters first-choice prey and increasing human occupation of available habitats To decrease the

risk of unpredictable variation in food supply people broadened their diets to second- and third-choice

foods which included more small game plus plant foods requiring much preparation such as grinding

leaching and soaking Eventually people transported some wild plants (such as wild cereals) from their

natural habitats to more productive habitats and began intentional cultivation

The emerging agricultural lifestyle had to compete with the established hunterndashgatherer lifestyle

Once domestication began to arise the changes of plants and animals that followed automatically under

domestication and the competitive advantages that domestication conveyed upon the first farmers

(despite their small stature and poor health) made the transition from the hunterndashgatherer lifestyle to food

production autocatalytic mdash but the speed of that transition varied considerably among regions Thus the

real question about the origins of agriculture which I consider below is why did food production

eventually out-compete the hunterndashgatherer lifestyle over almost the whole world at the particular times

and places that it did but not at earlier times and other places

Changes of wild species under domestication

These changes are particularly well understood for southwest Asias Fertile Crescent the site of

domestication that was earliest in the world and that yielded what are still the worlds most valuable

domestic plant and animal species For most species domesticated there the wild ancestor and its wild

geographic range have been identified its relation to the domesticate proven by genetic and chromosomal

studies its changes under domestication delineated (often at the gene level) those changes traced in

successive layers of the archaeological record and the approximate time and place of its domestication

identified

For example wild wheat and barley bear their seeds on top of a stalk that spontaneously shatters

dropping the seeds to the ground where they can germinate (but where they also become difficult for

humans to gather) An occasional single-gene mutation that prevents shattering is lethal in the wild

(because the seeds fail to drop) but conveniently concentrates the seeds for human gatherers Once people

started harvesting those wild cereal seeds bringing them back to camp accidentally spilling some and

eventually planting others seeds with a non-shattering mutation became unconsciously selected for rather

than against

Individual wild animals also vary in traits affecting their desirability to humans Chickens were

selected to be larger wild cattle (aurochs) to be smaller and sheep to lose their bristly outer hairs and not

to shed their soft inner hairs (the wool) Most domestic animals including even recently domesticated

trout have smaller brains and less acute sense organs than do their wild ancestors Good brains and keen

eyes are essential to survival in the wild but represent a quantitatively important waste of energy in the

barnyard as far as humans are concerned

Especially instructive are cases in which the same ancestral species became selected under

domestication for alternative purposes resulting in very different-appearing breeds or crops For instance

dogs were variously selected to kill wolves dig out rats race be eaten or be cuddled in our laps What

naive zoologist glancing at wolfhounds terriers greyhounds Mexican hairless dogs and chihuahuas

would even guess them to belong to the same species Similarly cabbage was variously selected for its

leaves (cabbage and kale) stems (kohlrabi) flower shoots (broccoli and cauliflower) and buds (brussels

sprouts)

Why so few wild species were domesticated

The wild animal species that most plausibly could have yielded valuable domesticates were large

terrestrial mammalian herbivores and omnivores of which the world holds 148 species weighing 45 kg or

more Yet only 14 of those 148 species were actually domesticated prompting us to ask what prevented

domestication of the other 134 species Similarly worldwide there are about 200000 wild species of

higher plants of which only about 100 yielded valuable domesticates Especially surprising are the many

cases in which only one of a closely related group of species became domesticated For example horses

and donkeys were domesticated but none of the four zebra species were

The key question concerning this selectivity of domestication is as follows in the cases of all

those species never domesticated did the difficulty lie with the species itself or with the people

indigenous to the area to which the species was native For instance is the abundance of large wild

mammals the reason why no mammal species was ever domesticated in subequatorial Africa making

domestication superfluous for Africans If that explanation were correct then African people should also

have ignored Eurasian domestic mammals when those were finally introduced to Africa and European

animal breeders on arriving in Africa should have succeeded in domesticating some African wild

mammals but both of those predictions are refuted by the actual course of history

Six independent lines of evidence converge to prove that in most cases the obstacle lay with the

species itself not with the local people the rapid acceptance of introduced Eurasian domesticates by non-

Eurasian peoples the rapid ancient domestication of the most valuable wild species the repeated

independent domestications of many of them the failure of even modern European plant and animal

breeders to add significantly to our short list of valuable domesticates ancient discoveries of the value of

thousands of species that were regularly harvested in the wild but that never became domesticated and

the identification of the particular reasons preventing the domestication of many of those species

Comparisons of domesticated wild species with never-domesticated close relatives illustrate the subtle

factors that can derail domestication For example it is initially surprising that oak trees the most

important wild food plant in many parts of Eurasia and North America were never domesticated Like

wild almonds acorns of most individual wild oaks contain bitter poisons with occasional non-poisonous

mutant trees preferred by human foragers However the non-poisonous condition is controlled by a single

dominant gene in almonds but polygenically in oaks so that offspring of the occasional non-poisonous

individuals are often non-poisonous in almonds but rarely so in oaks preventing selection of edible oak

varieties to this day A second example is provided by the European horse breeders who settled in South

Africa in the 1600s and mdash like African herders for previous millennia mdash tried to domesticate zebras

They gave up after several centuries for two reasons First zebras are incurably vicious have the bad

habit of biting a handler and not letting go until the handler is dead and thereby injure more zoo-keepers

each year than do tigers Second zebras have better peripheral vision than horses making them

impossible even for professional rodeo cowboys to lasso (they see the rope coming and flick away their

head)

Figure 1 Comparisons of domesticated wild species (left of each pair) and their never-

domesticated close relatives (right) reveal the subtle factors that can derail domestication

Among wild mammal species

that were never domesticated the six

main obstacles proved to be a diet not

easily supplied by humans (hence no

domestic anteaters) slow growth rate

and long birth spacing (for example

elephants and gorillas) nasty

disposition (grizzly bears and

rhinoceroses) reluctance to breed in

captivity (pandas and cheetahs) lack

of follow-the-leader dominance

hierarchies (bighorn sheep and

antelope) and tendency to panic in

enclosures or when faced with

predators (gazelles and deer except

reindeer) Many species passed five of

these six tests but were still not

domesticated because they failed a

sixth test Conclusions about non-domesticability from the fact of non-domestication are not circular

because these six obstacles can be assessed independently

Why there were so few homelands of agriculture

Food production bestowed on farmers enormous demographic technological political and

military advantages over neighboring hunterndashgatherers The history of the past 13000 years consists of

tales of hunterndashgatherer societies becoming driven out infected conquered or exterminated by farming

societies in every area of the world suitable for farming One might therefore have naively anticipated

that in any part of the world one or more of the local hunterndashgatherer societies would have stumbled

upon domestication become farmers and thereby outcompeted the other local hunterndashgatherer societies

In fact food production arose independently in at most nine areas of the world (Fertile Crescent China

Mesoamerica AndesAmazonia eastern United States Sahel tropical West Africa Ethiopia and New

Guinea)

The puzzle increases when one scrutinizes that list of homelands One might again naively have

expected the areas most productive for farming today to correspond at least roughly to the areas most

productive in the past In reality the list of homelands and the list of breadbaskets of the modern world

are almost mutually exclusive (Fig 2) The latter list includes California North Americas Great Plains

Europe the pampas of Argentina the cape of southern Africa the Indian subcontinent Java and

Australias wheat belt Because these areas are evidently so well suited to farming or herding today why

were they not so in the past

Figure 2 Ancient and modern centers of agriculture

Ancient centers of origin of plant and animal domestication mdash the nine homelands of food

production mdash are indicated by the orange-shaded areas on the map The most agriculturally productive

areas of the modern world as judged by cereals and major staples are indicated by the yellow-shaded

areas Note that there is almost no overlap between the areas highlighted except that China appears on

both distributions and that the most productive areas of the central United States today approach areas of

the eastern United States where domestication originated The reason why the two distributions are so

different is that agriculture arose in areas to which the wild ancestors of the most valuable domesticable

crops and animals were native but other areas proved much more productive when those valuable

domesticates reached them

The explanation is that the homelands of agriculture were instead merely those regions to which

the most numerous and most valuable domesticable wild plant and animal species were native Only in

those areas were incipient early farmers able to out-compete local hunterndashgatherers Once those locally

available wild species had been domesticated and had spread outside the homelands societies of

homelands had no further advantage other than that of a head start and they were eventually overtaken by

societies of more fertile or climatically more favored areas outside the homelands

For instance the Fertile Crescent of southwest Asia was home to wild wheats barley peas sheep

goats cows and pigs mdash a list that includes what are still the most valuable crops and livestock of the

modern world Hence hunterndashgatherers of the Fertile Crescent domesticated those species and became the

worlds first farmers and herders beginning around 8500 BCE That head start in food production led to

them and their close neighbors also developing the worlds first metal tools writing empires and

professional armies Those tools of conquest and Fertile Crescent human genes gradually spread west

into Europe and North Africa and east into the western Indian subcontinent and central Asia However

once those crops livestock and human inventions had spread Fertile Crescent societies possessed no

other advantages As all of those elements slowly spread northwest across Europe farming and power

also shifted northwest from the Fertile Crescent to areas where farming had never arisen independently mdash

first to Greece then to Italy and finally to northwest Europe Human societies of the Fertile Crescent

inadvertently committed slow ecological suicide in a zone of low rainfall prone to deforestation soil

erosion and salinization

The spread of food production

From the homelands of domestication food production spread around the world in either of two

ways The much less common way was for hunterndashgatherers outside the homelands to acquire crops or

livestock from the homelands enabling them to settle down as farmers or herders as attested by

archaeological evidence for substantial continuity of material culture and by genetic linguistic and

skeletal evidence of continuity of human populations The clearest such example of local adoption of food

production is in southern Africa where around 2000 years ago some Khoisan hunterndashgatherers acquired

Eurasian livestock (cattle sheep and goats) arriving from the north and became herders (so-called

Hottentots) Much more often however local hunterndashgatherers had no opportunity to acquire crops and

livestock before they were overrun or replaced by farmers expanding out of the homelands exploiting

their demographic technological political and military advantages over the hunterndashgatherers

Expansions of crops livestock and even people and technologies tended to occur more rapidly along

eastndashwest axes than along northndashsouth axes1 (Fig 3) The reason is obvious locations at the same latitude

share identical day-lengths and seasonalities often share similar climates habitats and diseases and hence

require less evolutionary change or adaptation of domesticates technologies and cultures than do

locations at different latitudes Examples include the rapid westwards and eastwards dispersal of wheat

horses wheels and writing of western Asian origin and the westwards dispersal of chickens citrus and

peaches of Chinese origin along the eastndashwest axis of Eurasia This can be contrasted with the slow

spread of Eurasian livestock and non-spread of Eurasian crops southwards along Africas northndashsouth

axis the slow spread of Mexican corn and the non-spread of Mexican writing and wheels and Andean

llamas and potatoes along the Americas northndashsouth axis and the slow spread of food production

southwards along the northndashsouth axis of the Indian subcontinent

Figure 3 The continental major axis is oriented eastndashwest

for Eurasia but northndashsouth for the Americas and Africa

The spread of food production tended to occur more

rapidly along eastndashwest axes than along northndashsouth axes mainly

because locations at the same latitudes required less evolutionary

change or adaptation of domesticates than did locations at

different latitudes

This is not to deny the existence of ecological barriers at

the same latitude within Asia and North America but the general

pattern remains Eurasias eastndashwest axis and the resulting rapid enrichment of societies in each part of

Eurasia by crops and technologies from other parts of Eurasia became one of the main ultimate reasons

why Eurasian peoples conquered Native American peoples rather than vice versa Eurasias eastndashwest

axis also explains why there is much less evidence for multiple independent domestications of the same

plant species (see below) and much more evidence for agriculturally driven language expansions in

Eurasia than in the Americas

Consequences of domestication Consequences for human societies

Beginning around 8500 BCE the transition from the hunterndashgatherer lifestyle to food production

enabled people to settle down next to their permanent gardens orchards and pastures instead of migrating

to follow seasonal shifts in wild food supplies (Some hunterndashgatherer societies in especially productive

environments were also sedentary but most were not) Food production was accompanied by a human

population explosion that has continued unabated to this day resulting from two separate factors First

the sedentary lifestyle permitted shorter birth intervals Nomadic hunterndashgatherers had previously spaced

out birth intervals at four years or more because a mother shifting camp can carry only one infant or slow

toddler Second plant and animal species that are edible to humans can be cultivated in much higher

density in our gardens orchards and pastures than in wild habitats

Food production also led to an explosion of technology because sedentary living permitted the

accumulation of heavy technology (such as forges and printing presses) that nomadic hunterndashgatherers

could not carry and because the storable food surpluses resulting from agriculture could be used to feed

full-time craftspeople and inventors By also feeding full-time kings bureaucrats nobles and soldiers

those food surpluses led to social stratification political centralization and standing armies All of these

overwhelming advantages are what enabled farmers eventually to displace hunterndashgatherers

Evolution of epidemic infectious diseases

The main killers of humans since the advent of agriculture have been acute highly infectious

epidemic diseases that are confined to humans and that either kill the victim quickly or if the victim

recovers immunize himher for life Such diseases could not have existed before the origins of

agriculture because they can sustain themselves only in large dense populations that did not exist before

agriculture hence they are often termed crowd diseases The mystery of the origins of many of these

diseases has been solved by molecular biological studies of recent decades demonstrating that they

evolved from similar epidemic diseases of our herd domestic animals with which we began to come into

close contact 10000 years ago Thus the evolution of these diseases depended on two separate roles of

domestication in creating much denser human populations and in permitting much more frequent

transmission of animal diseases from our domesticates than from hunted wild animals For instance

measles and tuberculosis arose from diseases of cattle influenza from a disease of pigs and ducks1 An

outstanding mystery remains the origins of smallpox did it reach us from camels or from cattle

Crowd diseases paradoxically became agents of conquest because exposed individuals acquired

immune resistance from childhood exposure and exposed populations gradually evolved genetic

resistance but unexposed populations had neither type of resistance In practice because 13 of our 14

large domestic mammals were Eurasian species evolution of crowd diseases was concentrated in Eurasia

and the diseases became the most important agents by which Eurasian colonists expanding overseas killed

indigenous peoples of the Americas Australia Pacific islands and southern Africa

The agricultural expansions

Because some peoples acquired domesticates before other peoples could and because

domesticates conferred eventual advantages such as guns germs and steel on the possessors the history

of the past 10000 years has consisted of farmers replacing hunterndashgatherers or less advanced farmers

These agricultural expansions originating mainly from the nine homelands of agriculture remade genetic

and linguistic maps of the world Among the most discussed (and often highly controversial) possible

examples are the expansions of Bantu-speaking farmers out of tropical West Africa over subequatorial

Africa Austronesian-speaking farmers out of Taiwan over Island Southeast Asia Fertile Crescent farmers

over Europe and Korean farmers over Japan

Activity three Without the ability to translate their writing script archaeologists today do not

understand nearly as much about the Indus River Valley civilization that flourished from 2600 to

1900 BCE although the artifacts found there have enhanced our knowledge of these ancient

peoples One mystery is what exactly happened to the civilizations of the Indus River Valley

Mesopotamia and Egypt were later absorbed into a broader Hellenistic and later Roman cultural

zone but civilization in the Indus River Valley instead disappeared Study the map and read the

articles ldquoThe Myth of the Aryan Invasion of Indiardquo ldquoWere they Copycats or Geniusesrdquo

ldquoEnvironment and Technology Environmental Stress in the Indus River Valleyrdquo and ldquoDid Aryans

kill them or a depressionrdquo Write an 800 word essay that addresses the following question

What are the debates that center around the disappearance of this ancient civilization (Include

examples from the articles) Do NOT go on-line and attempt to find any more information Do

NOT quote from the articles Turn in your essay to wwwturnitincom before the first day of

school

River Valley Civilizations

The Indus Valley Civilization was the first major urban culture of South Asia It reached its peak

from 2600 BC to 1900 BC roughly a period called by some archaeologists Mature Harappan as

distinguished from the earlier Neolithic Early Harappan regional cultures Spatially it is huge

comprising of about 1000 settlements of varying sizes and geographically includes almost all of modern

Pakistan parts of India as far east as Delhi and as far south as Bombay and parts of Afghanistan

The main corpus of writing dated from the Indus Civilization is in the form of some two thousand

inscribed seals in good legible conditions (In case you dont know what seals are they are used to make

impressions on malleable material like clay)

Although these seals and samples of Indus writing have been floating around the scholastic world

for close to 70 years little progress has been made on deciphering this elegant script However we should

not blame scholars for their lack of progress for there are some major impediments to decipherment

1 Very short and brief texts The average number of symbols on the seals is 5 and the longest is

only 26

2 The language underneath is unknown

3 Lack of bilingual texts

For instance consider Champollion who deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs with all of these 3

important clues there were very long Egyptian texts he knew Coptic a descendant of Egyptian and the

Rosetta Stone a bilingual text between Greek and two written forms of Egyptian

But the script isnt as bad as undecipherable For one even though scholars dont have long texts

and bilingual texts they can still theorize about the language underneath the writing system There are

several competing theories about the language that the Indus script represent

A The language is completely unrelated to anything else meaning an isolate Well this doesnt get

us anywhere

B The language is Aryan (some form of Indian-Iranian Indo-European) The historical languages

spoken in Northern India and Pakistan all belong to the Indic branch of Indo-European including

Sanskrit Hindi Punjabi etc so maybe the people of the Indus valley spoke a very old Indo-

European language

The major problem with this model is the fact that horses played a very important role in all Indo-

European cultures being a people constantly on the move There is no escape from the fact that

the horse played a central role in the Vedic and Iranian cultures (Parpola 1986) Sidenote

Vedic means from the time of the Vedas the earliest text in India and the Vedic culture is from

around 1500 to 500 BC However no depiction of horses on seals nor any remains of horses have

been found so far before 2000 BC They only appear after 2000 BC Very likely there were no

Aryan speakers present before 2000 BC in the Indus Valley

C The language belongs to the Munda family of languages The Munda family is spoken largely in

eastern India and related to some Southeast Asian languages Like Aryan the reconstructed

vocabulary of early Munda does not reflect the Harappan culture So its candidacy for being the

language of the Indus Civilization is dim

D The language is Dravidian The Dravidian family of languages is spoken in Southern Indian but

Brahui is spoken in modern Pakistan So far this is the most promising model as in the following

points

o There are many Dravidian influences visible in the Vedic texts If the Aryan language

gradually replaced the Dravidian features from Dravidian would form a substratum in

Aryan One of these features is the appearance of retroflex consonants in Indian languages

both Indo-European and Dravidian In contrast retroflex consonants do not appear in any

other Indo-European language not even Iranian ones which are closest to Indic (For more

information on retroflex consonants please visit my Phonetics page)

o Another possible indication of Dravidian in the Indus texts is from structural analysis of

the texts which suggests that the language underneath is possibly agglutinative from the

fact that sign groups often have the same initial signs but different final signs The number

of these final signs range between 1 to 3 The final signs possibly represent grammatical

suffixes that modify the word (represented by the initial signs) Each suffix would

represent one specific modification and the entire cluster of suffixes would therefore put

the word through a series of modifications This suffix system can be found in Dravidian

but not Indo-European Indo-European tongues tend to change the final sounds to modify

the meaning of a word (a process called inflection) but repeated addition of sounds to the

end of word is extremely rare Often many suffixes in an agglutinative language

correspond to a single inflectional ending in an inflectional language

The Dravidian model isnt just an unapplicable theoryBut first we have to know what kind of

writing system is the Indus script

A count of the number of signs reveal a lot about the type of system being used Alphabetic

systems rarely have more than 40 symbols Syllabic systems like Linear B or Cherokee typically have 40

to 100 or so symbols The third ranges from logophonetic to logographic running upwards of hundreds of

signs (like 500 signs in Hieroglyphic Luwian and 5000 symbols in modern Chinese)

It appears that the maximum number of Indus script symbols is 400 although there are 200 basic

signs (ie signs that are not combined from others) This means that the Indus script is probably

logophonetic in that it has both signs used for their meanings and signs used for their phonetic values

Many signs start off as pictorial representation of a physical object often misleadingly called

pictograms They really are should be called logograms because they represent words in the language

However its next to impossible to write out a word with abstract meaning pictorially What all early

writers figured out was to use a logogram not for the object or idea it was originally supposed to stand for

but for all words sounding similar to the original word for that object or idea For example in English to

write leave we can use a picture of a leaf This is called rebus writing and is a tremendously common

pattern in all early writing systems We could also then use the same leaf symbol to stand for the sound

in relief adding another symbol in front of the leaf symbol in order to indicate the re sound So the

logogram gained a phonetic value as well

Testing the theory How can we take the theoretical framework so far and apply it to archaeological data

Numerals seem to represented by vertical lines (represented by number of lines in the glyph) but

they only go up to 7 Analysis reveal 4 more signs that appear in the same context as these numerals and

so they likely represent numbers higher than 7

The fact that no vertical-line numeral sign denotes 8 very likely means the Harappan language is

based 8 (For example the Arabic numerals that we use has symbols from 0 to 9 and to write ten we

have to combined the symbols 1 and 0 which identify our number system as based ten)

Base 8 languages are rare in the world but it does appear that early Dravidian is base 8 but later

changed to base 10 (possibly under Indo-European influence) When translated the count from 1 to 7 is

familiar to us one two three four five six seven However above seven the numbers

etymologies become non-numerical 8 is number 9 is many minus one and 10 is many (Fairservis

1983)

But can we actually read (not interpret) any symbol on the seals We should start with pictograms as

this one

Many scholars (Knorozov Parpola Mahadevan etc) see this sign as a fish

Fish in reconstructed Proto-Dravidian is micircn Coincidentally micircn is also the word for star

On many pots from Mohenjo Daro an Indus site there are drawings of fish and stars together and so

affirming this linguistic association

Going further often the numeral six appears before the fish Either it means 6 fish or

6 stars Old Tamil (a Dravidian language still spoken today) texts from just around the 1st

century AD recorded the name of the Pleiades a star cluster visible during autumn and

winter just above Orion as Six-Stars or aru-micircn Throughout the world titles with celestial

connotations are very common and the clause Six Stars forming part or whole of a Harappan title is not

unreasonable (Parpola 1986)

Sometimes symbols are added to the basic sign to make new signs Of these the one that

looks like a circumflex accent placed on top of the fish is quite interesting It is theorized to mean

roof and in Proto-Dravidian it is vecircymecircy This is phonetically similar to Proto-Dravidian word

for black may Together with fish it spells out mai-m-micircn or black star which in Old Tamil

means the planet Saturn In Sanskrit texts Saturn is associate the color black The god of death Yama is

the presiding of this planet and is usually depicted as riding on a dark buffalo

But the fish reading isnt accepted by all scholars William Fairservis saw it as a combination of

a loom twist and a human sign and form a honorific title pertaining to rulership (Fairservis 1983) I

however am more inclined to accept the fish identification

This is a quick overview of the current process in the decipherment of the Indus script For more

information you can either go to the following links or go to a good library for books and articles (check

out my references)

The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India Richard Hooker 1996

They called themselves the noble ones or the superior ones Their names are lost their tribal names

are lost But when they found themselves conquerors they gave themselves the name superior or

noble

They were a tribal and nomadic peoples living in the far reaches of Euro-Asia in hostile steppe lands

barely scratching out a living They were unquestionably a tough people and they were fierce and war-

like Their religion reflects it dominated as it is by a storm-god or sky-god that enjoins warfare and

conquest This god was called something like Dyaus a word related to Zeus deus (the Latin word

for god) deva (the Sanskrit word for god) and of course the English word divine Their culture

was oriented around warfare and they were very good at it They were superior on horseback and rushed

into battle in chariots They were a tribal people ruled over by a war-chief or raja (the Latin word rex

(king) comes from the same root word along with the English regal) Somewhere in the early centuries

of the second millennium BC they began to migrate southwards in waves of steady conquest across the

face of Persia and the lands of India

There they would take on the name superior or noble to distinguish themselves from the people

they conquered Their name is derived from the Indo-European root word ar meaning noble In

Sanskrit they were the Aryas (Aryans) but that root ar would also serve as the foundation of the

name of the conquered Persian territories Iran This concept of nobility in fact seems to lie at the heart

of Indo-European consciousness for it appears in another countrys name Ireland or Eire You can

bet however that when a people go around calling themselves superior that it spells bad news for other

people

And there is no question that they were bad news for the southern Asians They swept over Persia with

lightening speed and spread across the northern river plains of India Their natures as a warlike

conquering people are still preserved in Vedic religion the foundation of Hinduism In the Rig Veda the

collection of praises to the gods the god Indra towers over the poetry as a conquering god one that

smashes cities and slays enemies The invading Aryans were originally nomadic peoples not agricultural

They penetrated India from the north-west settling first in the Indus valley Unlike the Harappans

however they eventually concentrated their populations along the Ganges floodplain The Ganges unlike

the Indus is far milder and more predictable in its flooding It must have been a paradise to a people from

the dry steppes of central Asia and Iran a paradise full of water and forest When they arrived the vast

northern plains were almost certainly densely forested Where now bare fields stretch to the horizon

when the Aryans arrived lush forests stretched to those very same horizons Clearing the forests over the

centuries was an epic project and one that is still preserved in Indian literature

The Aryans or Vedic civilization were a new start in Indian culture Harappa was more or less a dead

end (at least as far as we know) the Aryans adopted almost nothing of Harappan culture They built no

cities no states no granaries and used no writing Instead they were a warlike people that organized

themselves in individual tribal kinship units the jana The jana was ruled over by a war-chief These

tribes spread quickly over northern India and the Deccan In a process that we do not understand the basic

social unit of Aryan culture the jana slowly developed from an organization based on kinship to one

based on geography The jana became a janapada or nation and the jana-rajya or tribal kingdom

became the jana-rajyapada or national kingdom So powerfully ingrained into Indian culture is the

jana-pada that Indians still define themselves mainly by their territorial origins All the major territories

of modern India with their separate cultures and separate languages can be dated back to the early jana-

padas of Vedic India

The earliest history of the Aryans in India is called the Rigvedic Period (1700-1000 BC) after the

religious praise poems that are the oldest pieces of literature in India These poems the Rig Veda are

believed to represent the most primitive layer of

Indo-European religion and have many characteristics in common with Persian religion since the two

peoples are closely related in time In this early period their population was restricted to the Punjab in the

northern reaches of the Indus River and the Yamuna River near the Ganges They maintained the Aryan

tribal structure with a raja ruling over the tribal group in tandem with a council Each jana seems to have

had a chief priest the religion was focused almost entirely on a series of sacrifices to the gods The

Rigvedic peoples originally had only two social classes nobles and commoners Eventually they added a

third Dasas or darks These were we presume the darker-skinned people they had conquered By the

end of the Rigvedic period social class had settled into four rigid castes the caturvarnas or four

colors At the top of the caturvarnas were the priests or Brahmans Below the priests were the warriors

or nobles (Kshatriya) the craftspeople and merchants (Vaishya) and the servants (Shudra) who made

up the bulk of society These economic classes were legitimated by an elaborate religious system and

would be eventually subdivided into a huge number of economic sub-classes which we call castes

Social class by the end of the Rigvedic period became completely inflexible there was no such thing as

social mobility

In the early centuries of Later Vedic Period or Brahmanic Period (1000-500 BC) the Aryans

migrated across the Doab which is a large plain which separates the Yamuna River from the Ganges It

was a difficult project for the Doab was thickly forested the Aryans slowly burned and settled the Doab

until they reached the Ganges While the Rig Veda represents the most primitive religion of the Aryans

during the Rigvedic Period the religion of the Later Vedic period is dominated by the Brahmanas or

priestly book which was composed sometime between 1000 and 850 BC Later Vedic society is

dominated by the Brahmans and every aspect of Aryan life comes under the control of priestly rituals and

spells In history as the Indians understand it the Later Vedic Period is the Epic Age the great literary

heroic epics of Indian culture the Mahabharata and the Ramayana though they were composed

between 500 and 200 BC were probably originally formulated and told in the Later Vedic Period Both of

these epics deal with heroes from this period and demonstrate how Aryan cultural values as we can

understand them from the Rig Veda are being transformed by mixing with Indus cultures

What did the Aryans do with their time They seem to have had a well-developed musical culture and

song and dance dominated their society They were not greatly invested in the visual arts but their interest

in lyric poetry was unmatched They loved gambling They did not however have much interest in

writing even though they could have inherited a civilization and a writing system when they originally

settled India We do not know exactly when they became interested in writing but it may have been at the

end of the Brahmanic period somewhere between 650 and 500 BC Still there are no Aryan writings until

the Mauryan periodmdashfrom Harappa (2500-1750 BC) to Maurya (300 BC) is quite a long time The script

that the Mauryans used is called Brahmi script and was used to write not only the religious and literary

language of the time Sanskrit but also the vernacular languages This script Brahmi is the national

alphabet of India

The Vedic period then is a period of cultural mixing not of conquest Although the Aryans were a

conquering people when they first spread into India the culture of the Aryans would gradually mix with

indigenous cultures and the war-religion of the Aryans still preserved in parts of the Rig Veda slowly

became more ritualized and more meditative By 200 BC this process of mixing and transforming was

more or less complete and the culture we call Indian was fully formed

Were they Copycats or Geniuses How did the Harappans take the great leap from self-contained agricultural societies to a trade-oriented

luxury-conscious sophisticated urban civilization that gave the world the concept of town planning

Analyzing the evidence from various sites Possehl found that between 2600 BC and 2500 BC the

Harappans experienced a century of cathartic changes Before this he finds no breadboard models of the

expansion to come be it the invention of writing or the awesome town-planning techniques A

tremendous jump in human ability is evident So what or who caused it

In the past the reputed British archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler argued that ideas have wings and that

the Harappans were influenced by their trade contacts with the Sumerians But the diffusion theory of

civilization as it is called is slowly being given the heave-ho Cambridge historian Raymond Allchin an

authority on the subject says We are now beginning to see the foundation being laid in the preceding

100 to 200 years in smaller sites There appears to be a completely organic process of growth that threw

up the Harappan culture as we know it

Yet the evidence of that process continues to be scanty In Kunal in Haryana archaeologists recently

found what are known as proto Indus seals On pottery on many of the smaller sites in both India and

Pakistan graffiti similar to some figures on the script begin to appear And at Dholavira and at Banawali

in Haryana the distinction between the citadel and the lower city is beginning to evolve There is

however a huge jump in scale in such activity in those critical 100 years For in Harappa as in most

Indus sites the distinct gridiron pattern for streets appear a scientific system of drainage that linked up to

even the smallest house in the lower city is established precise weights and measures begin to circulate

and the writing system evolves So were the Harappans copycats Archaeologists say the Indus people

couldnrsquot have copied their town-planning from Egypt and Mesopotamia because in those civilizations the

roads meandered like village streets Nor was the writing similar to Sumer`s cuneiform or the Egyptian

hieroglyphics The Harappans had their own distinctive style Lal explains the dramatic change as a result

of centuries of growth reaching a critical mass that caused an unparalleled urban explosion Trade he

believes was the driving force of the revolution Even a skeptic like Possehl maintains that these are

indeed an expression of the Indian genius

Did Aryans kill them or a Depression Archaeologists are known to stumble but the kind of knocking Wheeler has taken over his Aryan

invasion theory has few parallels When the British archaeologist discovered a dozen skeletons in

Mohenjodaro he propounded a theory about the final massacre by marauding invaders that put an end to

the Indus civilization When an Indian scholar told him of Hariyuppa being mentioned in the Rigveda he

took it to mean Harappa And since a fort was known as pur and Indira the Aryan god was known as

Purandhara or destroyer of forts it all fitted neatly

After all werenrsquot the Indus cities among the most fortified Yet the past 50 years and more so the last

decade has shown just how wrong Wheeler was The last massacre theory was his imagination running

riot Far from being snuffed out there was a brilliant resurgence of Indus culture further south for a while

Possehl who made a recent study found that in 2000 BC in Pakistanrsquos Sindh district the sites were down

from 86 to 6 and in Cholistan 174 to 41 But in India the sites in Haryana Punjab and Rajasthan exploded

from 218 to 853 Possehl asks How can this be construed as an eclipse We are looking at a highly

mobile people

Allchin argues that there is clear indication that the rainfall pattern which had initially brought fertility

had become adverse in the Sindh region And theories that given the instability of the Himalayan region

there may have been a massive earthquake that possibly changed the course of rivers such as the Sarasvati

and affected many Indus cities The Indus people then migrated eastward Lal talks of steep decline in

trade because of problems in Sumer that resulted in a Great Depression and turned many urban centers

into ghost cities

Bisht concurs with Lal but goes a step further He says that after the quake hit the heart of the civilization

the Indus people migrated east which acted like a sort of bypass to their woes And like a dying candle it

shone brilliantly again but briefly before being snuffed out Dholavira Banawali Mehrgarh Harappa -- in

fact all the major cities show that as the cities declined encroachments on streets that were unseen at its

peak began to occur with alarming regularity There was a breakdown in sanitation and cities like their

modern-day counterparts in India simply ran themselves aground They were replaced by massive squatter

colonies and an explosion of rural sites as people disillusioned with cities went back to farming

communities A giant step backward

Yet it wasnrsquot as if all came to naught as was earlier believed Some of the writings survived in the pottery

of the following ages The weight and decimal system too lived on And so did the bullock-cart

technology that the Indus had perfected Rather than a violent transition there may have been an orderly

interaction with oncoming Aryans Lal in his most recent book even puts across the most audacious

theory Could the Bronze Age Harappans be Aryans themselves He says this because of the presence of

fire worship and the discovery of horse remains and idols in Indus sites Meadows dismisses it as

premature and points out that it was more likely that ass remains were mistaken for that of a horsersquos And

that the Vedas showed a great antipathy for urban centers

Whatever the cause it would take another 1000 years for a semblance of civilization to return to the

subcontinent -- a dire warning to modern India of the catastrophe that can befall an errant populace

Environmental Stress in the Indus Valley Source Quotation from D P Agarwal and R K Sood in Gregory L Possehl ed Harappan Civilization A Contemporary Perspective (Warminster

England Aris and Phillips 1982)229

The three river-valley civilizations discussed in this chapter were located in arid or semiarid regions Such

regions are particularly vulnerable to changes in the environment Scholars debates about the existence

and impact of changes in the climate and landscape of the Indus Valley illuminate some of the potential

factors at work as well as the difficulties of verifying and interpreting such long-ago changes

One of the points at issue is climatic change An earlier generation of scholars believed that the climate

of the Indus Valley was considerably wetter during the height of that civilization than it is now As

evidence they cited the enormous quantities of timber cut from extensive forests that would have been

needed to bake the millions of mud bricks used to construct the cities (see photo) the distribution of

human settlements on land that is now unfavorable for agriculture and the representation of jungle and

marsh animals on decorated seals This approach assumes that the growth of population prosperity and

complexity in the Indus Valley in the third millennium BCE required wet conditions and it concludes

that the change to a drier climate in the early second millennium BCE pushed this civilization into

decline

Other experts skeptical about a radical climatic change countered with alternative calculations of the

amount of timber needed and evidence of plant remains-particularly barley a grain that is tolerant of dry

conditions However recent studies of the stabilization of sand dunes which occurs in periods of heavy

rainfall and analysis of the sediment deposited by rivers and winds have been used to strengthen the

claim that the Indus Valley used to be wetter and in the early-to-mid second millennium BCE entered a

period of relatively dry conditions that have persisted to the present

A much clearer case can be made for changes in the landscape caused by shifts in the courses of rivers

These shifts are due in many cases to tectonic forces such as earthquakes Dry channels whether

detected in satellite photographs or by on-the-ground inspection reveal the location of old riverbeds and

it appears that a second major river system the Hakra once ran parallel to the Indus some distance to the

east The Hakra with teeming towns and fertile fields along its banks appears to have been a second axis

of this civilization Either the Sutlej which now feeds into the Indus or the Yamuna which now pours

into the Ganges may have been the main source of water for this long-gone system before undergoing a

change of course The consequences of the drying-up of this major waterway must have been immense-

the loss of huge amounts of arable land and the food that it produced the abandonment of cities and

villages and consequent migration of their populations shifts in the trade routes and desperate

competition for shrinking resources

As for the Indus itself the present-day course of the lower reaches of the river has shifted 100 miles

(161 kilometers) to the west since the arrival of the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great in the late

fourth century BCE and the deposit of massive volumes of silt has pushed the mouth of the river 50

miles (80 kilometers) farther south Such a shift of the river bed and buildup of alluvial deposits also may

have occurred in the third and second millennia BCE

A recent study concludes It is obvious that ecological stresses caused both climatically and

technically played an important role in the life and decay of the Indus civilization

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Activity four Read the article below about the early Chinese dynasties Using information from

the article write an 800 word essay that describes the influence of the environment religion and

gender on the formation of the government of ancient China Again do NOT look up additional

information use only what is provided Also do NOT quote from the articles paraphrase and

summarize only Turn in your essay to wwwturnitincom before the first day of school

The Shang and Zhou Dynasties By 5000 BCE agricultural communities had spread through much of what is now called China and there

were agricultural villages from the Wei River Valley eastward parallel with the great Yellow River

(Huang He) which flowed out of the Kunlun Mountains to the deciduous forest and loess soil region of

the North China Plain Where people were free of forest and had access to water they grew millet -- as

early as 5500 BCE -- while they continued to hunt deer and other game to fish and gather food And they

raised dogs pigs and chickens They built one-room homes dug into the earth with roofs of clay or

thatch pit homes grouped in villages They had spinning wheels and knitted and wove fibers And they

made pottery decorated with art

Flooding along the Yellow River was worse than it was along the Yangzi River to the south Along the

Yangzi River through the Hubei Basin and on the coastal plain to Hangzhou Bay farming had also

developed but people along the Yellow River had to work harder at flood control and irrigation and

perhaps this stimulated a greater effort at organization At any rate the North China Plain became the

largest area with a relatively dense population

Where people were producing more food than they needed to survive warriors had the incentive not only

to plunder but also to conquer And conquering kings arose on the North China Plain as they did in West

Asia The first dynasty of kings in the North China Plain has been described as belonging to the Xia

family - whose rule is thought to have begun around 2200 BCE But the first dynasty of which there is

historical evidence is that of the Shang family The Shang clan came out of the Wei River Valley just west

of the North China Plain By around 1500 BCE give or take a century or so the Shang unified people

along the North China Plain The military had chariots each with an aristocrat archer a driver and

sometimes also a man with a spear The Shang built an empire in much the same way as other conquerors

by leaving behind a garrison force to police local people by turning a local king into a subservient ally

free to manage local matters and by taxing the conquered

Around 1384 BCE the Shang moved their capital to Yin As a regular pastime the Shang emperors and

nobles hunted in organized game drives Emperors and aristocrats had splendid homes with walls of

pounded earth or earthen bricks while common people continued to live in their pit homes of earlier times

A Shang emperor was chief priest and he had an administrative bureaucracy with councilors lesser

priests and diviners As with other warring civilizations slaves were taken the slaves laboring at growing

crops And women in Shang civilization were subservient to men with aristocratic women enjoying a

greater freedom and equality than common women The role of the woman was to be gentle calm

respectful and to obey her husband Women were lower than men and were subjected to womenrsquos work

(tending to the children and needs of the husband) Men also married multiple times and women were

used as concubines

During the Shang dynasty the civilization along the Yellow River had canals for irrigating crops

Communities had drains that ran water out of town They made beer from millet The stable government

allowed for extended trading and use of money in the form of cowry shells Shang merchants traded in

salt iron copper tin lead and antimony some of which had to be imported from far away As early as

the 1300 BCE a bronze casting industry had developed This was later than the rise of bronze casting in

Europe and West Asia but it was the most advanced in the world

It was around 1300 BCE that the first known writing appeared in Shang civilization because the

government officials needed to have questions answered that would allow them to better govern This

writing was for divination done on plate-like portions of the bones of cattle or deer on seashells and

turtle shells and perhaps on wood By applying a pointed heated rod to a bone or shell the item cracked

and to which written symbol the crack traveled gave answers for various questions what the weather was

going to be like would there be flood would a harvest succeed or fail when might be the best time for

hunting or fishing there were also personal questions about illness or whether one should make a journey

Shang Violence and Splendor

To the east north and south of Shang civilization were those the Shang saw as barbarians including the

farming people along the Yangzi River Shang emperors sent out armies to repulse invaders and the

Shang emperors went beyond their domains to plunder and to capture foreign peoples needed for sacrifice

to their gods Uncovered tombs of emperors from the Shang period indicate that they could put into the

field as many as three to five thousand soldiers Found buried with the emperors were their personal

ornaments and spears with bronze blades and the remains of what had been bows and arrows Buried with

the emperors were also horses and chariots for transporting soldiers to battle And with the emperors in

death were their charioteers dogs servants and people in groups of ten -- people who had been

ceremonially beheaded with bronze axes

Zhou Empire Religion and Human Sacrifice

Shang rule was threatened by forces from outside and from within its empire To the west of Shang

civilization in the Wei River Valley lived a pastoral people called Zhou who led an alliance that included

other tribal peoples neighboring Shang civilization While the Shang emperor Zhouxin was occupied by

a war against tribal people to his southeast rebellions broke out among people that Shang monarchs

before him had conquered The Zhou and their allies saw the Shang emperors troubles as an opportunity

to move against him and in 1045 BCE they overpowered him at the battle of Mu-ye and had him

beheaded

A dynasty of Zhou emperors began ruling what had been Shang civilization They claimed that all lands

belonged to heaven that they were the sons of heaven and therefore that all lands and all people were

their subjects Seeing the lands they had conquered as too vast for one man to dominate the Zhou

emperors divided these lands into regions and assigned someone to rule each region in their name

choosing for this position a close family member a trusted member of their clan or the chief of a tribe

that had been allied with them against the Shang

Each local ruler had at his disposal all the lands around him He had his own militia And from the Zhou

emperors the local rulers received gifts such as chariots bronze weapons servants and animals The local

rulers received the title of lord (gong) Local rulers passed their positions to their sons their titles of lord

becoming hereditary And to control their areas better the lords made sub-lords of those who had

dominated the common people before they arrived A hierarchy of status and obligations emerged among

families and within families with older brothers ranking higher than younger brothers with rules of

succession as to which of the males would head his family If a married aristocrat became infatuated with

another woman rather than drive his wife from his home he could bring the other woman into the family

as a concubine where she would rank beneath his wife

Zhou emperors told those they had conquered that they the Zhou had ousted the ancestors of Shang

emperors from heaven and that heaven was occupied by their supreme god a god they called The Lord

on High who they said had commanded the downfall of the Shang emperors Like emperors in West

Asia Zhou emperors claimed that they ruled by divine right They claimed that they represented on earth

the Lord on High and that it was their duty to mediate with the Lord on High to perform appropriate

sacrifices and to maintain a proper relationship between heaven and their subjects They claimed that any

opposition to their rule was opposition to the will of heaven

It was from the Zhou emperors that local lords received the right to act as a priest to perform sacrifices

to have certain hymns sung and certain dances performed the right to propitiate the gods of local

mountains streams and of the soil and crops Meanwhile local aristocrats continued to keep track of their

ancestral heritage They married with religious rites and sanctions while common folk continued to have

no such marriages no surnames or recorded ancestors They merely lived together and were recognized as

a couple by their neighbors

Ancestor worship was also very important to the Shang It was thought that the success of crops and the

health and well being of people were based on the happiness of dead ancestors

The worship of various gods from the Shang period included gods of grain rain and agriculture -- one of

whom was believed to have had a virgin birth Among these gods was a god of the Yellow River who had

the body of a fish but the face of a man

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Activity five Research the social hierarchy religion political organization writing systems and

technological aspects of the societies listed on the SNAPSHOT Early Agricultural Societies Describe each aspect

of the society using specific evidence - in one or two clear sentences (SEE EXAMPLE of Olmec Society) Write

VERY neatly in ink Bring this chart with you on the FIRST DAY of school

A Humans used fire in new ways to aid hunting and foraging to protect against predators and to adapt

to cold environments

B Humans developed a wider range of tools specially adapted to different environments from tropics to

tundra

C Economic structures focused on small kinship groups of hunting-foraging bands that could make what

they needed to survive However not all groups were self-sufficient they exchanged people ideas and

goods

Paleolithic and Neolithic Societies The Stone Age

One of the principal characteristics separating hominids from their immediate ancestors was tool use it

has been traditional to divide human prehistory into eras based on levels of technological capability

Hominids made their tools out of many materials such as wood bone and animal skins But the most

noteworthy were the ones made of stone The first period of history is known as the Stone Age This era

is broken down into at least two periods the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age (10000 to 25 million years

ago) and Neolithic or New Stone Age (5000 to 10000 years ago) The change from Paleolithic to

Neolithic is associated with the end of the Ice Age

Early Tool-making

During the Paleolithic era Homo habilis and Homo erectus used crude tools including clubs and

choppers to crack open bones rudimentary axes and scrapers to prepare animal hides The earliest

humansmdashNeanderthal Cro-Magnon and Homo sapiens sapiensmdashimproved upon these tools and created

new ones Tools were generally designed to provide shelter protection and defense and foods and

clothing The earliest hominids lived in natural shelters like caves and canyons Fire was developed one

million years ago and then hominids made tent like structures and simple huts to live in By the end of the

Paleolithic the hominids were building more advanced wood and stone structures They also developed

weapons like clubs and rocks They devised tools for hunting and food preparation which could also be a

weapon such as the bow and arrow spears axes and knives

Paleolithic Religion

Paleolithic peoples were very spiritualistic Animism is the belief that everything had its own spirit

people animals trees rivers mountains and the sky The interaction of these spirits within this unseen

world was what shaped the visible events of everything around them weather wars and health

Those who demonstrated certain powers the shamans or witchdoctors were both greatly respected and

greatly feared They were understood to possess special magical powers that could be worked to the

good-or the bad--of the community The community as a whole felt that it exercised some controlling

influence over events--by their ability to pre-enact the necessary events of their lives Thus the

community engaged in ritualistic war dances hunting dances rain dances medicine dances and rituals

which supposedly had the power to predispose or control the behavior of the unseen spirits in order to

assure a forthcoming favorable outcome--whatever the event or whatever the communitys particular

need

Hunting and Gathering the New Stone Age

As time passed hominids began to organize themselves in social groups This would eventually

give birth to family units and these families would tend to cluster together by ties of kinship As clans

became larger they usually mixed with neighboring groups that grew into bands or tribes

Paleolithic groups sustained themselves by hunting and gathering This practice is known as

foraging Rather than produce food themselves hunter-gatherer societies lived off the resources from the

land They killed birds and animals for food especially mammoths bison deer and rodents They also










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different latitudes

































































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decline

























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used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
















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different latitudes

































































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European language














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1983)


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alphabet of India












































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into ghost cities

































decline

























----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




















































different latitudes

































































school














only 26










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European language














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1983)


this one






















out my references)




noble

















people








































social mobility






















alphabet of India












































mobile people






into ghost cities

































decline

























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used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



































































school














only 26










us anywhere




European language














points















































1983)


this one






















out my references)




noble

















people








































social mobility






















alphabet of India












































mobile people






into ghost cities

































decline

























----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------












us anywhere




European language














points















































1983)


this one






















out my references)




noble

















people








































social mobility






















alphabet of India












































mobile people






into ghost cities

































decline

























----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




























1983)


this one






















out my references)




noble

















people








































social mobility






















alphabet of India












































mobile people






into ghost cities

































decline

























----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------








noble

















people








































social mobility






















alphabet of India












































mobile people






into ghost cities

































decline

























----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






















social mobility






















alphabet of India












































mobile people






into ghost cities

































decline

























----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------











































mobile people






into ghost cities

































decline

























----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------







into ghost cities

































decline

























----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




















----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------














used as concubines































beheaded


































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------






































--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





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