Unit I and II Introduction
• A) Paleolithic and Neolithic Revolutions
• B) Civilization’s First Phase: The River Valleys
• C) The Classical Period, 1000 B.C.E. - 500C.E.
Unit 1
• Technological and
Environmental Transformations
• 8000 BCE – 600 BCE
A) Paleolithic and Neolithic
Revolutions
• Developments in this period, which began about 9000 B.C.E.,
are the advent of agriculture and the achievements of complex
societies that resulted. The period ends about 1000 B.C.E.,
when several civilizations were poised to develop more
elaborate cultural and political forms and to embrace wider
areas beyond river valley cores.
• The agriculture that emerged from the Neolithic or Agrarian
Revolution produced more food and encouraged wider contacts
than hunting-and-gathering economies allowed. Key groups
developed settled residences, in contrast to the mobility of
hunters and gathers.
• The advent of civilization increased the scope of human
organization. The rise of agriculture redefined human impact on
the environment and radically shifted demographics, allowing
high concentrations of people in a small area, permitting
specialization within society.
B) Civilization's First Phase: The
River Valleys
• Five major centers of early civilization developed in river
valleys. Although they fanned out into adjacent territories, they
had limited contact with one another.
• Civilizations created institutions or long lasting patterns of
organization including governments, legal procedures,
education, religion, systems of writing, trade, familial and
gender patterns, and characteristics in art and architecture. But
civilizations also depended on contacts, through war and trade,
and their degrees of isolation varied considerably. It was in
civilization that new forms of social and gender inequality arose.
• While agricultural societies became important, nomadic herding
was introduced. For millennia, interactions between nomadic
societies and sedentary civilizations had important effects on
world history.
Unit 2
• Organization and
Reorganization of Human
Societies
• 600 BCE – 600 CE
C) The Classical Period,
600 B.C.E. – 500 C.E.
• Civilizations over the past 3000 years have produced far more
records than their predecessors.
• Civilizations created after 1000 BCE have direct links to
civilizations that exist today.
• Chinese civilization flows quite coherently from the middle of
the Zhou dynasty (500 BCE) and in Western society can look
back to Greece and Rome to find philosophies and political
institutions directly related to contemporary ideas.
• In China, India, and the Mediterranean area new or renewed
civilizations arose that proved very durable, spreading well
beyond their boundaries of the river valleys.
• While the three classical civilizations left the most substantial
legacy, it is important to remember they do not reflect the whole
of world history during this period, such as new empires arising
in the Middle East.
C) The Classical Period,
1000 B.C.E. - 500C.E.
• While all three classical civilizations built upon the
achievements of earlier societies, the came up with new iron
weapons, larger political structures, and improved on earlier
technology for agriculture, manufacturing, and urban life.
• Each classical civilization spread by expansion and integration
to embrace a growing diversity of people and territory.
• Expansion resulted from massive population growth and
included migration of farming populations to escape crowding,
and led to disease spread by new settlers to the new land.
• Each classical civilization operated separately for the most part,
with developments within each expanding civilization, more
than conflicts between them, marking this phase of world
history.