ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL PERIOD
IN WORLD HISTORY:
FROM THE DAWN OF TIME
TO 600 C.E.
CONTENT
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY TO KNOW
• Historic Regions
• All AP Regions
• Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica
• Sudanic Africa (West African Sahel)
• Historic States to Know
• River Valley Civilizations
• Amer-Indian geographic hearths
• Classical Empires
• Locations of world religions
• Internal vs. External migration
• Migration, Urbanization
• Immigration
• Movement in History
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Original spread of humans
Indo-European
Bantu
Germanic and Viking
Spread of world religions
Polynesian
A.P. GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS
MODERN NATIONS TO KNOW
THEMES
• THEMES (P.E.R.S.I.A.N., S.C.R.I.P.T.E.D.)
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Social, Gender Structures including Labor Systems
Cultural and Intellectual Structures
Religious Structures
Interactions: War, Diplomacy, Trade
Political Culture, Political Organization, State Structures,
Technology
Economics
Demography (geography) and Environment
• OTHER
• Change and Continuity over Time
• Geography: Local and regional focus
THE ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL PERIOD
• PERIODIZATION
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What themes set a period apart?
When did it begin, when did it end?
Nature and causes of change
Breaks and continuity within a time period
• 1,000,000 BCE TO 600 CE
• Prehistoric: 1 million to 4500 BCE or Stone age
• Ancient: 4500 to 1000 BCE or Bronze Age
• Classical: 1000 BCE to 600 CE or Iron Age
• Breaks and Continuity within Period
• Prehistoric: Rise of Humans, Hunter Gatherers
• Ancient: Sedentary culture, domestications
• Classical: Use of Iron
THE FIVE THEMES
• Relative Location
• Know relative locations
• Know locations of major states, cultures
• Place
• Physical
• Know the major features of physical geography
• Human
• Know the cultural characteristics of states
• Human Environment Interaction
• Movement
• History is the result of movement
• Region
• All history is regional until 1450 CE
HUMAN ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION
• PRE-SEDENTARY TIMES: ADAPT OR DIE
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Climates diverse, man’s adaptations diverse
Man arose in Africa, spread out to other continents
Harshest climates around deserts, desert like conditions
Environment often forced man to change
As civilization advances, man begins to change surroundings
Hunter-gather nature
Slash and burn was the transition to sedentary agriculture
• AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES
• Domestications
• Farming
• Herding
• Sedentary civilization
• PASTORAL SOCIETIES
• Nomads and their flocks
• Relationship to agricultural societies
• DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES WITH RISE OF CIVILIZATIONS
• DEMOGRAPHIC STRESS
• Overfarming and overhunting, deforestation, agriculture replaces plants
LOCATION: EARLY GEOGRAPHIC SETTING
• PRE-HISTORIC
• The whole world in all settings
• The first towns, cities arose in marginal zones
• Some building materials
• Some foods, resources, marginal water, and protection
• ANCIENT RIVER VALLEY CIVILIZATIONS (HEARTHS)
• Mesopotamia
• Sumer
• Assyria and Babylon
• Nile River
• Egyptian Kingdoms
• Kush-Meroe
• Indus River
• Harrappan, Mohenjo Daro
• Aryans
• Yellow River
• Xia
• Shang
LOCATION: LATER GEOGRAPHIC SETTING CLASSICAL
• MEDITERRANEAN
• Phoenicians, Jews, Persians
• Greeks: Hellenes, Hellenistic Age
• Romans: Republic and Empire
• SOUTH ASIA
• Persians and Greeks
• Mauryans
• Guptans
• EAST ASIA
• Zhou,
• Qin, Han
• CENTRAL ASIANS
• OTHERS
• Ghana, Axum-Ethiopia
• Mayans, Toltecs, Aztecs
• Incas and predecessors
EARLY POLITICAL STRUCTURES
• Paleolithic Structure
• Small bands, generalized social equality
• Led by best hunters, male or female
• Neolithic
• Sedentary villages
• Village Councils, Elders, some hereditary chiefs
• Much more patriarchal
• Early Cities
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Often city states
Ceremonial Centers: Plazas, Temples
Centralized rule of priests, kings, elite class
Class structure usually based on land ownership
Hereditary positions become common
CHANGE OVER TIME STATE STRUCTURES
• Small city states
• Sumer, Indus, Xia
• Phoenicians, Greeks
• Olmecs, Mixtec, Zapotecs, Mayans
• Small Regional State
• Shang
• Babylonia, Israel
• Ghana, Kush, Axum
• Early Theocratic Empires
• Egyptian Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom
• Toltecs
• Akkad
• Shang, Zhou
• Funan (SE Asia)
EARLY CULTURE
• PALEOLITHIC CULTURE
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Language, Religion
Traditions and Institutions
Occupations and Past-times
Simple artifacts, art (cave paints, totems, jewelry)
• TOOL MAKING CULTURE
• Hunter Gathers had tools, only primitive
• Neolithic technology become complex, varies
• NEOLITHIC CULTURE
• Social Revolution: hierarchy, gender relations
• Technological Revolution: pottery, advanced tools, irrigation
• NATURE OF CIVILIZATION
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Writing is at the center of a cultural change
Complex culture based on living in a city
People packed more closely together
Social mores reflect this change
Artisans, toolmakers have great influence
• SOPHISTICATION: Increased over time
SOCIAL HIERARCHY
• Patriarchal
• Increasingly so over time
• Social Class Differentiation
• Superior vs. Inferior
• Increasingly classes defined over time
• Caste Systems
• If classes become rigid, it is a caste system
• Slavery
• Common since dawn of history in all cultures
• Rigidity depended on culture
• Serfdom
CHANGE OVER TIME EARLY SOCIAL
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PALEOLITHIC: HUNTER GATHERER
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NEOLITHIC: SETTLED AGRICULTURE, DOMESTICATIONS
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Domestication of plants and animals
Shifting Agriculture and Migratory Farmers
Nomadic Pastoralism
Patriarchal society, patrilineal descent ; gender differences in work, farming
ANCIENT: VILLAGE TO CIVILIZATION
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Gender equality, work equality
Short life, Limited survival, foods
Small groups, bands led by elders
Religion: animist, afterlife
Extended family
Sedentary life led to rise of social classes
Social differences, gender differences, Specialized occupations
Rise of inequalities; rise of aristocrats, kings, priests; unfree labor inc. slavery, serfs
Villages and a few cities
Nuclear Family
CLASSICAL
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Continuation of Ancient although trends heightened
Classes often become rigid, rise of warriors, war leaders; castes
Aristocracy, artisan, intellectual classes
Gender differences pronounced and often codified in law
CHANGE OVER TIME RELIGIONS
• UNIVERSALIZING vs. ETHNIC RELIGIONS
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MAJOR FEATURES OF EACH, WHERE ARE RELIGIONS LOCATED
• OVERTIME:
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RISE OF PERMANENT RELIGIOUS CASTE, MORAL CODES INCLUDING SOME CASTING
ANIMISM/SHAMANISM TO GENERALIZED ANTRHOPOMORPHISM T0 POLYHEISM
PHILOSOPHIES AND MONOTHEISMS DEVELOP AT END OF PERIOD
• EARLY RELIGIONS
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ANIMISM, SHAMANISM
ANTHROPOMORPHIC POLYTHEISM
ELABORATED POLYTHEISM WITH PRIESTS, RITUAL, DOGMA
HINDUISM
SHINTO
• ETHICAL PHILOSOPHIES AND RELIGIONS BLEND
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CHINESE RELIGIOUS COMPLEX: TAOISM, CONFUCIANISM, LEGALISM
JAINISM, BUDDHISM
HELLENIC PHILOSOPHY
• MONOTHEISM: EXCLUSIVITY
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JUDAISM
CHRISTIANITY
ISLAM
TECHNOLOGY OVER TIME
• The ability to make and use tools
• Man has always been a toolmaker
• Tools increasingly designed to meet specific needs
• Simple to complex
• Materials
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Bone, Stone, Wood; Mixture of Media
Metallurgy, Metalworking: Copper, Bronze, Iron
Include domestications as technology if necessary
In many ways writing is a technology
• Technology is specialization
• Expands if group supports artisans who do not hunt, gather, farm
• Irrigation systems requires team work leading to political structure
• Know how inventions improved life
CHANGE OVER TIME INTERACTIONS
• War
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Not a new invention but rare in Pre-history
History introduces scarcity, contest for it
War becomes increasingly complex; warrior classes
Technology effected war; empires are core of classical
• Diplomacy
• Similar to War
• Contact between states led to diplomacy
• First treaty was between Hittites, Egyptians
• Trade
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The simplest way for cities to overcome failings
Trade for what you do not have
Most international trade was for luxury
Commodities traded locally, internally
• Exchanges: ideas, diseases
• Migration of nomads, Bantus, Indo-Europeans
• Interactions between nomads, sedentary
MOVEMENT
• Themes
• Indigenous or Independent Development
• Cultural Diffusion
• Spread of Agriculture
• Spread of Technology
• Popular Movements
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Early Humans spread across globe
Indo-European Migrations or “Chariot Peoples”
Bantu Migrations
Polynesian Migrations
Xiong Nu or steppe peoples
Germanic Peoples
CLASSICAL ENDS
• Reasons for Decline
• External and Internal
• Internal Decay vs. External popular forces
• Aspects
• Geographic, Demographic, Environment
• Military, Political
• Economic, Social
• Decline in Given Areas
• Mediterranean, South Asia, East Asia
• Mesoamerica
• That which remains
• Classical cultures
• Classical religions
• Classical traditions
• Interregional Networks: Trade, Spread of Religions
• Movements of Bantu, Huns, Germans, Polynesian
ESSAYS
COMPARISONS AND SNAPSHOTS
• Compare and contrast the development of institutions
and traditions (political, social, economic, or
intellectual) in any two of these classical civilizations:
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China
India
Greece
Rome
Mesoamerica
Andes
• Compare and contrast any two of these cultures:
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The Neolithic Revolutions
Early civilization
Pastoral nomadism
Shifting agriculture
COMPARISONS AND SNAPSHOTS
• Compare major religions and philosophical
systems including similarities in cementing a
social hierarchy, e.g. Hinduism contrasted
with Confucianism.
• Compare the role of women in different
belief - Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism
and Confucianism
• Compare
and
contrast
the
rise,
development and spread of Buddhism and
early Christianity.
COMPARISONS AND SNAPSHOTS
• Understand how and why the collapse of
empire was more severe in Western Europe
than it was in the Eastern Mediterranean,
China, or South India
• Compare the caste system to other systems
of social inequality devised by ancient and
Classical civilizations, including slavery
COMPARISONS AND SNAPSHOTS
• Compare societies and cultures that include
cities with pastoral and nomadic societies.
• Compare the development of traditions and
institutions in major civilizations, e.g. Indian,
Chinese, Greek
• Describe interregional trading systems e.g.
the Indian Ocean trade system and the Silk
Road
• Compare and contrast the intellectual
accomplishments of the classical Chinese
and Mediterranean civilizations (Hellenic,
Hellenistic, and Roman).
COMPARISONS AND SNAPSHOTS
• Compare any two of the interregional trading
systems:
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Mesoamerica
Mediterranean
Southwest Asia
South Asia
East Asia
• Compare and contrast the popular movements
and settlement patterns of any two of these
peoples: Indo-Europeans/Chariot Peoples,
Germans, Polynesian, or Bantu.
COMPARISONS AND SNAPSHOTS
• Compare the political and social
structures of two early civilizations using
any two of the following:
• Mesopotamia (Sumer through Persia)
• Egypt (Old Kingdom through New Empire)
• Indus Valley (Harappan to Aryan)
• Shang Dynasty
• Mesoamerica (Olmecs, Mayans, Toltecs)
• Andean South America (Moche, Chan Chan)