Big Geography and the Peopling of the Earth
1. How and where did hunter-foraging bands of humans migrate during the Paleolithic era?
2. How did humans adapt their technology and cultures to new climate regions?
The Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Societies
3. How and why did some societies switch to settled agriculture around 8000 BCE?
a. What crops were or animals were important in different regions?
4. How and where did Pastoralism develop across Afro-Eurasia?
5. What impact did these new practices have on the environment?
6. How did communities adapt their practices to suit their new conditions?
7. What impact did these new practices have on food supplies and the population?
8. What impact did new sedentary patterns have on labor specialization and social classes?
9. What impact did the Neolithic Revolution have on gender relationships?
10. How did technology evolve as a consequence of the Neolithic Revolution?
The Development and Interactions of Early Agricultural, Pastoral, and Urban
Societies
11. Where did the core foundational civilizations develop? Why those particular locations?
a. Mesopotamia in the Tigris and Euphrates River Valleys
b. Egypt in the Nile River Valley
c. Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in the Indus River Valley
d. Shang in the Huang He River Valley
e. Olmecs in Mesoamerica
f. Chavin in Andean South America
12. How did the first rulers rise to power within these new states? What were their sources of power?
13. Which states were able to undertake territorial expansion? How did they do so?
14. What new weapons and modes of transportation did Pastoralists develop? How these diffuse to
agrarian civilizations and transform warfare for them as well?
15. What can we learn about a civilization from its monumental architecture and/or urban planning?
16. What forms of elite art developed and what does this tell us about their civilization(s)?
17. What systems of record keeping arose and diffused?
18. How did the development of legal codes (such as the Code of Hammurabi) further organize society
and facilitate the rule of governments over people?
19. What NEW religious beliefs developed in the period 3500 BCE – 600 BCE? What influence did
they have in their respective societies?
20. How did trade expand throughout this period from local to regional and trans-regional? What
people/goods were moving?
21. How did social and gender hierarchies intensify as states expanded and cities multiplied?
22. How did literature develop and reflect their respective cultures?
The Development and Codification of Religious and Cultural Traditions
1. How did existing religions further codify during this time period? What ethical codes did they develop for their
societies?
2. What influence did Mesopotamian cultural and legal traditions have on the codification of the Hebrew scriptures?
a. How did conquest by the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Roman empires impact the Hebrew kingdoms?
b. How did conquest contribute to the growth of Jewish diasporic communities?
3. How did the core beliefs outlined in the Sanskrit scriptures (formed the basis of the Vedic religions- Hinduism)
impact the development of the social and political roles of the caste system?
4. What NEW belief systems and cultural traditions emerged and spread during this time period?
a. How were the core beliefs preached by the historic Buddha a reaction to Vedic beliefs and rituals?
b. How did Buddhism change over time as it spread throughout Asia? (start with the Mauryan Emperor
Ashoka, trace through the efforts of missionaries and merchants along the Silk Roads)
c. What were Confucianism’s core beliefs and writings? How were they adapted and utilized by the ruling
classes in China?
d. What influence did Daoism have on the development of Chinese culture?
e. How did Christianity’s core beliefs and teachings draw on Judaism? How was the religion impacted by
Roman and Hellenistic influences?
f. How did Christianity spread through Afro-Eurasia? How did it ultimately gain Roman imperial support?
5. What ideas did Greco-Roman philosophy and science emphasize: logic, empirical observation, nature of political
power, role of hierarchy…?
6. How did belief systems affect gender roles? (Focus on Buddhism, Christianity, and Confucianism)
7. Which religious and cultural traditions continued parallel to the newly codified belief systems in core
civilizations?
a. How did Shamanism and animism continue to shape the lives of people?
b. What role did ancestor veneration continue to play?
8. How did artistic expression show distinctive cultural developments in this time period?
a. What distinctive forms of literature and drama developed? How did they diffuse across regions and
across time?
b. What distinctive architectural styles developed in various regions?
c. How did Greco-Roman culture and Buddhist beliefs converge in new sculptural developments?
The Development of States and Empires
9. What new key states and empires grew dramatically? How did they impose political unity on areas where
previously there were competing states?
a. Southwest Asia: Persian Empires (Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanid)
b. East Asia: Qin and Han Empire
c. South Asia: Mauryan and Gupta Empires
d. Mediterranean region: Phoenicia and its colonies, Greek city-states and colonies, Hellenistic and Roman
Empires
e. Mesoamerica: Teotihuacan and the Maya city-states
f. Andean South America: Moche
10. What new techniques of imperial administration were developed in these new empires? To what extent were they
based on earlier political forms?
a. How did rulers centralize governments and develop elaborate legal systems and bureaucracies?
b. How did imperial government project military power using diplomacy, supply lines, fortifications, roads,
recruiting officers and soldiers…?
c. How did the new empires promote trade and economic integration through new roads, currencies, etc?
11. What unique social and economic dimensions developed in imperial societies across Afro-Eurasia and the
Americas?
a. What functions did cities perform in the new empires? (trade, public performance, religious rituals,
political administration… use examples from Athens, Rome, Teotihuacan, Persepolis…)
b. How did social structures and hierarchies continue to develop?
c. What methods did imperial societies rely on the produce food and provide rewards for the loyalty of
elites? (corvée, slavery, rents and tributes, peasant communities, family and household production)
d. How did patriarchy continue to shape gender and family relationships in imperial societies?
12. How did imperial government case environmental damage in their various regions?
13. What social tensions and economic difficulties developed late in the classical period?
14. To what extent did the empires experience cultural declines? What aspects of classical culture remained intact?
15. What external problems developed along the empires’ frontiers? (Xiongnu, White Huns, Germanic tribes)
Emergence of Trans-regional Networks of Communication and Exchange
16. What new land and water routes became a basis for trans-regional trade, communication, and exchanges in the
Eastern Hemisphere? What factors shaped the distinctive features of these trade routes?
a. Eurasian Silk Roads
b. Trans-Saharan caravan routes
c. Indian Ocean sea lanes
d. Mediterranean sea lanes
17. What new technologies facilitated long-distance communication and exchange?
a. What new technologies permitted the use of domesticated pack animals to transport goods? (yokes,
saddles, stirrups… for horses, oxen, llamas, camels)
b. What innovations in maritime technologies as well as knowledge of winds/currents stimulated maritime
exchanges? (monsoon winds, lateen sails, dhow ships)
18. What exchanges occurred along the major trade routes?
a. How did the spread of crops encourage changes in farming and irrigation techniques?
b. How did the spread of disease pathogens diminish urban population and lead to imperial declines?
c. How were religious and cultural traditions transformed as a consequence of diffusion?
Expansion and Intensification of Communication and Exchange Networks
1. How did existing trade routes flourish and promote the growth of powerful new trading cities?
(Novgorod, Timbuktu, Baghdad, Melaka, Venice, Tenochtitlan, Cahokia)
2. What new trade routes developed in Mesoamerica and in the Andes?
3. What role did luxury goods play along the trade networks? (silk, porcelain, cotton, spices,
precious metals and gems, slaves, exotic animals)
4. What innovations supported the growth of trade networks? (compass, astrolabe, larger ship
designs, new forms of credit and monetization)
5. What new empires facilitated Trans-Eurasian trade and communication? How did they draw new
peoples into their economies and trade networks?
a. China (Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan)
b. Byzantine Empire
c. Islamic Caliphates
d. Mongols
6. How did the expansion and intensification of long-distance trade routes depend on environmental
knowledge and technological adaptations to it?
a. Scandinavian Vikings
b. Arabs and Berbers
c. Central Asian pastoral groups
7. How did the migration of various groups impact the diffusion of new ideas and what consequences
did this have on the environment?
a. Bantu-speaking peoples
b. Polynesians
8. What impact did migration and commercial contacts have on the development of languages?
9. How did Islam reflect the beliefs and practices of other religions? How did it draw on the
traditions of the Arab peoples?
10. How did Muslim rule expand across Afro-Eurasia?
11. What were merchant diasporic communities and how did they impact culture across trade routes?
(ex: Muslims in the Indian Ocean, Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia, Jewish communities)
12. What can we learn from the writings on interregional travelers? (Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo)
13. How did increased cross-cultural interactions result in the diffusion of literary, artistic, and
cultural traditions?
14. How did increased cross-cultural interactions also result in the diffusion of scientific and
technological traditions?
15. How did crops and pathogens continue to diffuse throughout the Eastern Hemisphere? (bananas,
new rice varieties, sugar and citrus, Plague)
Continuity and Innovation of State Forms and Their Interactions
16. Which empires collapsed? Which empires were reconstituted? What new state forms emerged?
a. How did the Byzantine Empire and the Chinese Dynasties (Sui, Tang, Song) combine
traditional sources of power and legitimacy with innovations to better suit contemporary
circumstances?
i. Sources of power- patriarchy, religion, land-owning elites
ii. Innovations- new tax methods, tributary systems, adaptation of religious
institutions
b. What new forms of government emerged? How did they gain and maintain power?
i. Islamic states: Abbasids, Muslim Iberia, Delhi sultanate
ii. City-states: Italy, East Africa, Southeast Asia, the Americas
iii. Feudal: Europe and Japan
c. How did states synthesize local and borrowed traditions?
i. Persian influences on the Islamic states
ii. Chinese influence on Japan
d. How did state systems expand in scope and reach in the Americas? (Maya, Aztec, Inca)
17. How did interregional contacts and conflicts between states and empires encourage significant
technological and cultural transfers?
a. Between Tang China and the Abbasids
b. Across the Mongol Empires
c. During the Crusades
Increased Economic Productive Capacity and Its Consequences
18. How did technological innovations increase agricultural production? (Champa rice, chinampas,
terracing)
19. How did Chinese, Persian, and Indian artisans and merchants expand production of luxury goods
for export? How did industrial production expand in China?
20. What urban areas went into decline during this time period? What factors led to those declines?
(invasions, disease, loss of agricultural productivity, little ice age)
21. What urban areas grew during this time period? What factors led to their revival? (end of
invasions, safe transportation, rise of commerce, warmer weather, increased productivity, labor
availability)
22. What forms of labor organization existed in the medieval period? To what extent did they
represent changes or continuities from earlier time periods? (free peasant agriculture, nomadic
pastoralism, craft production and guilds, coercive and unfree labor, labor taxes, military
obligations)
23. To what extent did social structures (social classes, hierarchies, gender relationships) remain
unchanged from earlier time periods?
a. Where did women exert more power and influence? What forms did that influence take?
b. What new forms of coercive labor appeared? (serfdom, mit’a)
c. What forms of resistance emerged by various groups? (slave revolts, free peasant revolts)
d. How did the diffusion of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Neoconfucianism lead to
changes in gender relations and family structures?
Globalizing Networks of Communication and Exchange
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
To what extent did the intensification of all existing regional trade networks bring prosperity and
economic disruptions in the various trading regions? (Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Sahara, overland
Eurasia)
How did European technological developments build on knowledge from the classical, Islamic, and Asia
worlds? What new tools and innovations made transoceanic travel and trade possible?
How did trans-oceanic maritime reconnaissance occur in this time period?
a. Chinese expansion in the Indian Ocean (Admiral Zheng He)
b. Portuguese developments in the Atlantic Ocean
c. Spanish sponsorship of voyages in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
d. Northern Atlantic crossings
e. Exchanges in Oceania and Polynesia
What role did royal chartered European monopolies play in the new global circulation of goods?
a. Role of silver
b. Mercantilist practices in the colonies
To what extent did regional markets and established practices continue to flourish?
a. Europeans as facilitators?
What diffused across the new Trans-Atlantic trade route? How did this create syncretic practices?
What impact did the new connections between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres have? (Columbian
Exchange)
a. `How did European colonization lead to the spread of diseases? What impact did those diseases
have on the Americas?
b. What impact did American foods and cash crops have on the Eastern Hemisphere? (potatoes,
maize, sugar, tobacco)
c. What Afro-Eurasian products and animals were brought to the Americas? What impact did they
have?
d. What impact did new agricultural practices have on the environment in the Americas?
How did the interactions between hemispheres lead to the transmittal and transformation of religions?
a. How did Islam adapt to local cultural practices?
b. How did the practices of Christianity diversify as a consequence of diffusion and the
Reformation?
c. How did Buddhism continue to spread within Asia?
d. What syncretic and new forms of religion developed? (Vodun, cult of saints, Sikhism)
How did the visual and performing arts expand during this time period? Why?
a. What innovations were seen? (Renaissance art in Europe, Miniature paintings in the Middle East
and South Asia, wood-block prints in Japan, codices in Mesoamerica)
b. How did literacy expand and lead the proliferation of popular authors and new literary forms?
(Shakespeare, Cervantes, Sundiata, Kabuki)
New Forms of Social Organization and Modes of Production
10. How did the growing global demand for raw materials and finished products transform labor systems?
a. How did peasant labor intensify? (frontier settlements in Russia, cotton in India, silk in China)
b. How did plantation systems intensify?
c. To what extent were colonial economies dependent on coercive labor practices? (chattel slavery,
indentured servitude, encomienda and hacienda, mit’a)
11. How did the emergence of new social and political elites lead to restructuring in ethnic, racial, and
gender hierarchies?
a. How did new elite groups rise to economic and political power? (Manchus in China, Creole
elites in Spanish America, European gentry, Urban commercial entrepreneurs)
b. How did the power of existing political and economic elites fluctuate? What challenges did they
face? (zamindars in Mughal India, nobility in Europe, daimyo in Japan)
c. What significant changes occurred in gender and family issues as a consequence of demographic
changes? (intermarriage with locals, smaller family size, slave trade consequences)
d. What new racial and ethnic classifications emerged in the Americas? (mestizo, mulatto, creole)
State Consolidation and Imperial Expansion
12. What methods did rulers use to legitimize and consolidate their power?
a. How did rulers use the arts to display political power and legitimize their rule? (monumental
architecture, urban design, courtly literature, visual arts)
b. How did rulers continue to use religious ideas to legitimize their rule? (divine right, human
sacrifice, promotion of religion, public performances)
c. How did states manipulate different ethnic and religious groups to promote economic
contributions while limiting challenges to the authority of the state? (Ottomans and NonMuslims, Manchus and Chinese policies…)
d. How were bureaucratic elites recruited and used? How did militaries become professionalized?
How did rulers use these to their advantage? (Ottoman devshirme, Chinese exams, Salaried
samurai)
e. What role did tribute collection and tax farming play in generating revenue for territorial
expansion?
13. How were gunpowder, cannons, and armed trade used to establish large empires?
a. How did Europe’s trading-post empires in Africa and Asia prove profitable for both rulers and
merchants? How did they impact the power of the states in interior West and Central Africa?
b. How did land empires expand? (Manchus, Mughals, Ottomans, Russians)
c. How were maritime empires established? (Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, British)
14. What role did competition over trade routes, state rivalries, and local resistance all play in challenging
state consolidation and expansion?
a. Trade routes: Omani-European rivalry in the Indian Ocean, Piracy in the Caribbean
b. State rivalries: Thirty Years War, Ottoman-Safavid conflict
c. Local resistance: food riots, samurai revolts, peasant uprisings

CHINA
Note I’ve skipped a few… the order we’ve encountered so far is
Period
Early River
Valley
3000-600 BCE
Dynasty
Shang
1500 – 1200 BCE
Period of
Warring States
403-221 BCE
Zhou (before and
after this period)
1029-258 BCE
Classical
600 BCE –
600 CE
Qin Dynasty
221-207 BCE
Han
206 BCE –
220 CE
Post-Classical /
Medieval
600-1450 CE
Sui, Tang, and
Song
589-1279 CE
Late Medieval
Yuan
1279-1368 CE
Early Modern
1450-1750 CE
Ming
1368-1644 CE
Major Features
INDIA
Period
Early River
Valley
Name
Indus River
Valley
Harappan
civilization
Transition
Aryan Invasions
* Hint- what do
they bring with
them?
Classical
Mauryan and
Gupta Dynasties
Medieval
Delhi Sultanate
Early Modern
Mughal Dynasty
During early
modern…
Arrival of the
British East India
Company
Major Features
MESOAMERICA
Period
Early River
Valley
Early continued
(though not
entirely early
river valley)
Classical
Name
Olmec
(1200 – 100 BCE)
* but they break
the pattern, not
exclusively along
rivers
City-state of
Teotihuacan
(200 BCE – 750
CE)
Maya
(300 – 900s CE…
1100?)
Medieval
Doesn’t really
exist
Early Modern /
pre-European
Aztecs
1345 – 1519 CE
Early Modern /
European
Colony of New
Spain
1519 – early
1800s CE
Major Features
SOUTH AMERICA
Period
Early River
Valley
* NOT
ALONG
RIVERS
Early Modern /
Pre-European
Name
Andean civs:
Chauvin, Nazca,
Moche
(1000 BCE – 700
CE)
Inca
1250 – 1530s CE
Early Modern /
European
Viceroyalty of
Peru
1530s – early
1800s CE
Early Modern /
European
Brazil (among
other colonies)
1500 – 1822 CE
Major Features
EUROPE
Period
Early River
Valley
(pre-classical)
Classical
Name
Minoan (2200-1700
BCE)
Mycanean (1500-1100
BCE)
Etruscan
Greece
(800-323 BCE)
Classical
Rome
(753 BCE – 476? CE)
Early Medieval
Germanic Tribes /
Break-down
(400s – 800 CE)
Medieval
European kingdoms,
principalities, etc.
(800 – 1400 CE)
Renaissance
and
Reformation
European kingdoms,
principalities, etc.
(1400s – 1500s CE)
Early Modern
European kingdoms,
principalities, etc.
(1500s – 1700s CE)
Major Features
MIDDLE-EAST
Period
Early River
Valley
*Tigris and
Euphrates
Classical
Name
Mesopotamia:
Sumer, Akkad,
Babylon
(3200 – 500s
BCE)
Persian
(558 – 330 BCE)
+
Post-Classical
Invasion by
Alexander the
Great (334-330
BCE)
Arab Caliphates:
Umayyad and
Abbasid
(661 – 1258 CE)
Post-Classical
(later on)
Seljuk Turks
(1050s – 1200s
CE)
Post-Classical
(end of that
period)
MongolsIl-khanate
(1219 – 1300s CE)
Early Modern
Safavids (centered
around Iran)
1501-1722 CE
Early Modern
Ottoman Turks
(along the
Mediterranean)
1453 – 1917 CE
Major Features
AFRICA
(Snapshots from around the continent… couldn’t fit in Great Zimbabwe or South Africa… don’t forget them)
Period
Early River
Valley
Name
Egypt
(3100 – 300s
BCE)
*Tigris and
Euphrates
Classical
Spread over
1000 years
Egypt- conquered
by Alexander,
Rome…
(300s BCE –
400s CE)
Bantu Migrations
1000 BCE onward
Post-Classical
Post-Classical
Arab Caliphates
(Umayyad and
Abbasid)
In North Africa
600s – 1200s CE
Ghana and Mali
in West Africa
1000 – 1200s CE
1200s – 1400s CE
Post-Classical
into Early
Modern
Early Modern
Swahili States in
East Africa
1000s – 1400s CE
Ethiopia (1000s –
1500s CE)
Various
Kingdoms:
Songhay
1400s – 1500s
CE)
Early Modern
Kongo
1300s – 1600s CE
New groups rise:
1500s – 1700s CE
Dahomey
Ashanti
Major Features
JAPAN
(What do I really need to know?)
Period
Pre-Neolithic
(before 8000
BCE)
Name
Jomon
10,000 BCE – 300
BCE
Neolithic
Yayoi
300 BCE – 250
CE
Skips usual
classical model
Post-Classical
600 CE – 1450
CE
Of all the
medieval Japanese
periods…
Heian Period is
the peak
784-1185 CE
Followed by more
periods that you
don’t need to
know
Early Modern
Sengoku Period
1476-1615ish
Early Modern
1450-1750
Tokugawa
Shogunate
1600- 1867
Major Features