• Stability due to need to control water
• Small groups could not regulate waters
•
Small groups could not defend area
•
Predecessors to civilizations
•
Small farming villages
• First appeared in S.W. Asia
• Catal Huyuk as example
• Self-sufficient agricultural village in Turkey
•
Evidence of trade, tool making, artisans
• Evidence of complex religion
•
Specialization of occupations: politics, military
• Evidence of metal working (Copper Age)

•
Civilization as Advanced Culture
•
Population dependent on cities
• From Latin civitas
•
Permanent institutions
• Politics, Religion; ability to make war
• Social, labor, gender divisions, inequality
•
Clearly defined sense of other: barbarian, nomad
•
Artisan, intellectual classes favoring technology
•
Form of record keeping, specifically writing
• Do not confuse with “good” or “superior”

ST

•
Mesopotamia (land between rivers)
•
Harsh heat, drought; unpredictable floods
•
Few natural resources short of mud
•
No natural defensive areas such as hills
•
Area open to invasion by migrating nomads
•
People in area must
• Provide permanent food supply
•
Regulate, provide permanent water supply
• Provide defense against invaders
•
Acquire materials such as timber, minerals
•
The Answer became civilization, cities

 “Necessity is the mother of invention”

Sumer in S. Iraq was first civilization
•
Cuneiform, sciences, math aided farming
•
Polytheistic religion
• Religion was to appease gods, control nature
•
Art, architecture dedicated to gods, religion
•
Priests, later kings rule city-states
•
Land owning aristocracy dominate
• Warlike society with slavery
•
Trade for needed materials

• Cycle of Civilization
• Nomads come in and conquer sedentary people
•
Conquerors assimilate local sedentary culture
• New civilization blends cultures, thrives for a while
• “New” civilization grows old, invaded by nomads
• Akkad “First”
•
First Empire
• Sargon conquered all of Sumer
• Babylonian “First”
• City at junction of Tigris-Euphrates
• Hammurabi’s Law Code
• Laws included in Jewish Torah

• Society very different from Sumer
• Nile flooded regularly, predictably
• Provided rich soil, Easy soil to farm
• Civilization regulated flooding, surveying
• Location isolated, secure
•
Pharaoh was considered god-king
•
Theocracy, almost absolute
• Built pyramid tombs for dead
• Egypt unified for most of history
• Achievements
• Mathematics especially geometry; architecture
•
Sciences, Medicine
• Art was both secular and sacred
•
Religion was positive, egalitarian in many ways

• Arose around 2,500 BCE
• Mohenjo Daro, Harappa main cities
• Independent city-states, strong government
• Extremely well-planned, coordinated cities
•
Elaborate writing system (undeciphered)
• Religion worshipped mother goddess
• Little evidence of warfare until end
•
Trade widely including with Mesopotamia
•
The Collapse
•
Devastated by environmental upheavals
• Over-farming, deforestation
•
Earthquake shifted Indus River Path
•
Internal Decline
• Destroyed by Indo-European (Aryan) nomads

• Developed in isolation
•
Separated by Himalayas
•
Steppe, Desert to North
• Seas, peninsulas to South
• Compare with ancient Egypt
•
Xia Dynasty (Mythical?)
• God-like kings
•
Taught irrigation, sericulture
•
Shang Dynasty
•
Warlike kings, landed aristocracy; few priests
• Feudal structure with ancestor worship
• Most people worked land as peasants
• Elaborate bronze workings; naturalistic art

• Ideographic
•
Writing denotes ideas
•
First used on Oracle Bones
• Priests asked gods questions
• Wrote questions on bones
•
Tossed into fire; cracks read by priests (divination)
•
Elitist technique = scholar-bureaucrats
• Extremely difficult to read
• Required well-educated class to use
• Only elite had time to learn
•
Cuneiform, hieroglyphs had similar effects

• One ruling family replaces another
• The Dynasty Changes
•
Due to the loss of the Mandate of Heaven
•
Stages in Cycle
•
New dynasty arises, takes control of China
• Strengthens rule, reestablishes prosperity, peace
•
Weakens, becomes lazy, problems arise
• Invasions, revolts toss out reigning dynasty
• Shang replaces Xia
•
Zhou replaces Shang

•
Chinese political idea
•
Rulers exercise power given by heaven
•
Rulers continue to rule if heaven pleased
•
Heaven will take back mandate to rule
•
Heaven will replace ruling dynasty
•
Indicators of a Lost Mandate
• Wars, invasions, military disasters
•
Over-taxation, disgruntled peasants
• Social, moral decline of elite classes
•
Increased crime, banditry

HOW THE CYCLE AND MANDATE WORK

• First heritages
• General civilization
•
Writing systems inherited
• Intellectual systems, art copied
•
Religious, philosophical systems copied
• Useful inventions rarely forgotten, easily spread
•
Social structures, institutions often inherited
•
River valley civilizations decline by 1000BCE
•
All subject to nomadic invasions
• Indo-Europeans and Semites were strongest
•
Geographical centers shifted (all except China)
• Introduction of Iron changed societies
• Political Structures often not continued

•
Phoenician Sailors in Lebanon
• City-states traded across Mediterranean
•
Invented alphabet
•
Specialists in dyed cloth
• Indo-Europeans
• Hittites Introduced Iron, Horses, Chariots
• Lydians introduced coinage to area
• Hebrews in Palestine
• Large Semitic migration in area
• Ethical monotheism
•
Conduct determines salvation
•
There is only one God speaking through prophets, priests
• God made a covenant with the Jews, his Chosen people

• Sedentary, Nomadic Issues
• Pastoral herding on fringes
•
Seen as savages by settled
• Tension between the two
• Interaction vs. conflict
• Nomads traded, coexisted with settled areas
•
Nomads warred on, conquered settled areas
• Often protected merchants, allowed trade
• Prior to 1500 BCE little major threat
• Chariot Peoples (Central Asian Indo-Europeans)
• Domesticated horse, invented chariot, iron weapons
• Pushed into SW Asia, S. Asia, E. Asia, Europe
• Responsible for spread of ideas, trade